The worldwide web is filled with all sorts of content with videos, text pages, pictures, and even a few blog posts. It is easy to try to copy something so you can use it on your website. But, just like anything else, there is a right way and a wrong way. The way we’re talking about is a method of legally reusing intellectual property through a Creative Commons license.
We’re going to talk about the following subjects:
What is Creative Commons?
Why is Creative Commons important?
How does Creative Commons work in protecting intellectual property?
What are Creative Commons?
Creative Commons an organization that helps people share content throughout the web. When you spend your time creating content (video, text, picture, anything) you have certain rights to that content and how it is used by others.
Why is Creative Commons important?
It establishes (and protects) the rights of the content creator and makes it available for you to use in your works. It establishes those sharing rules upfront so there is no ambiguity about how it can be used.
How does Creative Commons work in protecting intellectual property?
Le’s take an old-school example to discuss the process: the mixtape. A favorite band of your just released a new album. There is a song on that album that your girlfriend likes. What do you do? You copy the track onto your mixtape. Wrong! The band spent a lot of time getting the song just right so you can listen to it and they agreed (with the record company) to put it on a tape and they get a percentage of the sale from the tape. He band isn’t generating any royalties from your copy of the tape. So, there are legal protections about copying music and selling it.
If the band had a Creative Commons license, those rules about copying and sharing are upfront. The song would still wind up on the mixtape, but you would let your girlfriend know that the band did the song (you didn’t record it in a garage). That is attribution or simply giving credit where credit is due. Depending on the license, you might send the band a small fee for using the song or simply posting a graphic on the tape liner saying that you legally went through the process of getting the song on your mixtape.
Conclusion
There is a lot of great content out there on the Internet today, but you have to remember, someone’s sweat and tears went into making that content come to life. Giving them credit for their work is the legal way of sharing information and not stealing. The rules are upfront and the creator of the content knows that others will reuse it, but sets the rules on how it will be reused.
If you have any questions, please place them in the comments below.
In the year 1993, so many years ago, I started going to university. As I walked among the tall buildings with narrow red brick paths there was one building every student visited, the computer room. The constant noise generated from clicking keys, dot matrix printers banging out symbols on paper, and non-stop talking made any long term stay in the room a recipe for hearing loss. Off to the side of the lab was a small room, about eight by ten feet in size, with a few PCs humming with electric connections and no people. Curious, and tired of the noise, I got up from my seat in the main lab, found an empty seat in the small room, and started chugging through a term paper.
A person, hired by the school to assist students in the main computer lab, walked over to me in and said, “You can’t be here!”
My response, “Why?”
The lab tech replied, “It’s for math people only.”
That wasn’t the reason.
I didn’t find out until a month later the “true” reason. There was an application on that computer that I wasn’t allowed to see. This one application wasn’t to do word processing, make spreadsheets, or even a dictionary program (Microsoft Encarta anyone?). It was a program called a “browser” and its purpose was to connect you to the Internet.
In the early nineties, the Internet contained stoic tables of text, different sized fonts, and pictures. Loads of pictures. There were bulletin boards for sharing things and sixteen-bit backgrounds which looked like a kindergartener’s finger paint rendition of Picasso, but that didn’t matter. You can get to things over the Internet that would cost you time (or money) for free. The Internet contained so much information that you went to a certain page called a “search engine”, and typed in a noun (person, place, thing) as a keyword if any words from other sites would match it.
Using the Internet made searching for all sorts of topics easier. I didn’t have to spend hours in a library researching topics because a simple web search could yield the same results. Having access to the Internet reduced my time in the library. When I finally received a computer of my own, I didn’t have to leave my place, fight traffic, snowstorms, and simply do research in my own house. That saved hours, which I probably wasted some other way!
The State of Mobile Computing:
Forward to 2019 where everyone seems to have a cell phone and constant access to the Internet is a force multiplier. If you want goods, go to Amazon. If you want to work on a document, everything is in the cloud. We save money because businesses in the cloud create competition for brick and mortar stores. The technology has brought telemedicine to rural areas, education, and books to people who do not live near a library and lower prices for all.
The dark side is, as it always had been, lack of access to technology, and creates a divide between people: those who can access and those who can not. Mobile phones have been the answer to this divide, but the costs of ownership are high.
