Let's Get Creative

I teach Information Technology in the Global Society, a technology & ethics course in the IB curriculum.  Intellectual property is a big part of our curriculum, and I introduce my students to the Creative Commons.

Content creators are able to license works for public consumption with conditions of the creators' choice.  There are six license types:

• Attribution
• Attribution Share-Alike
• Attribution No Derivatives
• Attribution Non-Commercial
• Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike
• Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 

Attribution means, tweak, change, re-mix, whatever, but "you need to let folks know that this is mine when you use it elsewhere."  

Share alike means as above, but "you need to let other people tweak, change, re-mix, whatever YOUR work that you make from MY work." 

No derivatives means you can reproduce and republish, but "my work must remain whole and unaltered." 

Non-commercial means of course that the users can't sell the derivative work.

And, creators can mix and match to suit, arriving at the CC license that is right for them. 

SPLC's Mike Hiestand presents on issues of copyright
and fair use.  Friday, June 21 2013. 

Students simply cannot continue to think they have carte blanche to take what they want, when they want it. Teachers need to get a copyright education (yay for us, and three cheers for Mike Hiestand), and resources like the Creative Commons and the millions of works now licensed with CC protections should be explored and promoted as students engage in creating media-rich works of their own. 

-Mike Simons

West HS / East HS
Corning-Painted Post NY