Online Essay

Creative Commons: Some Rights Reserved

If each person was to receive a dollar for every time their assignment had to be rushed and completed half heartedly in order to get it in on time, it would be very likely that some people would have enough money to buy themselves dinner at an overpriced restaurant. If only relevant journal articles could be copied and pasted into assignments without the worry of referencing or quoting where the information from the assignment came from, much better essays would be produced and they would be finished with plenty of time to spare. Although, what’s the point of that? Nobody would never really learn anything, and everyone in the class would be producing top quality work. This essay is based on the topic Creative Commons, also known as CC. Even though there are both positive and negative argument towards Creative Commons, this essay is focusing towards the reasons as to why Creative Commons will need to play a big part in the future of media and technology.

Creative Commons is a non-profitable service which has been around for 8 years. Michael Baumann (2009) says “it serves as a digital tour guide for intellectual property licences.” Without copyright laws we would have the right to use other people’s work for our own. Ever wanted to perform someone else’s song without acknowledging who wrote or produced it, or ever wanted to use a peer reviewed article in an assignment and said it was your own? If copyright laws didn’t exist, we would be able to perform Britney Spears’ latest song and call it our very own, not that we would want to, however this would be acceptable (Gordon-Murnane, 2005). However what if you wanted your work to be recognised by others? What if you didn’t mind that your music was being used in a movie, as long as you were being recognised as the creator? This is where CC licensing is introduced. Rather than the traditional “all rights reserved”, CC offers an alternative system which offers “some rights reserved” (Anonymous, 2006).

A brief explanation of the copyright laws and free licensing is accessible on the Creative Commons website. The Creative Commons website also offers eight special licences, six basic licences and a core licensing engine. Music sampling and sharing along with contributing works to public domain is all covered by Creative Common’s ‘special licences’, whereas, the ‘basic licence’ offers various options for authors. Butler (2005) states the basic licence also includes “the offering of works for mere attribution (credit), restricting use to non-commercial purposes, permitting adaptation (derivative use) and requiring users to ‘share alike’ if they make changes.”
Below are examples of the four basic conditions of licensing, which are also mentioned above:
1. Attribution – credit must be given to you whenever someone uses your work as a public domain.
2. Share Alike – Anyone is allowed to edit, remix, or build on your work. However one condition applies: The licensing agreement that the derivative works are distributed under must be identical to the original.
3. Non-commercial –Your work can be copied or distributed by anyone, although it cannot be derived or used for commercial purposes. “The non-commercial licence condition keeps the spirit of sharing and creation for the public good.”
4. No Derivative Works – Your work can not be edited or remixed, but it can be copied, displayed or distributed. For example, if you produced a movie, nobody but yourself has the rights to change or distort it; however they can copy or issue it out.

These four basic licensing conditions can be used in different combinations to make up any basic or special CC licence (Baumann, 2009). If an unsigned song writer is looking to create a fan base, they are best off applying for a Creative Commons licence. A Non-commercial CC licence would best suit an unsigned song writer who has career objective. This is because a Non-commercial CC licence allows the writer to reserve the commercial rights to their music (Anonymous, 2006). Flickr offers a range of photos under a CC licence. There are several photos on the site, some with a combination of CC licences, and some with just a basic CC licence. Another organisation which incorporates CC licensing is Jamendo. They provide free download and streaming of music published under a Creative Commons licence. CC licences have also been welcomed by the open access (OA) community. Author of Open Access News, Peter Suber states “Creative Common’s licences are terribly useful. They are very easy to implement. They come in a good variety of flavours, including several that closely match the best public definitions of open access (Anonymous, 2007).” More information regarding Peter Suber’s views on Creative Commons can be found on his website.

Another reason as to why there are multiple arrangements regarding CC licences is due to the fact that Creative Commons doesn’t just stop at music and media, it also continues on to science and technology.
"Great science and medicine is teamwork, disputation and the resulting creativity and progress in the world needs sharing and a much wider understanding among a more literate public (Anonymous, 2006).”

No matter what classification your work may lie in, if one’s creation is envied by the public, they will more than likely want their work to be shared. That’s why Creative Commons is becoming extremely popular towards the people of art, music, technology and science. With Creative Commons, they know their work will be used and shared as the way they want it to be within the public. Donations and support can be given to Creative Commons through their website. One of the many ways to help Creative Commons is by simply joining their network. To do so click on the following website, Creative Commons Support.

References

Journal Articles

ANONYMOUS (2006) Made for Sharing. Creative Review, 1.

