Week 9 Class and Reading Reflection

This week’s reading, Park Like: the commons and communications policy by Elinor Rennie and Sherman Young, discussed the issues surrounding commons and copyright in relation to the Internet. Something that struck me from this reading is how long something can be copyrighted in the US. It is something like 70 years after the ‘inventors’ death! It’s crazy…it means that ‘idea’ will not be allowed back into the public domain within ones lifetime. This is obviously going to cause problems in terms of information and idea flows. The reading also referred to Lawrence Lessig a lot and his idea/book titled Free Culture. I thought the point about him being a hypocrite by selling his book and not providing it for free on the Internet was an interesting one. I’m not really comfortable enough with this topic to decide whether that is a valid comment or not.

We discussed creative commons within this week’s seminar. I think the creative commons is fantabulous; it nurtures and stimulates the creation and sharing of ideas and cultural content that the everyday person can access and enjoy. Go CC!