So this is kind of a working post because there is a lot more I need to learn about Creative Commons than I know right now, but I needed to get what little knowledge I have in my brain down on the blog.  As I learn more about this I think I will add to this post or add a new post because it’s definitely something I need to understand more for this class but here’s what I know so far:

To be honest, the thing I’ve learned while researching Creative Commons is that intellectual property and its protection is a much bigger issue than I’d ever realized. I started out by looking at the Flickr Creative Commons pool–and seeing how few of the images i really like wind up in that pool. Then I read up on Creative Commons on Wikipedia, which at first makes it sound as if CC is this unqualified good for the new-media world. Even though there is a section on the Wikipedia page for CC that delves into criticism of the idea, I wasn’t really sure about what was wrong and what was right.

The main thing, as I see it, is that artists of all kinds need to have some idea of how much control they have over how their work is used. One of the most exciting ideas about CC is that it has different levels of attribution, giving photographers and writers and others the power to say “You can use this” or “You can use this, but…”

What confuses me is how the CC website says that CC is not a replacement for copyright but that it “works alongside copyright.” I want to understand more about this and I will probably spend some time exploring the CC site to do so, i think I’m definitely a fan of this “copy left” movement and I’m in to the work the CC people do and the artists and people who take advantage of it.