TECH2002 Social Media Production Lecture Week 22 Creativity & the Creative Commons
Ideas can be patented and copyrighted (what’s the difference?) Development of the steam engine in the Cornish mining industry – collaboration gave way faster development of infrastructure.
“The digital commons are a form of commons involving the distribution and communal ownership of informational resources and technology. Resources are typically designed to be used by the community by which they are created.[1] Examples of the digital commons include wikis, open-source software, and open-source licensing. The digital commons provides the community with free and easy to access information. Typical, information created in the digital commons is designed to stay in the digital commons, thought various forms of licensing, including the GNU General Public License and various Creative Commons licenses.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_commons_%28economics%29
“Picture a pasture open to all. It is to be expected that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible on the commons. As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain. The rational herdsman concludes that the only sensible course for him to pursue is to add another animal to his herd. And another…. But this is the conclusion reached by each and every rational herdsman sharing a commons. Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit — in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons. The individual benefits as an individual from his ability to deny the truth even though society as a whole, of which he is a part, suffers. Education can counteract the natural tendency to do the wrong thing, but the inexorable succession of generations requires that the basis for this knowledge be constantly refreshed.” http://www.openeducation.net/2008/02/21/the-digital-commons-%E2%80%93-left-unregulated-are-we-destined-for-tragedy/
“Today, Creative Commons has more than 350 million CC-licensed pieces of content out in the wild” (Geere, 2011). “Creative ideas are both novel and useful (Hennessey & Amabile, 2010), and novelty is the key distinguishing feature of creativity beyond ideas that are merely well done (Amabile, Barsade, Mueller, & Staw, 2005). Yet the requirement that creative ideas contain novelty can also promote a tension in evaluators’ minds when they judge whether to pursue an idea. Indeed, evaluators have a hard time viewing novelty and practicality as attributes that go hand in hand, often viewing them as inversely related (Rietzschel, Nijstad, & Stroebe, 2009). There are several reasons why. Practical ideas are generally valued (Sanchez-Burks, 2005). However, the more novel an idea, the more uncertainty can exist about whether an idea is practical, useful, error free, and reliably reproduced (Amabile, 1996). When endorsing a novel idea, people can experience failure (Simonton, 1984), perceptions of risk (Rubenson & Runco, 1995), social rejection when expressing the idea to others (Moscovici, 1976; Nemeth, 1986), and uncertainty about when their idea will reach completion (Metcalfe, 1986). Uncertainty is an aversive state (Fiske & Taylor, 1991; Heider, 1958) which people feel a strong motivation to diminish and avoid (Whitson & Galinsky, 2008). Hence, people can also have negative associations with novelty; an attribute at the heart of what makes ideas creative in the first place.” (Mueller, Melwani, & Goncalo, 2011).
“Joi Ito, the chair of Creative Commons, told the Telegraph: “If you think about the success of the internet, it allows people to innovate without asking permission.” He said that existing copyright was an obstacle to that and so Creative Commons provided a way to let creators control their rights without stifling innovation” (Richmond, 2011). “Lisa Green, chief of staff for Creative Commons, said that the licensing made possible new business models. She told the Telegraph that the existing system had failed because people saw the world as “either the chaos of piracy or the lockdown”. She added: “But the lockdown doesn’t work and it wouldn’t work even if it was ideal.” (Richmond, 2011).
Creative Commons works with idea of ‘Gifting Knowledge’ and ‘Crowd Sourcing’.
What is ‘Public Domain’ work and what are the implications for ‘proprietorial’ systems and content?
Lucasfilm? Harming or supporting creativity?
Empire of Dreams http://youtu.be/xrme_mgZKpA
Making Star Wars http://youtu.be/kVBA0jDVwxQ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hidden_Fortress 1958 film directed by Akira Kurosawa http://youtu.be/4g8r0LhpMzk
Flash Gordon http://youtu.be/Ckq4_YyiJLo
Myths http://youtu.be/PGDJJohiomw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdE0kzbUTr8
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/ideas-commentary/why-the-disneylucasfilm-merger-hurts-artists-and-creativity-72594.html
http://starwars.com/play/online-activities/soundboards/#/?theme=48
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsSz5MZRNt0
http://youtu.be/KTcE60KKRv4 http://youtu.be/MlgyyhWflEs
“Lucas loses Star Wars copyright case at Supreme Court” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14287864
“Technologies [are] on their way that would allow copyright owners to insert younger actors, alter the music and colour, and change scenes to suit the philosophic tastes of the moment, as well as making new digital negatives at the expense of the original version materials. In short, everything that Lucas would later do with the Special Editions” http://savestarwars.com/lucasspeechagainstspecialedition.html
“It should be noted that critics of copyright law do not want to abolish copyright or prevent artists, scholars, and inventors from being compensated for their work. The argument is not that people should be free to download music without paying for it or to copy movies onto discs and sell them on the street corner. Critics of copyright law argue that creativity and innovation are fostered when artists, inventors, and scholars are free to take existing ideas and works and make something new out of them” (Ratcliffe, 2009, p. 53)
“The term copyleft refers to a type of licence that lets users appropriate an author, artist, or inventor’s content in a variety of ways: users can copy and distribute the content, they can create derivative works based on that content, and they can use the work for commercial purposes. The only stipulations are that the author, artist, or inventor is given credit, or attribution, for the work, and that the copy or derivative work is licenced under the same copyleft licence, which in Creative Commons parlance is the Attribution-ShareAlike licence” (Ratcliffe, 2009, p. 59)
“Many content owners, especially those who place their work on the internet, provide advance permission for the public to make free use of their work by employing one of several open content licences developed by the Creative Commons, a non-profit corporation whose goal is to ‘cultivate a commons in which people can feel free to reuse not only ideas, but also words, images, and music without asking permission – because permission has already been granted to everyone” (Fishman, 2011, p. 374).
