Meeting in Second Life

Attending a meeting in Second Life is way better than attending a meeting in real life. Not having to drive anywhere, get ready, or sit without being able to get up and grab a glass of water or even go to the bathroom are just a few reasons why I like meeting in Second Life. Now, depending on the tools the speaker uses any meeting can vary. For instance, I attended a meeting today where the speaker had this interactive polling system. This added a nice dimension to the meeting, allowing the attendees to interact with the speakers and each other, as well as enhance the subject matter, which happened to be "copyright."

In this photo, you can see the Instant Poll on the left and the two key speakers in the middle.  Directly behind the blue dragon was a slide viewer where definitions were presented.  To the right there is a little blue box.  The notecards for the meeting were here, giving directions on how to interact during the meeting, as well as an array of online links to resources related to "copyright."

I really enjoyed the interactivity of the meeting and the professional presentation of a very difficult material.  In the end, I would have liked to have had more concrete lists of do's and dont's with regard to the use of copyrighted material, but the dialogue was nice. Besides, I still need to look further into the resources that were provided for us in the notecard, a few of which are posted below.

Here are some notes and resources from the meeting that may interest you:

The fair use of a copyrighted idea for criticism, comment, news, reporting, teaching, scholarship or research is not an infringement of copyright.

Copyright Remix:  What’s Copyright, Copyleft, or Copywrong in a Participatory Culture?  Live in the Bookhenge, October 21, 8 pm ET

To be archived at www.bookosphere.net

** Talking the Talk **

(Definitions from the New Media Literacies Skills, New Media Literacies Lab, USC http://www.newmedialiteracies.org/try-the-library.php and the MacArthur White Paper:  Confronting the Challenges of a Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century,  Jenkins et al., eds, (2006). http://www.newmedialiteracies.org/files/working/NMLWhitePaper.pdf

Appropriate --  to sample and remix  media content

Transform – to transform media content means to not replace original thinking but build upon it in an original, innovative way;  to repurpose and add value

Negotiate -- to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms

** Fair Use Analysis **

Four Fair Use Factors:

1.    Purpose and character of use

2.    Nature of the copyrighted work

3.    Amount and substantiality

4.    $ effects on market $  

(Stanford University Libraries -- http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-b.html

Choosing a License for Publishing

After researching the most common licensing found on the Internet, I decided that if I were to produce something, most likely text or teaching audio and/or video that I would publish it under a Creative Commons License.  I also researched the GNU Documentation License, which is basically an outgrowth of the GNU General Public License used for software.  The biggest difference being that the GNU Documentation License applies to any form of text, including published books in printed form. The GNU license gives everyone rights to print, copy, alter, re-publish, etc...  The reason that I do not like this license is because I do not like the idea of someone altering my work and then republishing it without my knowledge.

The Creative Commons License allows people to print, copy, and distribute as well.  However, if someone is going to alter the work the creator can place stipulations on what can be changed and how.  The new author cannot change the moral integrity of the work either.  In essence, it is freely distributable like the GNU License except that the creator can control how the work will be used by others, thus maintaining the integrity of the work. So, when I publish I will publish using  lithe Creative Commons License, unless I write a book and decide to make some money off of it.

A great advantage to either of these licenses is that the right to freely distribute and modify the work to adapt it to individual user's needs enables the work to spread quickly.  In other words, the info. gets out and a lot of people can see it quickly.  Copyrighted works can only be referenced to...one can't simply post the work again for others to read for free.  The disadvantage being, of course, that you don't receive money for the GNU license or the Creative Commons License.

Here is a beautiful photo by Evgeni Dinev. It was released under a Creative Commons License. However, if the user wants to print the photo at a high resolution then the user has to purchase the photo.  Otherwise, website use and even corporate use is O.K.

The artist most likely released his work this way because he wants to share his art more than he wants to make money.  However, his work was released under certain restrictions and he still may make money off of it.  Stores, for instance, can't print this photo, frame it, and sell it.  Basically, in order to sell it, they would first have to purchase it.  This type of sharing is wonderful because people can preview his work and even use it on the web, but they can't steal it and sell it themselves because they don't have the high resolution copy. I feel the same way. I want my work to be seen and freely used, but I don't want others to make money off of me and I don't want my work to be butchered.