I uploaded lots of photos to Flickr but then got alarmed when everything showed up in my photostream. I have random graphics that I've grabbed from Google Image just because they looked like they might be useful at some point for some purpose, but I didn't know what rights might be attached to them; like the one on the left, that I love, and which I'd be happy to give credit for using if I knew who it belongs to. Anyway, I'd just as soon not have this stuff streaming through the ether and traceable to moi-meme. Hmmm. But I guess I've just thrown 'look-it-up Girl' out there for the world to see. I may find the artist after all.A different concern, it has occured to me belatedly, is that I have a lot of digital artwork that I don't want to give away, and I had made those photos "public" (a Flickr setting) so that they could appear in my gallery(lower right). Oops, probably not a good idea. Think I'll go in and just limit the random display to about 5 pieces. So, the result of all these worries, is that I checked into the Creative Commons and registered my artwork and had a look around. What an interesting place. It's the effort that has gone into collaboration that fascinates me. It's a whole new way of thinking about creativity and definitely not the way my generation thought about it. But I think it's good. The emphasis is on the product rather than ownership. To accommodate this, there is a whole range of licenses, rights and protocols. It's fascinating.
2 comments:
The whole question of intellectual property is one that's in flux nowadays; you can find discussions all over the web.
One camp says that there should be no such thing as copyright, that all creative products are the common heritage of the world and that no one should have the right to control the use of an image, song, video, story, etc.
Another camp says creators have a right to control the distribution of their creations, and to be compensated for the effort of creation.
One of the complications is that people are coming from different worlds...the folk-music community has completely different ethics than, say, the gallery art community (and both have different perspectives than the record companies).
Creative Commons is an attempt to steer one course through these troubled waters. One thing I like about it is that it's completely voluntary; it leaves decisions up to the creator.
I played with Animto over the weekend and transferred many family pictures to Flickr. This morning I realized my blog link in effect opened those pictures to everyone, so I removed the link. Tomorrow I will check out the privacy settings on Flickr.
Post a Comment