Lecture Week 7
The lecture of week 7 saw us introduced to the world of Creative Commons. Creative Commons was created in December of 2002, and is an online, not for profit system which enables everyday people such as you and I to copyright our own material, and use material that other people have copyrighted on CC (Creative Commons). It basically embodies a ‘shared community’, where we are able to freely, and rightly, use other peoples material without having to pay royalties. All you need to do to use material from the CC network is credit the person who created it. Basically to thank them. Sounds good!!
The idea of Creative Commons came from the ‘Free Software Movement’. The likes such as Microsoft and Apple create software for us to use, but at a price. Quite a hefty price. The free software movement came about where people started thinking, If we have bought a computer, why should we have to pay to use it? And why should the likes of Microsoft and Apple tell us how we can and can’t use our computer?
Richard M Stallman started the Free Software Foundation in 1981. It was based around the Free Software Principles;
Principle 0: The freedom to run the program, for any purpose
Principle 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs
Principle 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour
Principle 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.
The Free Software Movement has seen the battle between Proprietary and Open Source. Proprietary systems include the likes of Windows Vista and Internet Explorer and Open Source include FireFox and OpenOffice. Proprietary, of course, needs to be paid for, and prgrams from Open Source, are all free.
One thing I found very interesting, is that all of my friends have photoshop, which I don’t. This annoys me. But after the lecture, I discovered that there is a free version available for people to use. After having a quick look at it though, it seems pretty hard to use.
