Copyright

Ye, X. (2011). Banff [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://www.flickr.com
/photos/75289322@N04/6830755768/in/photostream

I recently learned in ALES 204 class that Flickr users can choose one of the several types of licenses on Flickr, which limits usage of their original photos to other people. Coming from a country in which copyright laws are very different, it is important for me to learn the different limitations of each license. For example, I did not know that some of the original photos with certain licenses on Flickr are not allowed to be modified or used for commercial purposes by others. I learned that I need to be careful of the restrictions when I want to use some photos on Flickr if there is a copyright on them. These licenses on Flickr are Creative Commons copyright licenses. These licenses allow creators to own copyright but authorize certain uses of their works. I think Creative Commons provides a platform for every ordinary person sharing their creations and intelligence. Through some social communication tools such as Flickr, everybody can find and use other people's creations or build work on them while the creators still own some copyrights to their creations. I see this as the communication of wisdom through modern communication technology. By sharing and adding wisdom from others' works, more people are able to have better creations. In order to practice usage of these licenses, I uploaded one of my original photos on Flickr.

Ye, X. (2012). Collage Homework Of ALES 204 [Photograph]. 
Retrieved from http://www.flickr.com/photos/
75289322@N04/6840424940/in/photostr

The most interesting thing in class was to make a collage which was composed of 3 public domain photos, 3 copyrighted photos and 3 original photos. I learned that the public domain photos are the photos don’t have copyright, so I am free to download them and use them for any purpose. On the other hand, copyrighted photos have certain limitations for usage, depending on the license. I also found out that there are many online collage makers, which is very convenient to use on the internet because I don’t need to download the software.

When talked about copyright, I like Larry Lessig’s point of views on his video about scientific publishing, posted on the class blog. I agree with Larry’s opinion that scientific publishing should be free for everyone to access,not just the university professors. This is especially the case when the fees benefit only publishers and the authors don’t want to limit access to their work. In China, people in the past considered writing books as contributing or donating their knowledge to build up the civilization. Furthermore, they were so proud and happy that their knowledge could be passed on to people from one generation to another. Therefore, there were no copyright laws in history. It’s interesting to see that everybody likes to own something in current western society, even if it is just a personal photo with a Creative Commons license. Many people and publishers today write books or create things to build up their personal wealth. Only the wealthier people are able to afford university textbooks. With the influence of individualism, people tend to stress the importance of personal property and ownership. I think copyright is very much culturally influenced. People with different values hold different opinions about copyright. It is very hard to argue which one is exactly right or wrong, but it is important for everyone to think which way benefits the society the most and why. If you want to read more information about the sharing of information, check out Danielle Lu's blog. She wrote a blog post about another form of communication---Pecha Kucha.