ANONYMOUS (2007) Common Touch on Rights. Information World Review, 1.

BAUMANN, M. (2009) An Insider's guide to Creative Commons. Information Today, 26, 1.

GORDON-MURNANE, L. (2005) Generosity and Copyright: Creative Commons and Creative Commons Search Tools. Searcher, 13, 8.

GOULD, P. (2004) Creative Commons ponders share options. Nature. London.

Websites

http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/hometoc.htm

http://www.creativecommons.org.au/

http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/

https://support.creativecommons.org/

www.jamendo.com/

Tutorial Task - Week 7

Sorry about the order of the posts. Here is our news story on a formula two Bellenden Ker College residents invented to cure the hangover. Enjoy!!!

Subject Evaluation

Overall I quite enjoyed this subject. I believe that writing the lecture summaries will benefit me when it comes to the end of semester exam. It was good to learn how to use other programs such as movie maker and audacity, as well as other software like Firefox and Google chrome. I’m also glad that we had the opportunity to incorporate political aspects into our technology studies. The different lecturers were all interesting to listen to; they seemed to have a lot of experience in different sectors of the technology industry. Thanks for stopping by, and stay classy!

Lecture Summary - Week 9

Once again, it’s great to be here, informing you about the weekly lectures. Don’t get me wrong, they are definitely a hoot! Unfortunately this will be my 9th and final summary, so please enjoy!

Everything about our social networking environment is constantly changing. The first of my online social networking experience was with MySpace. Once I moved to Brisbane for university, Facebook became my new substitute for MySpace. It is so much easier to use, and we don’t have to bother about keeping our profile looking up to date. Now I’m in my second semester of my first year at University and as a requirement for one of my subjects I have to use Twitter. If it wasn’t for this subject I don’t think I would have ever associated with the networking site. Is it good to have this environment where everything is constantly changing? What do you think?

The lecturer spoke about how Rupert Murdock bought MySpace for an extremely large sum of money and will most likely not be able to make that back because MySpace is not popular anymore. Everyone has merged to Facebook. A comment which was brought up was ‘Why do we spend millions of dollars on social networking sites just to watch them fall?’ This is because apparently social networking sites succeed most when they are specific. Examples of networking sites were shown in the lecture that do well, such as the Vampire site.

We looked at the website ‘Wayback Machine’ which takes old websites and archives them. We looked at websites such as Yahoo, Google and Griffith University to see how much their page structure has developed and advanced. Unlike Yahoo and GU, Goggle’s website has hardly changed. If something worked 10 years ago, why change it?

We had a different lecturer this week. I like it how we get different speakers some weeks. It keeps the subject interesting and we get to experience different people’s point of view. This week’s lecturer showed us his sweet as website of sweet as games. I was very impressed.

Tutorial Task - Week 9

For this week’s tutorial task we have to choose a topic for our final research essay. At this stage, I am currently set on topic number 5 which is ‘Creative Commons is both a solution and yet another failure to deal with authorship and copyright on the internet. Discuss and give examples.’ So far I have found 5 sources relating to this area of studies.

1. The first resource I am going to use is the article on Creative Commons provided on learning@griffith. Thank you very much Steven. The key argument in this article is that CC licenses are the best hope to the future. This is great because it backs up my argument very nicely. I also believe CC licenses are what the future of media needs. Media producers should be able to share their work so other people can enjoy it.
2. The second piece of information I’m using is called ‘Copyright – Only Dedication or Public Domain Certification’. This article is focused on defining what Creative Commons is. This article gives me good knowledge to help back up my argument throughout the essay.
3. The third article I’ve looked at for the essay is called ‘Commons Touch on Rights’. Different types of CC licenses are mentioned throughout this article which therefore will help me introduce other necessary information to my essay. The article also compares ‘Open Access’ with ‘Creative Commons’, as well as what industries would have troubles with deciding which way to go.
4. The forth article I found which may be useful is called ‘Made for Sharing’ from the Creative Review. In this article there is information on the values, attitudes and beliefs of music artists relating to Creative Commons. I believe my essay will benefit from source such as this.
5. The fifth article I’m going to use comes from a different direction in comparison to the other articles mentioned so far. This angle to the topic is created by the Creative Common Corporation itself. It is focused towards the fact that the team from the industry doesn’t want to develop a comprehensive directory or database of Creative Commons.

