Essay

Question 5:

"Creative Commons is both a solution and yet another failure to deal with authorship and copyright on the internet. Discuss and give examples."

Creative Commons is a trendy system for all internet users to deal with authorship and copyright on the internet. Whether the Creative Commons can successfully handle the authorship and copyright problem is still a controversial issue since it was born. Within this essay, the success and failures of the Creative Commons copyright licence will be discussed.

Creative Commons is not-for-profit Corporation, founded in 2001, that encourages the legal distribution, remixing and rebuilding of the intellectual and artistic properties (Creative Commons 2009). The idea behind it came from Lawrence Lessig, the Stanford Law professor who dedicated to integrate copyright practice and fair use (Williams & Plummer 2009). Through its free copyright licences, individuals can license their creatures without needing copyright lawyers and easily make content available for others in way that benefit everyone, at the same time reserved part of copyright they want (Laura 2005). With approximately 9 years’ development, Creative Commons now is international in scope, having negotiated licenses in more than 40 countries (Williams & Plummer 2009).

There is confusion for most of people on the web that what they can do and can not do with content protected by a traditional “all rights reserved” license (Bailey 2009). However, the content with CC licences added on generates less confusion. The CC offers six different licences, each of that visually identified by single or mixed icons which indicate the core constituent elements of the licences (Creative Commons 2009; McDonald 2006). Thanks to the contribution of those icons, the CC terms and conditions are well explained. This clarity not only makes it easier for creators to express their terms, but for others to follow their wishes, at least in spirit. (Bailey 2009).

The Creative Commons license is an innovative way to deal with the authorship and copyright by offer a choice of a flexible range of protections and freedoms. Registering to Creative Commons license can obtain great convenience that authors have a freedom to deal with their authorships and copyrights in choosing what contents they want to share or keep. This is an innovative step of moving away from the traditional restrictive copyright law “All rights reserved”, to “some rights reserved”. Like Laura’s descriptions (2005) for the goals of Creative Commons, “The foundations goal is to build a reasonable copyright that encourages authors, film makers, photographers, and/or musicians to allow others to use their works by opting out of the onerous and burdensome requirements of existing copyright law.” Fitzgerald & Oi (2004) also gives a positive conclusion on the contribution of CC that, “the Creative Commons promote better identification, negotiation and reutilization of content for the purposes of creativity and innovation”.

The first known court case involving a Creative Commons license was taken in Amsterdam on March 9, 2006. The Creative Commons licence was first tested at that time. Local media celebrity Adam Curry sued The Dutch tabloid Weekend for copyright and privacy infringement because Weekend reproduced four of his family photos in a story about Curry’s children without seeking Curry’s prior permission. Those photos are published on the well-known online photo-sharing site Flickr under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Sharealike license. Finally, the ruling from Dutch Court rejected a "the license wasn't clear" defense from Weekend. The Weekend was judged to be guilty of violating the terms of the Creative Commons licence that had been applied to Curry’s images (Creative Commons 2006; Groklaw 2006).

This is a successful case for the creators to protect their copyright from infringement through licensing their creatures under CC licence. It is also a proof that the conditions and terms of a creative Commons licence automatically apply to the content licensed under it, and bind users of such content even without expressly agreeing to, or having knowledge of, the conditions of the license (Groklaw 2006). Simply put, the CC licence is enforceable and has been examined that the creators can get a real copyright protection of content licensing under the CC licence. The Creative Commons can be regarded as an easy solution to deal with copyright and authorship issues.

The simplified way that Creative Commons deal with authorship and copyright still received some criticism and it comes along the development of Creative commons. Tóth (2005) denied the form of CC licence. He mentioned that “The ‘Some rights reserved’ concept is therefore not an alternative to, but rather the very nature of classical copyright”. Another critic Dvorak (2005) use a more pungent language to criticize the Creative Commons. He asserted it does absolutely nothing but threaten the already tenuous "fair use" provisos of existing copyright law. According to these two critics’ opinion, Creative Commons could be seen as a failure to deal with copyright and authorship issues.

The major concern of the Creative Commons is licence misuse. Some copyright holders have experiences that some internet content creators erroneously brand their copyrighted work with Creative Commons licence. This manner is already an infringement of copyright. Apparently, the Creative commons should have responsibilities to check mislicensing and to protect the legal copyrighted work, but it failed to do so.

