Tag Archives: vs.

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Reading Week 3 – Copyright and Creative Commons

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • March 15, 2016

I think it’s very important to distinguish the difference between Creative Commons and Copyright. They both work in different ways and effect us as online content creators.

Copyright has a wonderful way of automatically protecting your work once you place it out to the world. Most definitely not a bad thing, right?

The issue is, copyright often places some pretty hefty laws around those that want to use your work or just share it. This means that when you write that fabulous post that gets everyone talking, you’ll have Aunty Jan, Uncle Pat, Cousin Fan, Great Grandma Robin and even Step Mother February asking if they can all share your work. I mean, if we can avoid having the internet turn into a Grandpa’s 90th birthday, why don’t we use all that we’ve got?

This is where Creative Commons comes into play. The not-for-profit organisation allows anyone in the world wide web to structure their own license for their own work. Not only does this save your precious time from licensing every piece of your work, I mean, “ain’t nobody got time fo’ dat” but Aunty Jan, Uncle Pat, Cousin Fan, Great Grandma Robin and even Step Mother February, can now share your work, without having to ask for your permission. So now, we can avoid the slobbery kisses on the cheek and the questioning about where your boyfriend or girlfriend is.

So if we break Creative Commons down a little more, we can understand that it doesn’t counter copyright, but works along side it, making the sharing process between the author and reader, a little swifter.

Screen Shot 2016-03-15 at 4.54.43 pm

 

Screenshot image of text taken directly from: Creative Commons Australia: Licensed CC BY 4.0.

As we can comprehend from the above image, one must attribute the original owner of the work, even when they are transforming the original copy. Authors can select a Creative Commons license that either agrees or disagrees to their work being used for commercial purposes and whether or not someone can modify their work.

The Creative Commons license gives the author a lot of flexibility in terms of how their work is used once it is posted. For example, for this Media Factory blog, I added a Creative Commons license in the right sidebar of my blog, outlining that I have chosen the option of allowing my work to be shared and adapted, even for commercial purposes.

In all honesty, I am looking for people to credit my work if they are going to use or share it and this is why the Creative Commons license is important.

I think that because I now have the Creative Commons license on my blog, I feel a lot safer about the work that I do. I want to become more network literate and to be able to have an open opinion on particular topics that I like, whilst not feeling like someone is going to come along and rip me off. It also means now that I will take greater care when sharing others work, as I now understand how important copyright and licensing is to a creator.

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What’s the difference between a selfie and a self-portrait?

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • March 3, 2015 , ,

A selfie and a self-portrait are both expressions of oneself created by a person. They both can be completely valid and true to the person but can also be false as it is very simple for one to change an aspect of themselves to please others/make themselves look better.

Having read the article about the rise of selfie-taking – BBC: News Magazine article on ‘Selfies’, it has come to my attention that our generation is becoming more self-confident and perhaps at times, a little narcissistic. But who doesn’t love a bit of self-confidence? After all, isn’t that what we seek? To be proud of the way we look/who we are?

I have always had self-confidence issues. Haven’t we all? It’s hard living in a society where there are many images projected in the media of ‘perfect’ women with ‘perfect’ bodies/hair/personalities… you name it. So I wouldn’t say that selfie-taking is a bad thing. I’m glad people are beginning to appreciate the way they look and have the confidence to take a photo of themselves. Everyone should be happy in their own skin!

Now ever since I found out about what a selfie was, I have been taking them nearly every day. The article mentions that the likes of Lady Gaga, Rihanna and Justin Bieber take selfies proving that it has become a world-wide phenomenon where even the most popular people within a society are following the trend. and  I don’t particularly see myself as very self-confident. I take selfies because I like to share information with my family and friends on apps like ‘Instagram’ of where I am at/who I’m with etc. They “invite us to photograph on the spur of the moment, regardless of location or company” thus proving that they are an easy way of sharing information to friends and family without having to write any text. It is also an incredibly unique way of sharing information as there does not have to be any text involved for others to understand the image “a picture paints a thousand words”.

The article mentions that selfies “tells other people how we want to be seen” however I believe that is completely up to the ‘poster’ of the selfie. I will post any (appropriate) image whether I am smiling or making a funny face. I do not try to differ my ‘online identity’ from my ‘real identity’ as I believe that it is important and healthy to be who you are always as creating false identities can create issues.

The article also mentions ‘sexting’ and how selfies are related to this. Again it depends on the type of selfie that is taken. Obviously if there is nudity then that will create issues, however if an individual takes a ‘selfie’ of oneself smiling (fully clothed) and sends it to a friend, that can be hardly classified as sexting as there is no form of ‘nudity’ within the image.

For me it is perhaps not the photo but the captions/comments that come with the selfie. But that takes me off the topic of the photo itself.

To conclude, I believe that both self-portraits and selfies are the same thing as it is completely up to the individual as to how they wish to be seen in both cases.

Thanks for reading!

Peace xoxo