Week 1 Comment #1 - Michael Wood

Michael Wood's Week 1 response on Copyright

My Response:

Michael,

I can relate with creating media in a time where there was no Internet. In the 8th grade I had to create a board game about outer space and I had to create my own graphics and spend many hours at the library to research the facts. Of course now that we have the Internet today there is so much to take in. Even though there is an abundance of media out there that is licensed under Creative Commons or even free, I have always tried to make my own so I could somehow contribute to the media rich society we are a part of. 

Another interesting thing is software. There is so much software being pirated right now and commercial content is being created with that software. This can lead to copyright infringement with large fines and even jail time. This kind of thing goes with what you mentioned that students don’t really care about copyright today. Software is so expensive especially stuff for special effects and 3D development. I actually ran into a dilemma the other day at work. I was told that I wasn’t going to get Autodesk Maya, the 3D software I have been using for 12 years. The software costs close to $4,000 and I was trying to figure what I was going to do to create 3D animations for training. I took a completely different approach and chose to use an open source application called Blender. Blender has everything most commercial applications have and the best part is that anything you create can be licensed by you and be used for anything you want. There is a small learning curve, but I feel a certain type of freedom that I normally feel when using Creative Commons or free media. There is no expensive upgrades or expiring licenses, just free software that helps to enhance creativity. Sure, the software that costs more than organs on the black market can help in creativity too, but its just like having to dish out every dollar you have to use copyrighted media. I only hope Fair Use, Creative Commons, Free media, and even open source software will continue to spread.