As the homework was to, I believe, ask a question about the readings assigned for Monday, I do have a more general question: what exactly is the difference between Creative Commons and a copyright? I hope this question was not answered on the site and I completely overlooked it, but I think I need more examples to fully compound my understanding. I’ve wondered a great deal about this.
In the other reading, the writers mentioned something along the lines of, “Remember that anything you put online is considered published.” What does this mean? Does this mean that the words on my blog are published and therefore protected by some sort of law? Doesn’t the fact that I could do nothing and probably would never know if people “stole” what I wrote online mean that any laws protecting what I wrote are essentially useless?
Jillian,
Both great questions! I’m not sure I have tme to address them both at this moment, but let me suggest you watch the first video on the “What is CC?” page and that should help a bit.
Quickly though, Copyright means that you own all the rights to a piece of work (writing, pictures, music, code, etc). At some point laws changed so everything you write (as the video suggests, from your research papers to doodles on a napkin) is automatically copyrighted. You own what you write (this includes your blogs).
Sometimes people want to sample or use parts of works that have been Copyrighted though (think of the music industry). When the person decides they want to use/build on/modify a piece of music (or anything that is copyrighted) they have to ask for permission. Usually this includes lawyers, royalties, etc. When they don’t they can get sued.
The thing is, sometimes people don’t mind if others build off of their music. In fact, sometimes artists/writers/musicians/etc. want people to build on what they’ve created. This is where Creative Commons comes in. By assigning a “CC” licence, the artists/musician/writer/etc. says that it’s okay for people to use their work without asking permission. The “CC” license has restrictions on it (or doesn’t) that say things like “It’s okay to use this work as long as you give me, the original artists, credit” or “You can use this as long as it’s not for commercial use.” This is a way to, as the video suggests, cut out the middle man.
As for your second question, I should be honest and let you know that I don’t know for sure. I believe that technically your blogs are copyrighted (unless you state otherwise with a CC license) so if someone stole your ideas/projects/writing/etc. they would get in trouble. The “useless” factor is a matter of opinion. If you found out that someone stole your work (and say published it as their own) that would probably make you mad, right? So in that way the laws would be useful. I think that the usefulness of Copyright and Creative Commons would be an interesting topic to return to so keep that in mind.
Hope this helps a bit.
-Brittany
Comment by bcottri — January 26, 2009 @ 8:17 am