Honestly, it's hard for me to grasp copyright laws or "Fair Use." I have not profited from anything that I have "borrowed" (I refuse to use the word "stolen") nor have I claimed it as my own (I detest plagiarism!). I think I've broken most copyright laws in the educational setting, so maybe I've been protected by that umbrella of Fair Use. Copyright confuses me. Why does it have to be so complicated?
Enter Creative Commons. I guess this should clear up the murkiness in the collaboration pool that has been created by way of the Internet. CC seems incredibly cool. I want to embrace it because I think it's been created for people like me who just don't get copyright. But it's still a hazy concept in my mind. I watched all of the videos for this thing; I especially enjoyed "Get Creative" and "Wanna Work Together" . I get the idea behind CC, and I love the philosophy of "it can be that easy when you skip the intermediaries." If only it were that easy to skip all those pesky "middle men" in life.
But I still have questions. So here they are:
- I love Google Images (a bit too much). So when I use Google Images, is it okay to just copy and paste? It's just so easy! Do I need to give attribution for each image--like on my wiki with all of the musical pictures that I used? Do I need to give individual credit for each image? That just makes my page look so cluttered and not pretty!
- I noticed that CC has a Google Images search. So should I just search GI through this site? I searched for the "Wicked musical logo" through the CC GI, and I could not find what I was looking for. So what happens when you can't find what you are looking for through CC?
- To attribute or not to attribute? That seems to be the question...
It bothers me that I don't have a clear grasp of copyright laws as a librarian. But I'm still a "baby" librarian, so hopefully I will get more comfortable with these laws/codes/rules/mandates as I get more experience. I obviously need to wrap my brain around this before I go out and try to preach it to others (the teachers and students at me school). I know this is a very important concept to understand in this day and age of creating and collaborating on the Internet. I REALLY want to understand Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons. Can you help me?
Copyright is a confusing concept. If an image does not have a CC license, you have to assume that it is fully copyrighted and that you must ask permission before using it. Following this rule will exclude most of the pictures you find with a Google image search.
ReplyDeleteWhen I'm looking for images to use, I typically use the Flickr Creative Commons search. It takes a while to find really good ones sometimes, but they are there. Import them into your project, add an attribution and you are golden!