Alejandro Gonzalez CEP Courses Blog: Creative Commons


Photo Attributions: Original Image: Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/qthomasbower/3640362081/ By: qthomasbower Released under Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

Copyright laws are both complex and greedy in nature. While the underlying goal of them are to protect the producer's work, it creates ethical obstacles one as a consumer and or end user must overcome to properly use said producer's work. That being said, the Fair Use articles provide some initial protection towards the rights of users, creating some exceptions and precautions that can be taken to use as much, or as little of said copyright content.
As the Tech. Coordinator at my work, I am often asked to acquire digital content, or I am asked by students if I can help them copy their friend's iPod's contents. Though it is a school setting, the question always arises, "Is it ok?". The Fair Use, while a law to protect us, is still misunderstood and sometimes too hard to define the line between what's right and what's wrongfully used. Thankfully, there are resources like the ones shared in this week's lesson, that provide information and clear those lines between conflict and assurance. As one of the videos stated, it is our duty to share information of Fair Use, to not be limited by copyrights.
In my school we have essential questions which prompt students to share how they feel about certain topics and engage in creative ways to produce visual representations of their expressions. The current question is "What is beauty?". While it is not rare for students to use a simple keyword search to find images, Creative Commons offers a good repository of images that could be used without thinking if it is ok to use or not. The simple license explanations attributed to each image makes this quite clear. Here's a picture I could see a student use, and attribute it with the appropriate license.


Photo Attributions: Original Image: Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/22193699@N04/4648907104/ By: Thai Jasmine Released under Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

I could see the image above used by a student to convey what they believe represents beauty, by either using it in a video as a still image, a slide presentation, or perhaps on a digital poster, with providing the proper attributions that are requested by the producer's Creative Commons license.
Having access to Creative Commons licensing is, I think, an incredible resource students can have. They can have control over their work's licensing and how it may be used. The Creative Commons licensing process is quite simple and is being increasingly added to popular photo sharing services. Here's a picture I uploaded to my Picasa account, with added Creative Commons licensing.