WK 1 Wimba Reflection

We've been to plenty of Wimba Sessions through the course of this program, but I don't think it can compare to the amount of information incurred at one time. There was a lot to take in, but our class handles the task and always rises to the challenge. Getting more information on the assignments is always a good reason to come to Wimba and to ask the questions you need to for clarity. Learning more about our Abstract, Reflection and the Publish/Presentation Assignment was extremely helpful to me. The Abstract is to be precisely 120 words in which we are to create an introduction to our CBR. We are not to defend anything that happened nor make it a movie trailer. This assignment is to take approximately twenty to forty minutes. These specifics may be stressful to others but it provides me with great comfort knowing these details. I like to know the specifics when they are relevant. Free-for-all assignments always provide me weariness and I tend to overdo it. I cannot wait for the next Wimba session.

WK 1 Peer Comment: Jennifer W.

Jennifer W's Post: http://digitaltoolsforeducators.blogspot.com/

Media Asset Creation: Copyright Issues

Thank goodness for Ted talks. Watching these hours worth of copyright issue videos was enough to make a teacher quit her job. So, rather than dwell on the extremes that many of these videos did, I want to focus on the little bit of hope I found within the creative commons information and within Larry Lessig’s TED talk.

Lessig quoted John Phillips Souza in 1906 who said that these “talking machines” referring to radios will ruin the artistic development in this country. And, in fact, the 20th century became a culture of “read only” people. However the 21st century seems to be assuming artistic development again. Thanks to the $1500 computer, the tools of creativity have become tools of speech. It is what the next generation bases its life upon. Yet, Lessig insists, the law has not greeted this revival with very much common sense. It prohibits to such an extreme degree that legal creativity becomes stifled, at best.

Creative Commons offers possibilities and hope and does in fact seem to be a “bridge to the future”. This will begin our journey to thinking more about communities and less about content. However, in the meantime, educators have to find a way to give our students the tools and information they need to legally create, express, and use the digital technologies that are available to them.

My Comment:

This issue has always been since the late 1990s and the beginning of the twenty-first century. Even before the $1500 computer, its been the programs that have made it possible to allow the mixing of music and film. Most notable are the programs of Audacity and Windows Movie Maker, which have been free and available since 2000. I think the issue has escalated and things will only get worse or better because these freeware programs will only continue. The TED talks are always so enlightening.

WK 1 Peer Comment: Michelle B.

Michelle B's Post: http://meeshcapeesh.blogspot.com/

Wk 1 Reading: Copyright Issues pt.1-3: What's it all for?

Welcome to my first blog post for the Media Asset Creation course. In this post I will discuss copyrighting issues in this day and age. I watched a few different videos and read a few different articles. What I was surprised to notice was that there was little to no mention of the issue of moral rights in the USA. According to The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (UK) there are a number of different rights associated with work creations. Moral rights, which is one of them, is the right to object to the derogatory use of works. For example, if a piece of music was is in a pornographic movie, the owner can contest the use of the material on moral grounds. Though there are in fact many differences between UK and US rights, I’m afraid that it may take days to comb through them.


Why is it that more often than not it is these giant companies that want to sue the smaller party over copyright infringements. Have they really paid their dues? How many legendary jazz artists were just paid as session musicians? These musicians who never see pennies worth of royalties . . . I ponder. As the Swedish gentlemen said in the documentary Good Copy Bad Copy, what gives the big US Corporations the right to enforce their ideals and laws on other territories yet so unabashedly disregard those of other territories?


We are in an age where the World is at our fingertips. Even though the USA is the biggest exporter of popular culture it is by no means the ruler of the world. More and more we are expanding, experimenting, creating and remixing. And so the beauty of Creative Commons licensing allows us to safely share our creations without the big bad wolf coming after us. I just hope that great works of art, film and music do not become lost in the memory of days gone by because of licensing. A funny point here was that the company I worked for actually tried to get copyright permission to use the MLK speech in the course books but couldn’t get permission. Why would they deny the use for educational purposes? Should we then think about where the priorities lie for these licensers? Is it to better society or better their profits?

If you want to know a bit more about UK IP issues please follow the link below. http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/copy/c-otherprotect/c-moralrights.htm

My Comment:

Michelle, I didn't know the whole "Moral" approach in the UK. That seems to be a very good aspect to take into account. I am not to sure how Creative Commons holds up in the UK. Because it is solely based in the US, I do not think it would work in a UK Court. This deserves some further research, but perhaps the internet is such a worldly tool, perhaps Creative Commons might cross continents. That is something to consider, thank you for allowing us to see things from another perspective.