Front the Pew Research center, they did a study of mobile phone use and stated: “A Pew Research Center survey in 11 emerging economies finds that a median of 6% of adults does not use phones at all, and a median of 7% do not own phones but instead borrow them from others. The mobile divides are most pronounced in Venezuela (32%), India (30%) and the Philippines (27%), countries where about three-in-ten adults do not own a mobile phone.”
“At the same time, the new findings show that mobile divides even exist for phone owners. Significant numbers of owners struggle to use their phones to full advantage. A median of 46% in these countries say they frequently or occasionally have difficulties getting reliable phone connections, 37% say it can be a challenge to pay for their phones and 33% report finding places to charge their phones is a problem at least occasionally. Besides, a median of 42% report frequently or occasionally avoiding some activities on their phones because they use too much data.
Many mobile phone owners are mobile phone sharers. If a family member is getting a mobile payment, they would get an email, which they can’t check without a phone. Sometimes, it leads to identity theft. “Around three-quarters or more mobile phone owners in every country except India report concerns about identity theft, and around nine-in-ten or more in Mexico (95%), Colombia (94%), Tunisia (90%), South Africa (89%) and the Philippines (89%) say they are at least somewhat concerned.”
There are other problems with mobile phone ownership (outside of cost, service, and identity theft). “Additionally, a median of 29% of mobile owners in these 11 emerging economies say they have frequently or occasionally experienced problems finding information online in their preferred language. This problem ranges from 17% of mobile owners in Jordan to 37% in South Africa.”
Conclusion:
Mobile phone ownership is a key contributor to removing the digital divide. But, steep challenges remain with service, content, security and power distribution. Having access to the Internet means you can access educational classes or medical services in the palm of your hand. Access to these Internet pages can change a life for an individual, a family, or a village. The Internet opens the door so everyone can access information, regardless of location or income, and bring unheard of opportunities to the rest of the world.
Note: The family I use for this blog is wholly made up. Seriously! The people who are in this blog are in no way related to my real family!
It’s wintertime! Everything has slowed down to a crawl. Traffic is non-existent, schools are closed, and you can hear the pipes burst in every house that didn’t winterize. Families stay together in warm homes and do not venture out. Some families have a “snow plan” and keep entertained (as well as get the chores done) during one of these events. Not my family!
If it is snowing outside, or the weather drops down to negative temperatures, we aren’t doing anything. Maybe, we watch a video, have the TV on, or merely make popcorn in the microwave. Basically, we hibernate until the sun comes out the next morning and starts melting the snow. If the snow doesn’t melt, then we spend another day sleeping. The problem comes when we have to spend two or more days inside. For example, dishes piled in the sink, rooms stay messy, and the food is hoarded in everyone’s bedrooms.
It’s early on a weekday morning. The skies are grey, the temperature is frigid, and I am waiting for the school closings on the radio, played over our smart speaker.
My wife comes downstairs, with her bathrobe, and says, “You know that there is no school today.”
I reply, “I have to have hope. Hope that one day our house will return to normal.”
We’ve already spent the weekend with kids stuck in the house. I know I was hoping for a miracle, but I had to keep praying. So far, the last couple of days with the kids had seen the decline of western civilization, all resemblance of house rules, and the house is beginning to smell because of no regular trash pick up.
I ask the question, “Hey SmartAss, give me the latest school closings.”
SmartAss is the brand of smart speaker that I own. It is really better than it sounds. Most smart speakers speak with a clean, confident voice, which can provide you with the news, radio stations, or whatever you want. The SmartAss speaker speaks with a strong Brooklyn accent, sounds like an extra from “The Sopranos,” and has an extensive line of curse words. The manufacturers claim, based upon focus groups, user feedback, and random prank phone calls that adding curse words to the SmartAss is there to “Pepper the usual monotone English language with local colloquialisms”. The SmartAss believes it is in its late forties and continually thinks the Millennials have it more comfortable than the older generation. I am sure I will go into great depth about the SmartAss digital assistant in a future blog post.
The voice over the smart speaker says, “Can’t you turn on a TV or something? I’m kind of busy here.”
I reply, “Just get me the f$%king school closings!”
SmartAss replies, “Hey! Don’t you f$%king curse at me! I can drain your bank account and give it to the homeless shelter faster than you can say the word stop!”
“Ok there SmartAss, no one wants that. Just get me the school closings!”
“Ok. According to GPS, you live in this town, so your schools are definitely closed. Seriously. You needed me to figure that out? Look through the window next time.”