Tutorial Task - Week 8

For this week’s tutorial task we were asked to see how many opportunities we are able to achieve from the list below whilst sticking to our political beliefs. As well as, which ones can we find for political participation via the internet?
My main political belief is to give everyone the time of day to the best of my ability. For example, if a Christian or any anyone else willing to preach their views on their religion, we should take a minute to listen to them. That’s why I would be able to sign an e-petition without changing my political beliefs, however I don’t go around looking for such things, they have to come to me.

Sign an e-petition.
I didn’t sign an e-petition. I only participate with those things when they tap me on the back. I don’t go looking for them.

Respond to a professional blogger at a major news site.
I responded to Emily Jade’s blog on the Courier Mail website. The blog was about a teenage girl who wants a chance to redeem herself after doing wrong by her finance.

What is Barak Obama up to today?
Obama addressed us of his support and dedication to the relationship between Israel and the U.S. The speech was made in Chicago.




Find out who your local, state and federal representatives are.
Local: Desley Boyle
State: Julie Attwood
Federal: Arch Bevis

Look up the Queensland or Australian hansard to find the last time your local member spoke in parliament.
September 17, 2009 was the last time Desley Boyle spoke in Parliament.

Let your local member know what you think about their last speech.
I honestly had nothing to say...a motion on Far North Queensland’s Regional Plan doesn’t interest me right now seeing as I’m spending most of my time in Brisbane.

What do you think of the Australian Government’s plans to censor the internet (the so-called “Clean Feed”)?
I would have to say my attitudes regarding this subject sway towards ‘censorship is a good idea’. When I have my own children I don’t want them experiencing porn and other explicit material at a young age. It is so easy to come across when surfing the internet, maybe a little too easy. But that’s just me; no doubt there are people out there who will say it’s a total waste of money and time.

Lecture Summary - Week 8

Political Possibilities – by Steven Stockwell

Welcome to another one of my exciting weekly lecture summaries. This week’s lecture is a little bit more difficult to write about seeing as we didn’t have one... YEEEOOOWWW!! Thank you to the lecturer’s of Griffith University for my day off. Your antics were much appreciated. As we all know the strike unfortunately lasted for one day only. Therefore, we got a quick rundown of the lecture in Thursday’s tutorial... Lucky us!

According to our tute, Daniel Hourigan, this week’s lecture was based on the link between the Military and the entertainment industry. The way he likes to describe it is as “a two way street”. Hollywood’s movie industry spent most of the 1980’s and 90’s trying to create sets in order to make movies based on these times.

Another topic which came up was E-petitions. We spoke about how they were very affective in relation to the regular face-to-face petitions. In accordance to the face-to-face petitions, there is more response online.

Several key words were brought up in today’s tutorial and we learnt about each one of their meanings when relating to politics and technology. The key words are:
• Access: which means your google results won’t be censored, when talking about democracy.
• Technologic Determinism: we don’t just use technology, as technological determinism determines the way we use it.
The following few terms are called Social Constructions:
• Encryption: Company secrets – something they won’t want the public to see.
• Commodification: to take a raw object and turn it into something or value.
• Anarchy: a complete loss of order.
• Liberalism: progress – going somewhere.

Tutorial Task - Week 6

This is the video I put together for the week 6 tutorial task. It's the photos from a trip I went on in week 3 to Fraser Island with the Red Frogs Crew. This is one of my first times using Movie Maker so please forgive me for the lack of quality to my movie.

Lecture Summary - Week 7

Community – Collaboration - Choice.

This week in the New Communication Technologies Lecture we covered 3 main topics. Today’s lecture follows on very nicely from last week’s. The main topics from this week’s lecture relate to the legal issues involved with the production of media (last week’s lecture).

1. What is Creative Commons?
In this week’s lecture, copyright was explained to be like a legally binding contract, and when you create something, you own all copyright creativity. That’s the reason for why ‘Creative Commons’ was introduced. Creative Commons refine your work’s copy rights so other people have the rights to reproduce/use your work. In the lecture we watched two short videos explaining why the creative commons is a useful idea. The first called “Wanna Work Together”, and the second “A Shared Culture”. I recommend sparing a few minutes to visit the following link and watch the short videos. http://creativecommons.org/videos

2. What is Free Software?
Free/Libre, Open Source Software (FLOSS for short). Historically software was free; anyone could contribute, share and reuse source code. “Bazaar Style” (Raymond, 2001). Source code is the instruction written in Programming Languages that tell a computer to do certain things. It is what makes computer software work. The language used for the programming is called ‘Ruby’. The lecture slides imply that we should think of the source code as the recipe for making our favourite food. The source code is then translated into files that can run on specific computers. This part of the process would be like preparing and cooking the recipe from ingredients so it appeals to different people. The Free Software Foundation was created in 1981 by Richard M Stallman.

