Asignment #3: Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that basically both allow and help people use creative works. It allows sharing, using, remixing and submitting; and a huge bonus: it's legal and free. It's different from traditional copyright in that the individual who submitted the work both owns their copyright as well as shares it with others. There are six free licenses that let the sharing of text, photos, video, audio, art and music be free. This is changing the way people can share and protect their work.

It's because of Creative Commons that many things are taking place worldwide. For one Creative Commons is helping expand sharing in the Middle East because Al Jazeera issued video footage under the Creative Commons license. The U.S. Government has expanded the use of Creative Commons licenses and even the U.S. Government's Chief Technology Officer spoke about the copyright issues and endorses Creative Commons licensing techniques. In New Zealand, the encouragement of Creative Commons will be done so that people can use licensed material on liberal terms.

Creative Commons is changing the way content producers are protecting their work in many ways. For one they came up with CCo or CCZero which is for anyone who wants to place their work in the public surrendering copyright and database rights. GreenXchange comes from Science Commons and has "some rights reserved." Artists, scientists, educators and musicians use this. It makes it avaialable to anyone and if they want to use it, they can as long as credit is given to the original artist. Wikipedia and Wikimedia are now even licensed under Creative Commons. Huge sites such as Yahoo and Google now allow you to filter search results using Creative Commons in their Image Search tool.

Josh Woodward, an artist who uses Creative Commons to share his work with all who are interested. With Creative Commons, anyone can use his work as long as credit is given to Josh, him being the original artist. It allows as we said before to use it in any way they see fit. I think this is a huge thing for unknown artists like him because it gets his name out there. With this website, his song could be used in things such as movies, etc as long as I said before and I'll say it again: proper credit is given to him.

.

In my opinion, Creative Commons is an amazing tool for independent artists period. This is legally allowing people to get their stuff out their and let it be used as long as credit is given to the original artist. It's basically to me free advertising. It allows both parties to be helped out. One is getting their work shown in public while the other party is seeing another person's work. If someone doesn't want their work out there they simply don't put it on Creative Commons. It's a win win situation for everyone involved.

Sources:
http://creativecommons.org/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/esther-wojcicki/creative-commons-in-2009_b_366548.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/books/19kaku.html?scp=4&sq=creative+commons+copyright&st=nyt
http://www.joshwoodward.com/
Photos:
Creative Commons
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
www.flickr.com/.../comment72157603774016372/
Josh Woodward
http://search.creativecommons.org/#
"Photo: Josh Woodward, Feb. 15, 2010 (Photo by flickr from Yahoo, licensed under the Creative Commons Searc by Creative Commons)."

Assignment # 2 Google vs. Censorship

Could you imagine not being able to use the internet? I know I couldn't. This soon could be the case in China where Google will be stopping the censorship of their site. China is very unhappy with this idea and its most likely going to lead to Google leaving the market. I think this is the right thing to do on Google's part. When you begin to censor what one can see, you are in a way taking the whole truth away from someone and in my opinion that's wrong. When someone is not able to see the whole truth, distorted views usually occur, which can be a dangerous thing. The internet is one way we all are informed, whether because we look at articles or videos or any type of information from the net, it's our access to knowledge.

In the PCWorld.com article, discussed is how everyday citizens are posting videos to news web sites. Now since everyone has access to the web and the ability to post these videos, the Long Tail comes into play. From my previous blog, you know that the Long Tail has to do with the digital distribution. It's the same as the music situation, videos and search results as long as not censored are available for everyone no matter what your tastes or preferences. There are limitless possibilities as to what you can find on the net. It's this whole limitless possibilities that seems to be the issue with other countries. The internet seems to be throwing a wrench in the fact that other countries can't really control what it is that their citizens are viewing. This of course leads to huge issues around the world between government and its people as well as government and companies such as Google.

By the deliberate act of the government trying to censor these sites it's taking away basically the rights of their people. To me it comes down to the first amendment right and freedom of speech, they're in a sense taking that away from their people. People should be able to express themselves whether the government likes it or not, for the most part we have that right here whereas in some countries they don't like China, where they already are censoring things. There's enough room in this world for everyone's opinion, whether you agree with it or not.

While China may do this already I think it will soon come to an end. They may be able to succeed in the short term of censoring but I dont believe they will in the long-term. There's just too many things out there to get around it and I think if people have the will, they will find ways around being censored. For that matter I feel this is the same for any country not just China, even in the cases of Burma and Iran. I feel even if people were punished they would still fight back for rights they deserve.