Thing #10 Do We Have Common Creativity?

Funny, in my Graduate class we were discussing open creativity while watching videos from the TED conference. We were watching Larry Lessig talk about the stifling laws of copyright and how it strangles collaborative creativity. After watching the video we talked about how teaching beg, borrow, and steal from one another daily and it works because, one person can't think of everything on their own. However, when we take a piece of work and adapt to fit our own personal needs we have to be very careful. Creative Commons came into the discussion because they found a way to publicize the legality of sharing copyright material. The interesting about this is, CC simply publicized the legalities of cutting out the middle man, however, those living in the entertainment industries implemented sharing rights many years ago, you just had to understand the jargon in order to take advantage of it. What Creative Commons has done though is made it easy to share and allow your work to be used along with taking other works and remixing it so to say to suit your own flavor. They have opened the door to a virtual discussion table that allows people from all over to collaborate and create something magnificent. Creative Commons has blown the doors off of face-to-face, sitting down in one room to build something. Instead, mine and your expertise can be captured to add on to what has already been started, yet you and I had the missing piece that defines life...so to speak. The collaboration between Nike and Creative Commons - The GreenXchange proves this.

Students have the ability to create wonderful projects using technology, but if they are constantly bounded by laws, how can they be allowed to express themselves in manners that are most useful? The most popular CC site I use for class is Flickr. My students use the photos to create online photo journey maps on mapness.net for their Extra Credit Project. However, to be safe, I will look for more Creative Common sites as I continue to teach cyber ethics and responsibility to my students.