3. Proprietary Software vs Free Software
Examples of the Proprietary Software model, also known as the closed sources, are MS-Windows, MacOS,MS-Office, Internet Explorer, PhotoShop, etc). The ‘recipe’ metaphor also applies to this. Using Proprietary Software is like signing an agreement that says you can’t tell your friends how to make nice food. Whereas with free software such as Linux, OpenOffice, Firefox and VLC, source codes are freely and openly available. Under limited-rights licence (GPL) anyone can see it, use it and edit it. The software is developed and set by teams of volunteers from within the community.

Lecture Summary - Week 6

The Consumption and Production of Media

I really enjoyed the lecture this week. It was based around the consumption and production of media on the big and small screen. The lecturer was really interesting. Not only did he tell us about the consumption and production of media, he also got us thinking about the problems involved within the media as well.

In the lecture we learnt about fan films and what they were associated with. I had never heard of a fan film before this week’s lecture, so I’m proud to say I actually learnt something for once. Fan films are mostly based around science fiction movies. We got to see the fan film of the movie ’80 days later’. I haven’t seen the real movie, but the fan film was definitely interesting to say the least, and on top of that, quite comical.

We also got to watch the re-cut/mash up/re-genre of the horror movie ‘Shining’. The way it was re-cut/mashed up/re-genre (from now on I’m going to just call it a mash up), made the movie seem like it was a romantic comedy. The way they put it together was brilliant. I would’ve never of thought to do something like that.

Another video we got to watch in class was the mash up of the family favourite, Mary Poppins. The way this fan film had been put together made the original movie look like a thriller. This part of the lecture was also very amusing. It’s weird to see one of your all-time favourite childhood movies be portrayed as a movie that would give you nightmares for weeks.

Coming near to the end of this week’s lecture, the lecturer filled us in on the popularity of video recording off a mobile phone. People can film things on their mobile phone and create movies from it. Mobile phones have become the easiest way to film ‘breaking news’ mainly because you are able to send it anywhere in the world at any time of day.

All in all, I would have to say that was my favourite lecture so far in the course. I enjoyed writing about it just as much as I enjoyed being there.

Week 5 Tute Task

3D Chat Rooms

Online Chat Rooms have grown to a whole new level. It’s hard keeping up with it all. I have never personally used 3D Chat Rooms to converse with my friends before because I didn’t even know it was out there. Just by looking at it, it seems like a whole new world. The socialising that happens in these spaces seems a little different to msn messenger but it’s hard to tell without using it. I can imagine it would be interesting to see your own characters, which you can customise to look extremely similar to you, talking to your friend’s characters. Just by reading the website, I’m thinking of giving it a go. Wonderful, another brilliant time waster.

Week 4 Tute Task (Part 2)

How do search engines rank the stuff they find on the internet?
Some search engines such as ‘Google’ are payed by users to get their web pages as highly ranked as possible. The content of the page also has a lot do with the rankings, as well as the keywords produced from the page and the popularity of it.

Who, or what, makes one page (that you might get in your search results) more useful than another one, so that it is put at the top of your search results?
If all of the keywords you type into the search bar match a specific page on Google that will make the page more useful to you than other pages Google brings up in the rankings.

What are some of your favourite search engines? Why do you like one more than others?
I would have to say Google is definitely my favourite search engine by far. The reason for that is probably because the school I went to has always only taught us to use Google as our main search engine. I began to use 'Yahoo' today for the Scavenger Hunt, and it just didn't perform up to the same standard as 'Google'.

Scavenger Hunt!!!

So for this week’s tutorial task we were told we had to do a Scavenger Hunt. However it’s not exactly a real physical Scavenger Hunt, it’s just 10 questions we have to answer without using Google or Wikipedia. Here goes....

1. What did Alan Turing wear while riding his bicycle around Bletchley Park?

A GAS-MASK – to prevent hay-fever. http://www.nels.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/GURPS/WWII/Turing.htm

2. On what date did two computers first communicate with each other?

1969

Where were they?

UCLA
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-5842105.html

3. What is Bill Gates’ birthday and what age was he when he sold his first software?

OCTOBER 28
http://www.thocp.net/biographies/gates_bill.htm

4. Where was the World Wide Web invented?

In CERN.. physics research facility, Switzerland. http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/history/inventedwebwhy.html

5. How does the power of the computer you are working on now compare with the power of a personal computer from 30 years ago?

