creative commons - the way of the future
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 by mia
The idea of creative commons seems to be the future of how society will begin to think about authorship and creativity. All through history every work of art has borrowed from and referenced another creative work. Homer, the famous bard, collected oral stories and presented them in a written format but he did not take credit for coming up with these works. Rather, when these works came to be published, they were done under the name of Homer thus negating the long history and traditions of historical Greek culture. It is Western society that has imposed the current ideas of ownership by the author. Many traditional cultures have valued the sharing of knowledge for the betterment of their communities and it is through Copyright and patents that a lot of technological advances have been slowed down and restricted. Don't get me wrong, everyone deserves credit for the work they put in but laws need to be in play that allow for free access for improvements rather than economic gains as the priority. Creative commons are trying to allow access to create new products and texts in a more globalised society. Their value and validity has just been heightened through a nobel prize. http://creativecommons.org/weblog/
Roland Barthes has also predicted the "death of the author". By this he means that when a text is out in the public sphere, the author has no control over how audiences engage with it and the types of meanings they get from it. Therefor it only seems logical to allow an easier access to remixing and recreating. If there is only one assigned meaning to a text, we will fall into the category of 'cultural dupes'. So by allowing easy and free access, it allows for better engagement with culture and issues around us. A link can even be made to getting power out of the hands of the few and into the hands of multitudes. Copyright and patents do not only affect music and movies but also medication and how cheap they can be. This could probably enable cheap and effective medication to be sent to Third World countries with the Negropontes laptops (jokes).
Roland Barthes has also predicted the "death of the author". By this he means that when a text is out in the public sphere, the author has no control over how audiences engage with it and the types of meanings they get from it. Therefor it only seems logical to allow an easier access to remixing and recreating. If there is only one assigned meaning to a text, we will fall into the category of 'cultural dupes'. So by allowing easy and free access, it allows for better engagement with culture and issues around us. A link can even be made to getting power out of the hands of the few and into the hands of multitudes. Copyright and patents do not only affect music and movies but also medication and how cheap they can be. This could probably enable cheap and effective medication to be sent to Third World countries with the Negropontes laptops (jokes).