Something that has been rolling around in my head since we started this subject is the implications of Creative Commons on internet use.

I’m not going to lie – my knowledge of copyrighting  up until this class has been limited. The overall idea that I generally gathered from absorbing the information flying around me however was the copy-writing was a little bit of a pain in the A. More often then not, when hearing discussions of copyright -most likely in the media- it was surrounded by negative connotations: someone on one end was not honoring copyright while another person at another end probably didn’t understand the copyright laws they were entitled to while someone else somewhere didn’t realise that copyright laws are different from country to country. Maybe this was jsut my interpretation of a situation that I did not understand.

I was pleasantly surprised however when watching the introduction to Creative Commons. It was so positive, and highlighted the empowering nature of copyright, which was something that I had not considered or understood before. I enjoyed learning all the possibilities that a copyright model such as Creative Commons can enable, instead of restrict, which had been my previous understanding. The basic idea of using license elements allows anyone of the internet with material to share to be in control of their work, in an easy and non-complicated way.

The overall notion that I gained from the ‘readings‘ we were assigned that week is still something I still think because it made me change my attitude to working online. I suppose it was the marketing aim of the Creative Commons videos, but I could see how the internet was a portal to sharing and collaborating, and CC is an easy to use tool in empowering and protecting authors and creators.

It is interesting to think of the internet as a web, because a spider web needs all its points to join and hold strong in order for it to be successful. Just like a web has junctions that meet, so does the internet through the notion of hypertext. There are points where different lines overlap in the context of real life are points in which information is shared. We are all stronger and better off for these junctions and sharing-points. CC allows these junctions to be mutually beneficial – making the entire web stronger.