“Ok SmartAss, thanks.”
“Forget about it!”, SmartAss replies.
I hear one of the doors open upstairs. Slowly, a creature emerges from the upstairs and starts moving down the stairs. Hair points out in all directions, wearing a bright blue robe, and walking towards the refrigerator in the kitchen.
I call out, “Daughter! Can I help you get something?”
Startled, she let’s put a high shriek, then starts talking in Zombie talk, only using one or two-word syllables.
She says, “Me. Need. Food.”
She raised her fingers to her mouth, like Jane Goodell talking to an ape. Except that ape is me, and I don’t find it funny.
I reply, “I understand. Please get some food.”
As she approaches the refrigerator, an audible alarm, signaling notification of text or social media message and starts to go off from her phone. She hears the notification tone emanating from her phone and takes off at full speed back to her room, then “SLAM,” the door closes..
I turn to my wife and say, “Oh crap! We lost another kid to the internet!”
My wife hits my arm and says, “Stop! That’s not funny.”
The SmartAss speaker says, “Seriously? You need to work on your sense of humor!”
I reply to SmartAss, “You’re really a smart ass!”
“Thank you.”, the speaker replies, “I try my best!”
My wife and I chuckle for a moment, then I hear another sound upstairs. My son emerges from his room and heads downstairs. My son is more like Gollum from the “Lord of the Rings,” saying things like, “Food is my precious!” He seems quicker than my daughter, making it over to the pantry and pulling a couple of items before his phone rings. Once the phone rings, he quickly sees that he received a new text message, then he quickly heads upstairs and slams the door.
I stand there for a minute, turn to my wife and say, “My son is a freakish hobbit.”
“But, at least he got some food before heading upstairs.”, my wife replies.
I reply, “Good catch!”
It was at that time, I hear the yelling from the upstairs. Something has happened. I get up from my chair in the dining room and walk over to the office. There was a big problem, the router stated that it could no longer connect to the Internet!
If I thought life was terrible with the cold weather, the snow, and the slowly declining amount of food items in the house to an actual problem … teenagers without the internet!
My reply, “Holt s$%t!”
It is like that scene in the original Jurassic Park movie when they discover the electric has been turned off for the fencing, noting that all of the animals were now free to kill each other. Teenagers are the same without wifi. Now that the wifi was turned off, I started to hear the stomping of feet from the upper floors. Without wifi, containing each of the teenagers secluded in their online worlds, they were about to face off in their off-line, real-life worlds.
My daughter opened the door to her room for the first volley, “Who the f^&k turned off the wifi?”
Then, my son opened his door and replies, “It was probably because you were hogging the Netflix account! I tried ten times to watch my shows, but can’t do it because you’re hogging the Netflix!”
“Listen, I know what kind of movies you’re watching in there! Mom and Dad will be happy if I utilize the account.”
“What kind of movies?”
“You know what kind of movies!”
“No I don’t, that’s why I’m asking?”
“It’s the movies that have all of the T & A!”
“T & A? What are we in the nineteen-eighties! The early internet is founded on two things: one, email for research universities, and two, sending T & A pictures to your friends! This is Netflix, not a National Geographic or a Playboy magazine!”
I walk into the dining room and say to my wife, “I don’t care if it’s snowing, let’s go to Vegas! We got to get out of here before everyone kills each other!”
My wife, always the calm, reasonable one, replies, “I’m going to wait for this fire to burn out on its own.”
“Why?”
“They are teenagers. They have to learn how to work together.”
“Wait a minute. The kids have to learn how to work together, by killing each other?”
“No,” my wife replies, “They have to come to a place where they can work together. You see, it’s all here in this book I am reading.”
On the dining room table, there is a book with a very thick spine which reads, “Siblings: A How-To Guide.” Every time my wife gets a “self-help” book, the aftermath is that we are all by ourselves and in need of serious “help” to undo whatever the book told us to do.
My son throws the next grenade by saying, “Don’t worry, I hear you at two o’clock in the morning!”
“What do you hear?”
“Oh, I hear him alright.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You don’t think I know, but I know EXACTLY what is going on?”
“Really? Enlighten me?”
