When I was looking at other baking blogs I found this comment
(click for larger image; from pennylanekitchen)
Before I saw this I never realized bloggers have such strong solidarity. I didn’t know they look out for each other this much and would inform each other when their pictures or recipes got stolen. Stealing other people’s work is not only about blogging ethics that we covered in the last entry, but more importantly, it’s about creative commons and intellectual property.
Sometimes I think copyright is a very annoying issue. Like when you need some academic materials or software or recipe in urgent and they are not available to you because it infringes copyright, you just feel so helpless. Like when you’re reading a book on Google, it’s not unusual that you see these images
(from Google Scholar beta)
… this is when you get really frustrated. And you wonder to yourself, why are software not FREE?
Free software is also called copylefted items or items under General public license. As Richard Stallman says, we often misunderstand the meaning of free software. Free software should not be conceived as free beers, but free speech. ‘It is a matter of the users’ freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change, [and] improve the software.’ Personally I agreed with Stallman to a large extent. I believed free software would bring the society tremendous convenience. Imagine if I bought a $100 Nigella Lawson’s cookbook (her cookbooks are often with glamorous hardcover and usually cost a fortune) and my mom was interested in some of the recipes in it and wanted to buy a copy too. If I could just photocopy those recipes that she was after and add a few personal tips then just send it to mom, isn’t it easier and more convenient? Mom will get the same product at a lower expense (we still pay for photocopying so it’s not completely free as in cost-less in free beers). Obviously, General public license is good because it spreads freedom and cooperation within society and makes the majority’s lives easier.
However, after I posted recipes online I began to worry about my copyright. Especially when I read about issues like own images (see first image) got stolen, I realized that I want to claim rights for my own creation too. David Ricardo is right. His idea of Economic rent, which refers to the income earned by owning and allowing people to use the property, is definitely the most important thing for an artist to survive. In a world where we are born entitled to nothing, it is the rule/norm that we pay for what we use. Also, as argued by Dmytri Kleiner in his article ‘Copyfarleft and Copyjustright‘, if artists are never paid (enough) for that they have created, they’ll always remain broke. Chances are they won’t be able to make a decent living, at alone ‘accumulate more property’. Therefore copyright law should be enforced to protect their rights so we could enjoy more novel creations in the future.
It’s not rare to see creative common licenses used in baking blogs.
( from Baking sheet)
( from Baking Bites)
(from From the love of baking)
There are different ways for people to claim their copyrights. While some may put the claim right in the middle of their images to forbid the others to use them without acknowledgements; others put the claim in the lowest banner on a webpage. Alternatively, some choose to create a creative commons license like me (see the widget bar).
I have chosen to use a Creative common license primarily because I don’t want my effort and work to be stolen and claimed by the others. I want to be credited for what I produced simply because it’s just unfair to use others’ work without acknowledging them/the source! For a non-baker, it’s hard to imagine how much time and effort is spent on baking. You have to do grocery shopping to get the ingredients (which is approximately 1-1.5 hours), then preparation (30 mins), then the baking (30mins -1 hour), then wash all the utensils used (another 15 mins). Don’t forget you are taking pictures while you bake. Then you put them on the blog and share your very own recipe. Altogether it is like 4-5 hours.
Baking is fun and I’d love to share what I like with everybody. So to a certain degree, I agree with Richard Stallman’s contention of “the users’ freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change, [and] improve the software”. I’m happy for people to edit/distribute/copy my work because the whole aim of putting the recipe online is to share with the people who are interested. But in case I don’t have a license and some malevolent people take my work and claim all the rights, isn’t it just unfair on me? In the worse case scenario, would they sue me back for infringing ‘their’ copyright?
