Topic 2.4 Content Sharing

Content Sharing

This week’s lecture was very interesting. Must admit, I have really enjoyed it and learned a lot. I have learned how people create and share their creations in a collaborative manner. Creating your own inventions can also be fun and rewarding. It was interesting to see how people create and combine existing media to produce a totally different product. For example, Szuch (2009) took two movie trailers, Avatar and Pocahontas and creator his own short combined version. With his clever remixing skills he could create something totally unique.

However, it is important for people to clearly state from where they got the information. It is also important that when people create their own videos, music, etc. they have to adhere to the necessary copyright laws and regulations. For example in Australia creators must adhere to the Copyright Act 1968. According to the Australian Copyright Council (2007) people must seek the original author or creator’s permission to copy material from authors. In general “copyright generally lasts for the life of the creator plus 70 years and where duration depends on year of publication, it lasts until 70 years after it is first published” (Australian Copyright Council, 2007).

Important considerations: 

• Copyright protection is free and applies automatically when material is created.
• There is NO registration system for copyright in Australia.
• Copyright does not protect ideas, information, styles or techniques.
• Copyright does not protect names, titles or slogans.
• There are no general exemptions from copyright law for non-profit organizations.
• There are some situations where copyright law allows people to use copyright material for their own personal use, but these are narrow and specific.
• Generally, Australian copyright law applies to actions that take place in Australia, even if the material used was created or first published in another country. (Australian Copyright Council, 2007).

In saying this, in some instances people do not have to ask permission to use material. For example “where the material is being used as a “fair dealing” for one or more of the following purposes: criticism or review; parody or satire; and reporting news”. Also “material may be freely used if copyright has expired” (Australian Copyright Council, 2008). There are six licenses the creator must be aware of to ensure that the correct procedures are followed when information is shared.

For example: 

• Attribution - others must give you credit as the original creator
• non-commercial - others may not use your work for commercial purposes
• no derivative works - others may not alter, transform, or build upon your work
• share alike - others may alter, transform, or build upon your work, but they are encouraged to distribute the resulting work only under another Share Alike licence (Creative Commons Australian, 2005).

People may also use materials under creative commons. According to the Creative Commons Australia (n.d.), “Creative Commons is a worldwide project that encourages copyright owners to allow others to share, reuse and remix their material, legally”.

Apart from this, it is also important to note that when people download images from e.g. Flickr, they should use correct tagging in order to find images quicker. This will also simplify matters when they create material. According to Mathes (2004) tagging images is important for the user to be able to retrieve the required information again. However” folksonomy is not, will not, and should not be our only way of ordering the world” (Weinberger, 2006).

References


Australian Copyright Council. (2008). Information sheet G103v01: Copyright permission & clearances. Retrieved from http://www.copyright.org.au/admin/cms-acc1/_images/10696221344c8dd3878a3dc.pdf

Australian Copyright Council (2007). Information sheet: An introduction to copyright in Australia. Retrieved from http://www.copyright.org.au/admin/cms-acc1/_images/1889836124c8dbfe7b2fba.pdf

Creative Commons Australia. (2005). Creative commons licences explained for content creators. Retrieved from http://creativecommons.org.au/content/licences-explained-content-creators.pdf

Creative Commons Australia. (n.d.). Learn more. Retrieved from http://creativecommons.org.au/learn-more

Mathes, A. (2004). Folksonomies – Cooperative classification and communication through shared metadata. Retrieved from http://www.adammathes.com/academic/computer-mediated-communication/folksonomies.html

Szuch, R. (2009). Avatar/Pocahontas mashup [Video file]. Retrieved from http://vimeo.com/9389738

Weinberger, D. (2006). Folksonomy as symbol. Retrieved from http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/3281