WK1 Copyright Reading or the Realization of Change

I had no idea the Copyrighting Issue had gotten this bad. Perhaps the fact that I seldom watch the news or notice anything about this sort is probably reason enough. After going through parts one through three, I couldn't believe something like this had happened or had received so much attention. I do want to state I knew about copyrighting and those rights beforehand, but I didn't realize how big this has gotten.

Before I had get into the important part, I have a few things to say. I want to just thank the people who out together the "Good Copy, Bad Copy" Documentary. It was extremely well done, and it brought to light a lot of things I had never seen before. I cannot begin to say how many of those myths I believed, perhaps I am ganging up on myself but I felt really dumb for not being as knowledgable on the subject. It kills me to not be able to really tell people about it, when you don't know and are asked. I do know now and are able to tell. The "Fairytale" video featuring Disney made me laugh a lot and it was extremely more informative than I thought it was going to be.

On the serious note, I do feel in our current "remixing" culture that it is necessary for a society to thrive it must be able to recycle. There are plenty of old film and music that could be used copyright-free, and I too do not know why a system isn't in place to let people use it. If not our past will continue to gather dust and rot the selves.

I do feel that allowing others to reuse other creations is the greatest form of compliment and only benefit the author/artist, not if it is to downgrade or hurt another, the recycling of another's work should be allowed. I cannot begin to explain often I cannot find mash-up videos on Youtube or remixed music because it has been taken off or removed because they were forced too. These videos and pieces of music weren't bad or vulgar. They were forms of expressions from another that I had connected with. Isn't art all about expression?

A while back I was going through a very bad time, it was like most students at High School, it was a new school and I had no friends because I was going to a school outside of my normal district. Needless to say it was an extremely rough first year. The only thing that helped me get through it was focusing on my studies and listening to music. By that time Youtube was new and everybody was posting things on it, mostly AMV, Tributes and the sort. I had found an extremely moving video involving Disney's Stitch and RyanDan's song "Tears of an Angel". At the time, Stitch was my most favorite Disney character for many reasons, one of which was that I felt like Stitch, I felt like an alien in my school and I felt like no one liked me because I was bad or something. In any case, if you've ever heard the song "Tear of an Angel" it is one of those song that is both sad and uplifting. The moment I saw this video it made me feel like everything was going to be okay. If a movie, regardless of how it was made or who it was by, can help people, even if its just one, it should be allowed. The video has long since has been taken off, Youtube was much stricter in the early days, and I could not find the user or the video anywhere on the internet. I am better, but the video had great cuts, timing and flow and it just matched the music so well. I really think that as long as it doesn't change the "economic" value of something or isn't negative I think that a video has the potential to affect someone's life. Why take away that chance? Isn't a life worth more?

Getting off my soap box, along those lines of film, music too should be safe from harm with remixing. The Brazil music is bringing new life to old classics. I don't know how people can catch the same guitar chords from fifteen seconds of a song, when it is manipulated to sound like something else. That to me is rather excessive. If film can mix horror and comedy in B-rated films, I don't know why amateur artists can't be allowed to mix English Rock and Rap. I'm sure there is a matter of principle in all of this, and I am not saying that it can't be valid, but it doesn't make it entirely right either. Music to me is like feelings, not one person can own the right to exclusive own one emotion and no one else can have it. The copyright laws aren't as practical as they think they are. One of the videos claimed that before the 1920s Copyright lasted for about fifteen years, not seventy plus. Film and music isn't like traditional art that can be kept in a museum under lock and key or in a safe. Film and music has to be enjoyed and experienced . With the current technologies it is easy to make the same film and music to fit your needs, your moods and customize it to your preferences. Why make the original ones the only ones?

(I do realize this is becoming lengthy so I will wrap this up ^^;)

Creative Commons is out there for the new up and coming artists out there who have vision and wish to keep it. When all it takes is for a link to be passed out, no wonder it is just as easy to take it and claim it as your own. The new generation needs to know what Creative Commons is and use it properly. I use it myself on a User-Run News Site. When you post articles, you have to use a Creative Commons or you can post it. Writing articles on your free time is a great way to get your writing out there and it is about what you want it to be about. Having it stolen is not cool by any means. I know Youtube is starting to use it now too and other Digital Art sites and Photo sources, but I am not aware of any Music sites that use it yet. I wonder why that is? Creative Commons is a great way to protect yourself and protect your work. Please do not neglect this free resource.