Week 1 Freeform Post

Too much fun in the snow...

Someone thinking they need a hug...

Well it's been an interesting week!  Started off with the blizzard of the decade (turned out to be the 3rd largest snowfall in Chicago history).  I had 5 foot drifts in front of my garage!  The next day was clear and cold, everyone was out digging out.  It kind of turned into a fun time, neighbors helping each other out and warming up in each others house, enjoying hot chocolate.  The following day I had knee surgery to repair some old damage that had re-appeared recently during one of my workouts (that'll teach me to work out...).    So I have gotten a little behind in my schoolwork...Luckily my Lit Review seems to be in good shape and I received a note regarding my AR project site and it seems to be also in pretty good shape, some adjustments are in order.  Thank you Ms. DeLeon.  Time to get busy...

Week 1 Eilers Blog Comments

His blog entry:
Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Many thoughts ran through my head as I watched the plethora of videos regarding copyright laws, Fair Use, and Creative Commons. Albeit, most of my thoughts were those of confusion and how my brain was dissecting the confusion. However, after digesting all the information, I feel that I have a better understanding of how copyright works and how organizations like Creative Commons is attempting to bridge the gap in allowing the creative mind the freedom to create and/or re-create. As technology continues to advance and public domain forces copyright laws to change and modify its parameters, Creative Commons, Fair Use, and all the other attempts to assist the freedom of creation will continue to expand. I really felt that the TED video featuring Larry Lessig put all of this into a grand perspective for me. There were many great aspects of his presentation, but I think the thing that struck me was his comments on how the "RW" (read/write) culture turned into a "RO" (read only) culture in the 20th century. Obviously we are seeing a major paradigm shift in this way of thinking because of the rapid change in technology advancement and the speed of the Internet at the turn of the 21st century. At any rate, copyright laws, Fair Use, and Creative Commons have their place, but its what is done to work with/around them to keep challenging culture to create and re-create something new and different for future generations.

My Comments:

Gregg, You hit upon a very telling aspect of this lesson, the RW culture mentioned in Lessig/TED video. Of course, this statement is a further indictment of the Web 2.0 culture we all live in and have been learning further about during our time in this EMDT program. As we learned early on in our program, Web 2.0 is the Read-Write/Re-Mix aspect of the Internet. I too commend the work Creative Commons continues to attempt to resolve within the creative and legal communities. As I mentioned in my blog post, Fair Use is "thrown around" too freely in the education and training environment and I feel this series of videos helped clarify in my mind the appropriate use of this position.

Week 1 Antos Blog Comments

Bryan's Blog:

wk1 reading: copyright issues

Every day I work, I create video for my company that is seen by millions of people. But that video is protected by copyright that my company owns. I cannot post my work on youtube or anywhere. And that's a personal problem as I want as many people as possible to see my work. At the very least, I want my friends to be able to see it.


Additionally, not every piece is saved by my company. The best thing I ever produced (and was copied by Nike and NBA Productions, poorly, except for getting Marvin Gaye's version of the National Anthem, which is awesome) is gone forever. That is sort of devastating to me.


I understand the point of copyright but there will always be pirating. The trick is to embrace the new techniques and create a legal version of that. 5 years ago I suggested making shows available for download and I got laughed at. Every single person laughed at the idea. And now it's one of the biggest priorities of the company.


You just have to wait for the younger generation to get in there and try and change these laws. Like I said in a comment, the musical genius of an album like Paul's Boutique cannot really happen nowadays. That needs to change.


But you really have to give the law some credit. Being able to use any copyrighted work for parody or education is great.

Week 1 Reading Reflections

First of all let me reiterate my classmates viewpoint, I really enjoyed the "Good Copy, Bad Copy" video.  Very thought provoking.  Several highlights and random thoughts regarding the video I would like to point out:

• I enjoyed how the director cut together and used the NYU music director, the copyright lawyer and the Bridgeport Music representative, all very "upright and proper" folks talking about rap music, sampling and the George Clinton song.  It definitely got my attention quickly due to the inflammatory dichotomy between these "straight-laced" folks and the hip-hop culture they are talking about during this piece of the film.
• My personal feelings with this idea of sampling and re-mixing of music and the folks shown in the video are not doing anything really creative and inventive, even though they think a lot about themselves and their so-called "music".  The real creativity is with the original music creator and the idea of simply cutting up another's notes, putting them together with other cut-up notes is not creative.  The video even mentions this several time throughout, speaking of anyone with a high-priced computer and good audio equipment can accomplish this feat.  
• I am constantly amazed by those folks who put together the pirating websites featured in the video.  Not sure what they get out of it, expect the notoriety of "bucking the system".  People will always rally around someone or something that looks to be creating a counter-culture and the music piracy business capitalizes on this idea.

While I was initially intrigued in the beginning conversations around 
Creative Commons, I especially enjoyed the followup short videos Joe put together regarding this interesting and relatively new idea around IP and creativity.  I have begun to utilize this CC content licensing in both my work-related and personal media creations.  I remember when that story Joe shares with us regarding Adam Curry's pictures came out and he's gone on to create his own internet media empire in podcasting and blogging.  


Finally, I'd like to comment on the Fair Use area we looked at this week.  In my daytime job as a corporate communication, training and video producer, I have come across this area of fair use.  I have been asked by my work associates to utilize various music clips and songs in a training video and they will build an entire training video around a song.  When I let them know that they maybe encroaching upon copyrights, they consistently throw that "training" label back at me.  I really appreciated the series and now have an even better understanding of this area.  I can more effectively stand my ground and point out the limitations of fair use.  Thank you,