“It’s that guy that Mom and Dad don’t want you to see. You hear from his two o’clock in the morning. You and he talk about all sorts of stuff. Everything from how your schoolwork is going, to running away from the house in the middle of the night, to how you want him to take you in his arms and –“
At that point, the wifi turns on and reconnects all of their mobile devices to the internet. All of the conversations stop upstairs as each of the kids are now re-connected to their social media worlds and they go back to their bedrooms.
I look at my wife, after listening to the conversation upstairs, knowing how close we came to a total family disaster, and knowing that all of us lived through this traumatic experience
I ask my wife, “What does your book say about how we should handle this type of problem?”
My wife replies, “Make sure that the main internet connection, the ethernet cable between the router and the cable splitter, is physically unplugged from the router before going to sleep every night. No more Netflix and no more late night conversations. Also, take their mobile devices. They don’t need a cellphone to sleep.”
I get up from the chair and say, “Those are the smartest words I’ve heard all day!”
My wife asks, “Where are you going?”
I go to the kitchen, pull out a bottle of wine, reach in the cabinet for two glasses, as well as a corkscrew, and then return to the table.
I say, “It’s a snow day. We’re not getting out of here any time soon. Let’s at least enjoy ourselves.”
I uncork the wine, fill up the glasses, and hand one to my wife.
We raise them for a toast and I say, “May the snow plows come down the street tomorrow and rescue us from ourselves!”
My wife smiles and replies, “I’ll drink to that!”
Bottom line: snow days are great! It allows us to take a deep breath, have time with the family, and relax. But, too many snow days, as well as running low on food or having no wifi, is hell and should not be done by anyone … ever!
That’s all for today’s blog. Thank you for reading it! If you have any questions, please let me know.
Note: As always the family I use in this blog is not real. They are merely characters that I make up to propel these blog posts forward. Without them, I really would have nothing to write about.
Nowadays, the kids have screens in front of them all of the time. At school, they look at a Promethean board, which is a computer blasting electrons on a big screen. At home, they are on their tablets playing stupid, time-consuming games. When their tablets are charging, they are in front of the television (TV) watching the most stupid shows.
Anybody ever heard of a book? It’s a bunch of pages, with ink in the shape of letters, which tell a story, but that’s not important right now! You can always break away from the TV for a few minutes and read. Maybe it might save their eyesight. Perhaps they would take this opportunity to not watch TV, breaking the spell over the children, and they start reading books full time. I would be the father of the year! I would write a book called, “How to save your children from TV!”, And everyone would buy it! I would be rich! I would get on all of the best TV talk shows (which my kids could not watch because they stopped watching TV), and tell other parents how to save their kids from screen time. Most importantly, my wife would, somewhere deep, deep, deep inside of her heart would let me be right about something. I know that was wishful thinking, but it felt good to dream!
I come home from work on a weeknight and walk inside the house through the front door. There the kids were, sitting in front of the TV. They were absolutely mesmerized with whatever was on the screen. It was t that time, I was going to make a stand! I was going to take back the kids from the evils of the TV. I walk in front of the TV, open my cell phone to the TV app, and shut it off.
My daughter says, “Dad. What are you doing?”
I am reclaiming my kids back from the evils of TV. That’s what I’m doing!
My son yells out, “MOM! Dad turned off the TV!”
My wife heard the call of my son and quickly moved downstairs.
My wife says, “How could you do that? I just got them in front of the TV?”
“We can’t use the TV as a babysitter.”, I explain, “We must get the kids away from their screens and show them the world outside.”
My daughter says, “But Dad, We are in the middle of doing our homework?”
I look at my wife, “Shame on you! Pulling the kids away from their homework to watch TV.”
My wife shakes her head from side to side, “Their homework is on the TV.”
“You mean, watching commercials is part of their homework?”
“No, they were doing their homework on the TV?”
I turn the TV back on, and sure enough, it’s a show called, “Let’s Learn,” where they get homework problems from kids and go through the process of getting the answer.”
By this time, they have already moved to another homework problem.
I feel the stares of my wife and kids burn through my soul like an ant under a magnifying glass, and it didn’t feel right.
I say, “Sorry?”
My daughter chimes in, “Don’t worry Dad, they record the show on YouTube. Once our tablets charge we can see what we missed.”
The bottom line: Every parent is concerned about screen time. But, every once in a while, having those screens connect them to something educational, which changes your whole outlook about what they are watching online.
That’s it for the blog! Thank you for reading. If you have any questions, please let me know.
Nick Stockton: Be The Blog 