Week #1 Blog Post Comments #2

Vivian Tejedor

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Week 1 Reading Reflexion

Copyright, Fair Use, What are the rules?

Everything seems to have a gray area, as I take in all the information presented in this week’s reading/videos assignment. I am trying to find my position on Copyright and Fair Use issues. I just, cannot find my gray area. The more I know, the more questions I have. The two sources that impacted me the most were 10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained, By Brad Templeton and the TED Talk video: ReMix Culture by Larry Lessig.


All the gray areas of Fair Use and the odds of negative consequences from infringement. In my opinion turn Copyright and Fair Use into an “honor system”. A very flawed honor system, since honor systems usually carry negative consequences for those who break the honor code. One consequence is loss of esteem from the community. However, there are many examples of individuals who break the Fair Use honor code are caught and the consequences are desirable fame, recognition and monetary gains. One example is Shepard Fairey and the Hope/Obama poster. But then did he break the honor code or is this Fair Use at its best, the common sense that Larry Lessig is talking about.

You would not walk into a photographer’s house and swipe a picture from his wall. Why is it ok, if the image is in digital form? Until I can get a grip on the common sense that Lessing is talking about. And believe me I want to Lessing makes a strong point. I will continue to play nice with the copyright friendly squad of Creative Commons.

Resources:
10 Myths About Copyright Explained by Brad Templeton, http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html retrieved on 6/8/2009

TED Talk video: ReMix Culture by Larry Lessig, retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/187 on 01/14/2011

Cool Hunting: Shepard Fairay: Obama Poster retrieved from http://www.coolhunting.com/culture/shepard-fairey.php

Image Wordle retrieved from http://www.wordle.net/create

1 comments:

Dwayne BuchananFeb 3, 2012 07:09 PM

@Vivian,
I agree with you that it is a very flawed honor system in which we work. Teachers at my school preach the copyright band wagon when it comes to writing papers and anything to do with print. Fast forward to Power Points and videos and they are not on that band wagon any longer. It seems like as long as it meets my needs it will be OK, this is a flawed thought process. We as teachers need to be the rule not the exception to the rule.

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Week #1 Blog Post Comments #1

Wk1 Reading Blog EDMT:MAC

As an undergraduate student, I was instructed on some things that accruing to the letter of the law and these videos turn out to just be wrong. I was an early adopter of media for content creation by students, and I paid huge sums of money for image banks and libraries on disk to keep from using only the staid old Microsoft Office templates. Now I feel that money was a waste, but I also can create most of what I want from scratch rather than borrow from others.
For the most part this has been my solution for dealing with the vagaries of Fair Use and copyright protections. Occasionally I will request and usually do receive permission for someone else's work, but by and large I just try to create new media rather than adapt, adopt, or re-mix someone else's efforts.  I know that this reinforces my old man status in the class, but back in my day, "borrowing" was simply not tolerated in academic circles. I watched several friends get the boot for plagiarism during college and even found myself defending my own source code during early programming classes!
These videos were important to reinforce the need to keep Fair Use alive. I am like the film makers who were not so subtly told to just let go of anything which may hint at being Fair Use. I have to admit to even  scrapping entire sections of presentations when no graphics or video to support them could be created in time.
One benefit to media asset development is that I have been creating an archive portfolio with many audio, video, and visual elements to draw from. I am also seeing that these resources can be used across many disciplines.

As it applies to the course I am impressed with the pains that our instructors have gone to to ensure that they and we follow the law and apply copyrights through Creative Commons to our class creations. Even though most of my work currently is listed as public domain, I see the need to limit its access as new opportunities such as self book publishing through iTunes arise. Imagine the possibilities for students with our uniques sets of skills in education and media development!

Dwayne Buchanan Feb 3, 2012 06:52 PM

@ Smitty,
We have several things in common. I see you have gone out and asked permission to use certain things and had mixed reviews about responses. In my first Masters program I was doing my thesis on the effects of an after school robotics program on attendance and grades in science and math. I had written a company to get permission to use their name in my thesis and I never heard from them. I consequently had to go back and change the wording in the thesis in order to not have their name in it and it was a headache.

I have also used many of my own images to save the headache.I like using my own work and the personal side it brings to the table.

Leadership Role Model

Throughout my life there have been many people I look up to when it comes to leadership. I consider my grandfather and father to be among the biggest influences in my life. They were self-starters and not afraid to take chances when they knew it was the right thing to do. They led by example and I believe to be a great leader you have to lead by example. They both have a sense of humor and know how to engage people. These are things that I look for in leaders and they both influenced my life and the direction I have gone.

Now for the leadership style that I would most like to emulate. Steve Jobs and the Apple Corporation are at the forefront of my mind when it comes to presentations. Steve Jobs had a knack for sucking you in and then holding you until the anticipation almost killed you. That is what I would like to be able to do. The thing that I liked the most was how with a few simple graphics and well thought out words you were sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for the next word or visual. He was a master of communication. If I am going to dream big, this is the presentation style that I would love to have. 

Photo taken by: Aglie's photostream under Creative Commons

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic

Week 1 Reading Blog EMDT:MAC

Fair use has always intrigued me; what can I use, how much can I use, who is off limits? These questions still hold true to me after watching the videos. I have a better idea now of what is expected and what to do. During the EMDT courses I have tried to use as much of my own work as possible, mainly because it was relevant to what I was working on at the time. I have enjoyed learning about and using the Creative Commons materials. I now use this information when teaching my students about copyright and doing things the right way.

It saddened my heart to know that so many historical works will no longer be available because of the cost to re-license the material. It seems to me that the laws should be changed to incorporate the use of historic pieces into other media even after the copyright has expired. Being a history major I see the need for that historic content to be available to the people rather than in a private collection somewhere. We do need to preserve and use our historical events assets to keep our children and their children up to date on our history and legacy.