Every computer I have purchased over the last few years have each gotten faster in speed. It’s amazing.

6. What is the weight of the largest parsnip ever grown? Honestly.. that doesn’t interest me what so ever...

7. When did Queensland become a state and why is the Tweed River in New South Wales?

Queen Victoria gave her approval and signed Letters Patent on June 6 1859 to establish the new colony of Queensland.
http://www.about-australia.com/facts/queensland/history/

8. What was the weather like in south-east Queensland on 17 November 1954?

Cyclone Season

9. Why is Lord Byron still remembered in Venice?

Poetry
http://www.neuroticpoets.com/byron/

10. What band did Sirhan Chapman play in and what is his real name?

Black Assassins, Steven Stockwell
http://www.blackassassins.net/Party.html

Week 2 Tute Task (Part 2)

Over the last few years, new communication technologies have been coming out from every angle. There has been msn Messenger, Myspace, Bebo, Facebook, Blogger, Twitter and 100’s more. Before we know it they’ll be growing out of our ears. What they all have in common is the way they make communicating with friends and family a whole lot easier. However, there is one relatively new communication technology which I believe crushes and tears the living daylights out of each and every one of them, and that’s Skype. Not all of you may agree with me, but Skype has made my life a heck of a lot easier when it comes to keeping in touch with my family and friends from home. Ever since I moved to Brisbane, I heavily rely on this brilliant communication device to stay in contact with the ones I love. It allows me to see and talk to the person I’m conversing with all at once, and not to mention it’s either incredibly cheap or even free.

The first time I was introduced to Skype was at the beginning of last year when my family and I were overseas on Christmas holidays. My father had to use it to speak to clients and relatives back at home. Still to this day I’d have to say it’s the best thing since sliced bread. Privacy is not an issue for me while using Skype, but when it comes to Facebook and Myspace I feel I have to be more careful when allowing people to view my profile and pictures. Some people may not be happy with the idea of Facebook and Google collecting information of their users; however I believe it’s for their own benefit. If they have an issue with it, then they shouldn’t be putting that information up on their profile. As I mentioned previously, I’m careful with who I accept as a friend on Facebook, so therefore all my friends are ones I have met face to face and not just on the internet. It’s probably not the wisest move to add any Joe Blow and hope for the best.

New Technology

This is a funny video which I'm sure most of the New Communication Technology students and teachers would be more than interested in seeing, that's if you haven't done so already. Enjoy.

Week 1 Lecture

New semester, new subjects, new chapter to our lives. Some would be excited to get in there and take this semester’s studies by the horns, but unfortunately, I did exactly opposite. I missed just about every class possible as I tried to get myself back on track after an overly relaxing 5 weeks of sun and holidays in the beautiful, tropical, North Queensland. However, I still read the lecture notes for this subject on the internet, and it’s made me think about the way we know so little about technology and what goes on in order to create easier ways of communication and entertainment.

It’s obvious technology plays a large part in our lives, and thanks to the incredibly vast growing reliance we humans have on technology, it’s next to impossible to go for any length of time without it. Thirty years ago we wouldn’t of had dreamed of being able to download multiple gigs of free music off the web, transfer it to a gadget which can be as small as our thumb, and listen to high quality music for hours on end while anywhere in the world. Whereas now, people may find it hard to believe we use to live our lives without these current necessities, and quite happily too.

Everyone knows that the advancing of technology has significantly shaped the way we communicate to each other throughout each day. However, in week 1’s Lecture, it talks about Shannon and Weaver’s model of communication from their book Mathematical Theory of Communication:

“The speaker produces an effect on the transmitter which sends a message (which is degraded by the noise of the transmission process) that is intercepted by the receiver which converts it into an effect that is heard by the listener.”

It’s come to my attention that many people take this “scientific study of mechanical art” for granted and are not thankful for the people who discovered multiple ways our message can be sent with as little effort as possible. And when the next generation come through they will do the same, just with a whole new batch of technology and gadgets.

About me..

Hello Readers,

First of all I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read my blog. This is all very new to me, so I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

I am a student from Griffith University, Nathan, and I'm studying a bachelor of Communications. If you’re wondering why I’m studying a Bachelor of Communications, it’s because this is the only course that allows me to major in Public Relations, which at the moment, is the direction I want to take in life.

As this blog is an assessment for one of my subjects, all the information I post will be related to the topics my tutorial has advised us to write about. I hope you enjoy.

Concaine.. and a few minutes of bad luck!

Even without the music.. this short and simple presentation has the power to draw in your attention.