Week 1 Response to Rhonda Doyle's Blog Post

Original Post - Rhonda Doyle

Copyrights

I found the material presented on copyrights to be informative and compelling.  I had not previously considered the broad range of ways that the international and industrial communities were incorporating personal media.  Having a strong foundation of values that direct me to respond with a simple, “we as grown men and women know the difference between what is ours and what is not” I had to open my interpretation of legal definitions and their impact on keeping privacy and protections in place.

I am a fan of the Creative Commons license for these reasons;

It allows the artist or original creator the opportunity to decide how and in what way they would prefer their material to be used.

It allows for others to engage with the originator and obtain permission for non-commercial or educational use.

It is a legal form of ownership that can be acted upon if necessary in the event that the agreement is violated.

I submit that the issue of copyrights, patents, and Internet freedom will continue to be topics that challenge our society to continuously defend its position as more content is created and distributed.

My Response

Hey Rhonda,

I certainly found the week 1 "reading" material to be "informative and compelling" as well; and I am also a big fan of the Creative Commons approach to the licensing of creative content.  In addition to the reasons you mentioned in your blog post, I would also add that the Creative Commons approach seems to embody the original intent of copyright law, which was to protect  artists from having their works stolen and/or exploited by other individuals, especially for financial gain.  

In the past, I have published original music on the Internet under the Creative Commons licensing terms.   From an artist's perspective, what I like about the Creative Commons is that it allows the artist to freely give away their creations - the exact opposite of what copyright law is used for today.  So why would an artist want to give away his/her works?  Most artists believe, perhaps delusionally, that their talent is a gift.  Artists create art because they can not live happily unless they create.  Most wish to share their creations in the hopes that others will find the works as compelling and beautiful as the artist does.  Artists are pleased when others find value and meaning in their artistic creations. 

Musical artists signed to large record companies rarely make any money off the sale of their music anyways.  The record companies take all the money, thus copyright law today is hardly ever protecting the rights of the artist, but rather, the law is protecting the rights of the record company to exploit the artist.  I published my music through Creative Commons because I hoped that somehow in some way, the Creative Commons would allow my music to travel freely around the world for anyone's enjoyment while protecting my works from third party exploitation.

The Creative Commons is built around the premise that art exists independently of the creator for the benefit of society at large.  It strikes a great balance between the artists' rights as a content creator, and society's  rights as a beneficiary of the arts.  So I too am all for the Creative Commons approach.