A philosophical complement to copyright is Creative Commons. While copyright restricts access to creative work and protects the creator through licensing, Creative Commons allows writers, photographers, musicians and others to still share their copyrighted work, but still get credit for their creation. Their creative genius is acknowledged when others use their work with attribution, and without everyone having to jump through the hoops required for copyright. Open licensing through Creative Commons allows collaboration in a wide variety of intellectual disciplines while still protecting the copyright holder.
I sometimes use photos from the web for teaching, but only those available copyright-free, from a Creative Commons site, or with permission. Those materials are not shared outside my classroom (except in those rare instances when a colleague asks for a copy) or published on the web, and they always include references. However, as we move into Web 2.0 product creation, it is even more important to document images and other materials. As a librarian teaching information literacy, I stress attribution and permission constantly, but it often seems to fall on deaf ears. Even with Fair Use and Creative Commons we need to educate students (and other teachers) to correctly cite their sources, and only use those items as allowed by the Creative Commons license.
However, it seems that Richardson (p. 105) claims any images anyone finds on the web can be used by educators under Fair Use as long as the creator receives attribution. That’s not consistent with what we’ve told students, which is not to use any images or text without permission. Richardson’s implication is that nearly every image found in Flickr carries Creative Commons licensing. In fact, I found far more photographs marked "all rights reserved."
I currently have a Photobucket account for school activities. I log on via Facebook, which is probably not the most private way but it ensures that I remember my log in information. However, since I log in with my Facebook account, I have to be careful not to mix school with private photos, and I never upload photos from Facebook. And, since I’m using a free site, it does have ads that come from suspicious sites. I love letting students choose which of their photos to post, and they give each other lots of encouragement and compliments. Sometimes they are amazed by the quality of their own pictures. Since there are often photos of kids, we have to keep their privacy and safety in mind. One problem is that Photobucket has limited options for letting me choose which albums are private. Therefore, it makes sense for me to explore all the options in Flickr. While we can share photos on Photobucket, we can’t collaborate and comment. I just wish Flickr wasn’t connected to Yahoo.
As I’ve learned more about Flickr, it seems that there are many more options to help students safely create unique products and share them with the world. That is the true wonder and magic of Creative Commons and Flickr, that children can be among those artists whose work is shared around the world.
References:
Frequently asked questions. (n.d.). Creative Commons. Retrieved September 26, 2013, from http://creativecommons.org/FAQ /
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Sajjad, Suleman. Pakistan Karachi Zoo. 2012. My Karachi through the lens, Karachi, Pakistan. Flickr.com. Web. 27 Sept. 2013.
U.S. Copyright Office - Fair Use. (n.d.). U.S. Copyright Office. Retrieved September 29, 2013, from http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
Welcome to Flickr - Photo Sharing. (n.d.). Welcome to Flickr. Retrieved September 26, 2013, from http://www.flickr.com/
Welcome to Photobucket: Photo and image hosting, free photo galleries, photo editing. (n.d.). Welcome to Photobucket. Retrieved September 26, 2013, from http://photobucket.com/