Another reason for creating a CC license is due to the similarities of recipes. Because it’s not often for amateurs to create a brand new food so if they cook the same food, their recipes are going to be quite similar. Like if you bake a cake, you must use flour, egg and sugar. They are the essentials that every cake needs a similar amount of. As a result, everybody’s recipe will turn out VERY alike. So if I don’t use a CC license, it’s possible that I might accidentally produce a recipe that is exactly the same as the others’. Then I will risk the breach of copyright. In order to protect myself, it never hurts to claim your own and acknowledge others’ copyright.
and this is what we usually get now: preset theme templates and
Goodbye Uni
It’s finally over: the course is over, the semester is over, and my bachelor degree is also coming to an end.
Net communications is quite a special course: you kind of have to write papers for assessment like typical Melbourne Uni media courses, but it’s like you can write whatever you want whenever you like in a style you prefer. You don’t have to apply Karl Marx or Pierre Bordieu’s theories as much in this course (which is what I like about it most) and you finally have the freedom and opportunity to write something you genuinely believe in.
The practicality of the course is certainly a plus. Throughout this course we look at topics about current Internet issues like ethics, reputation, privacy and the latest Youtube vids—they are matters that are related to our daily lives. Studying them in class definitely strengthens our understanding of them. More importantly, it feels like you are really taking something away. Well, cultural theories that you learn from other classes like political economy or American imperialism are also significant concepts that still hold true, but you just won’t randomly bring it up with your friends. For some of the topics we covered in class, believe or not, I do talk about them with my friends and often do they counter-argue with me. The practicality and the study of current social phenomenon unarguably are the strengths of the course.
However….
I think there is room for improvement for the assessment task. Although I like blogging, I have to say wordpress is not an easy blogging site for a rookie. I have used Xanga before and found it very convenient and way easier to operate than wordpress—it offers the users more freedom in terms of layout design and individual customizations. But then, the limits of wordpress.com may be an insight into critically reviewing wordpress.org and the political economy theory. Perhaps we are also assessed on how we deal with the restrictions of wordpress.com and see if we can produce the best from the very limited resources given?
This brings us to the small degree of ambiguity of the assessment criteria. Although it is listed clearly on the handout that there are 4 major criteria that we will be assessed on, they are still a little too broad. Sometimes I am worried about what I’ve written on the blog: Not the points I make are irrelevant, but I don’t know if they are too relevant. Is a 400-800 entry enough to display our knowledge on such extensive topics like comment cultures or creative commons while we have to incorporate the niche with theories? If I spend most of the content drawing upon theories, will it be too formal, unlike how a normal casual food blog should behave? Or if I merely use 1 theory in every entry will it be insufficient and appear like I’m just bluffing my way to reach a 400 minimum word limit? How should I balance and show all I’ve learnt? I understand that this vagueness may be an intentional design to sort us from the top-notch ones from the not-so-top-notch-ones. But as a student, I ‘d prefer if there is no grey area at all:)
Instead of wordpress, I was thinking maybe we can work on other software next time, maybe Photoshop? Although blogging is fun and practical, it wouldn’t be essential unless we go into the professional blogging industry. And everybody knows how to blog I guess? Maybe in a rather amateur way, but still, we know how to blog. It’s not a completely novel task that requires technical or professional skills. But Photoshop is. I am totally not a computer person and I realize that it really comes in handy if you possess Photoshop skills. When I was in the States for exchange last semester I took a course that required us to produce professional advertisements. In that task Photoshop skill was highly required. In the end it was discovered that only 2 out of 30 students knew Photoshop. That was when I realized Photoshop skills are really important when we work, especially in the media industry. It is a must-have skill. So I thought it might be an alternative for wordpress for the assessment task next year.
Anyway I think I’ve done a decent job for this subject: I have (tried my best to) regularly do the entries, incorporate and critically engage with the theories introduced at class/in the readings in the posts to indicate the knowledge I’ve gained, use different types of social media, explore different functions of wordpress. I hope I’ve done enough!
I’m afraid it’s time to say goodbye.
Ciao Net Comm, Ciao Uni.
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Tagged comment, net communications, room for improvement, strengths