There is another issue that people announce that Creative Commons is a failure, which is how to earn profit form CC licence. As what can be seen, the Creative Commons pay more attentions to offer convenience to the end-users on the internet, not to the creators. McDonald (2006) is confusing that why a model of giving away the substantial value of copyright is likely to benefit creators who depend on copyright for a significant part of incomes. The concept of the CC licence seems that the creator does not get paid by way of any licence fee. Thus, not getting enough profit for one’s work is already a problem for the Creative commons.

To sum up, Creative Commons is at a phase of developing. This is the reason why the CC licence for copyright causes such much argument that whether it should exist or not. It is not surprising that Creative Commons continuingly bring legal problem to users. However, it is a necessary stage for Creative Commons to grow up. At the current stage, the advantage that CC brings to internet users is over its disadvantages. For a long term consideration, Creative Commons is a solution to deal with the authorship and copyright on the internet.

Reference list

Bailey, J. (2009), “5 Lesser-Known Benefit to Creative Commons”, retrieved at
http://www.blogherald.com/2009/01/05/5-lesser-known-benefits-to-creative-commons/ , viewed at December 2009

Carroll, M. W. (2005), “Creative Commons and the new intermediaries”, Villanova University School of Law Working Paper Series, The Berkeley Electronic Press, p.34.

Creative Commons (2006), “Creative Commons licenses enforced in Dutch Court”, retrieved at
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5823, viewed at December 2009

Delmus E. W. and Karen A. P. (2009), "Tech services on the web", Technical Services Quarterly. 26(4), 402.

Dvorak, J. C. (2005), “Creative Commons Humbug”, retrieved at
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1838244,00.asp , viewed at 9 December 2009

Fitzgerald, B. and Oi, I.(2004), “Free culture: Cultivating the Creative Commons”, Media & law Review, 9, p.137.

Gordon-Murnane, L. (2005), “Generosity and copyright: Creative Commons and Creative Commons search tools”, Searcher, 13(7), pp.16-22.

Groklaw (2006), “Creative Commons License Upheld by Dutch Court”, retrieved at
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060316052623594, viewed at 9 December 2009

McDonald, I.(2006), “Creative commons: Just say ‘CC’?”Copyright Reporter, 24(4), December.

Tóth, P. B. (2005), “Creative Humbug”, retrieved at
http://www.indicare.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=118, viewed at December 2009

Tutorial task 10 - Exploring our media ecology...

Old media communication - Television
Enhances:
Television helps the people to know more of the world. The biggest difference between television and newspaper should be that the television programs broadcast 24 hours everyday; however the newspaper just can be daily or weekly, so that television spread the information speedily.

Retrieves:
In a few years before, people can only see the word or heard the voice, but now, television combines both of them which are more lively and easy for people to understand.

Obsolesces:
Television has too many advertisements on during the programs which seems really horrible for the people who do not like waiting. Television also hurts people’s eyes, but what in my opinion which can not be avoided.

Reserves:
Maybe later on television will be replaced by computers. You can search what you like with free choices. The programs are without advertisements and update more quickly than television.


New media communication - Mobile phone
Enhances:
Mobile phones can enhance the communication between people regardless of the distance. In early time, we can hear people’s voice and send message through the mobile phone, in recent years, new technology even lead to a new revolution which we can also use video calls.

Retrieves:
In old times, we only can contact each other by using mails, which should take long to process and less secured. Mobile phones solve such kind of problems; we can use it any time or in anywhere. Video calls make the chatting more animated as we can also see their faces through the screen.

Obsolesces:
The biggest problem with the mobile phone should be the radiation which hurt people’s health. Maybe in later time, mobile phones will be obsolesced because such problem. For other issues such as mobile fees and some inevitable problems during the producing of mobile phones can also make mobile phones obsolesced.

Reserves:
I think mobile can be an amazing production in recent world, maybe it will be reserved later but at least not in the recent few years.

Lecture 9 - Networked Creativity

Today’s lecture was hold by Jason Nelson about creative uses of the Internet. We went through some websites which were new and different, such as Disaster map and speed test, that represent information/data in a visual way. Foe example, the Google map allows you to see the maps around the world when you enter the address. Through the Disaster map, we can see what’s going on in the world represented by symbols/images rather than just read newspapers or watch television.Freeware genius: is a website which reviews all the free software available on the Internet and recommends the best ones to use.