“The Creative Commons is an alternative to the polar extremes of the proprietary culture of the copyright industries and the ‘free for all’ of the users of peer-to-peer networks. The movement is an ambitious project, which seeks to address the needs of a wide range of creators across a variety of art-forms in multiple jurisdictions. The venture has won the backing of a diverse range of interest groups, including academics, and creative artists, archives and libraries, broadcasters and film producers. However, the Creative Commons has also attracted a number of detractors and critics, ranging from copyright owners and collecting societies, to industrial unions and professional associations, to theoreticians and radical proponents of free software” (Rimmer, 2007, p. 287)
“Too often the debate over creative control tends to the extremes. At one pole is a vision of total control — a world in which every last use of a work is regulated and in which “all rights reserved” (and then some) is the norm. At the other end is a vision of anarchy — a world in which creators enjoy a wide range of freedom but are left vulnerable to exploitation. Balance, compromise, and moderation — once the driving forces of a copyright system that valued innovation and protection equally — have become endangered species. Creative Commons is working to revive them. We use private rights to create public goods: creative works set free for certain uses. Like the free software and open-source movements, our ends are cooperative and community-minded, but our means are voluntary and libertarian. We work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them — to declare “some rights reserved.” Thus, a single goal unites Creative Commons’ current and future projects: to build a layer of reasonable, flexible copyright in the face of increasingly restrictive default rules.” http://wiki.creativecommons.org/History
The Creative Commons philosophy is driven by those who believe in free and open exchange of digital content and to create a middle way between “…the extremes of copyright-control, and the uncontrolled exploitation, of intellectual property.” The licence was inspired by the open source movement and follows the principles enshrined within copyleft which encourage the free distribution of works and any derivatives made of it.” http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue49/korn-oppenheim http://librarianbyday.net/2013/01/27/the-danger-of-using-creative-commons-flickr-photos-in-presentations/
“The two competing visions have clashed throughout the 300-year development of copyright law, but the conflict between them has escalated in the digital era. Advocates of the private property vision hoped that digital technology would enable copyright holders to collect fees for each use of their copyrighted works (e.g., Goldstein, 2003). Instead, they observed massive copyright infringement. Content providers, including the music industry, are desperate to institute a vigorous enforcement mechanism against copying to protect their ownership.” (Kim, 2007). “Proponents of the public policy vision hoped that digital technology would promote production and sharing of cultural products (e.g., Benkler, 2000; Kranich, 2004). Instead, they observed that contemporary copyright law has become so restrictive that it risks impeding future innovation and creativity.” (Kim, 2007)
Allow for Uncertainty:
“For Lessig there is no doubt that the open digital commons is the right way to proceed. “This strategy is an attitude. It says to the world, I don’t know what functions this system, or network, will perform. It is based in the idea of uncertainty. When we don’t know which way a system will develop, we build the system to allow the broadest range of development. This was a key motivation of the original Internet architects.” http://www.openeducation.net/2008/02/21/the-digital-commons-%E2%80%93-left-unregulated-are-we-destined-for-tragedy/
Bibliography
Fishman, S. (2011). The Copyright Handbook (11th Edition ed.). Berkeley, CA:
Nolo. Geere, D. (2011, 12 13). Wired . Retrieved 02 27, 2013 from History of Creative Commons: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-12/13/history-of-creative-commons?page=all
Kim, M. (2007). The Creative Commons and copyright protection in the digital era: Uses of Creative Commons licenses. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication , 13 (1), 10.
Ratcliffe, C. (2009). Some Rights Reserved – Weblogs with Creative Commons Licences. In S. Westbrook, & S. Westbrook (Ed.), Composition and Copyright – Perspectives on Teaching, Text Making and Fair Use (pp. 50-67). Albany: State University of New York Press.
Richmond, S. (2011, 06 30). Can Creative Commons solve the digital rights problem? Retrieved 02 27, 2013 from The Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/8608996/Can-Creative-Commons-solve-the-digital-rights-problem.html
Rimmer, M. (2007). Digital Copyright and the Consumer Revolution: Hands Off My IPod. Cheltnham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.