Jason also mentioned that everyone should be continuously creative. I gain more understaning of his peotry sfter he talked more about it. We can't deny that Jason is really an artist and his work is great. He wants people participate in his website not just only watch. He said there is no actully purposes for the peotry, eveyone has their own understanding when they went through.

Tutorial task 8 - Examining some net.art (by jason nelson)

Take a look at: digital poet Jason Nelson's SecretTechnology.com
You should explore AT LEAST THREE of his creations and write about your response to the works that you are viewing.

I explore 3 of them:
(1). I made this. you play this, we are enemies
(2). Ending eventually ends
(3). stunningly harmful songs

1. How does it make you feel?
When I first entered the net.art I feel really confusing. The colours inside is really colourful, I should say I do not like them.

2.What does it makes you think about?
For (1), I played the game, but I really do not know what I were doing. The background music is a little bit annoying.

For (2), I should say that is quite creative. I think it can be a kind of newspaper collection, which can collect and manage the newspaper you like.

For (3), all other things are good, except the songs.

3. What are the other media forms that it uses, or is similar to?

different to the tradition media forms, but smilar to the video games

4.If we accept that Jason's worksre poetry - How do you "read" digital poetry like that?
Differnt understanding comes up with different ideas, I should we should all be more creative when we read suck poety.

Lecture 10 - New Media Ecology

This is our last lecture, I should say that I enjoyed thes two weeks. Adam said the purpose of this course is to turn invisible into visible.

In this lecture, the idea of media ecology was introduced. Media environmrnt is an essential part of media ecology, while media ecology refers the impats on both indivual and the society. Mark McLuhan said that media is an extension of the human body, with media things are made possible beyond human capacity. People will be affected by using different media mediums, just like fishes in bottles. The colour of the water in the bottle can be changed, stones can be put into the bottles, what affted was the vision of the fish. Mark McLuhan also gave the Tetrad of Media, which shows us how to understanding a media.

Adam also gave summary for this course on the second half of the class.

Lecture 8 - Being a Digital Citizen

Today's lecture talked about the copyright.Through projects like Creative Commons the ‘middle man’ (Music and Film industry’s) who make profit from putting copyright on creative works. Copyright is a kind of policy which protect the sole's benefit by avoiding the others stole their works. In recent society, people overshare the information through the Internet, when one file be exposured, then millions of the same files can be found in short time. For example, the illegally movies and music dowland.

The lecturer also talked about the hacker. Hackers would commonly check to see which ports on a specified computers are OPEN or available to access the computer. We should use firewall and the antivirus software to protect our cpmputers.

Tutorial task 7 - Politics and the Internet

What opportunities can you find for political participation via the internet:How many of the following can you achieve while sticking to your political beliefs?

1. Sign an e-petition.
I signed an epetition for the "classification of computer games in Queensland"2.
http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/view/EPetitions_QLD/CurrentEPetitions.aspx?lIndex=1

2.Respond to a professional blogger at a major news site.
http://www.bloggernews.net/123204#comment-1460065

3. What is Barak Obama up to today?
The Jobs and Economic Growth Forum is taking place at The White House today.The President is hosting a Jobs Forum to hear ideas on job creation from across the board.
http://www.facebook.com/barackobama?ref=pdb

4.Find out who your local, state and federal representatives are.
Local Representative: Gail Mcpherson
State Representative: Steven Robertson
Federal Representative: Graham Perrett

+ What do you think of the Australian Government’s plans to censor the internet (the so-called “Clean Feed”)???
In the wensite :http://nocleanfeed.com/ shows more information abou the "Clean Feed".

I don’t think that it would be a good idea. I believe that it’s up to parents to censor the internet and to keep it clean. Alot of information on the internet is good, however alot is bad. It’s a hard question to answer as some information would be good to remove, however doing that could also take away the good information. I don’t know. As for now though I think it’s up to parents to control what can and can’t be seen.

+What place does censorship have in a democracy?
The premise of a democratic society is directly contradicts censorship. The only censorship that should occur within a democratic society is one that the people elect themselves.