Legal and Ethical Issues : Creative Commons
Creative commons is an initiative for free information which gives people a right to share, use, or build upon information which is authorized by the producer. Long before the internet was created, copyright laws were created to secure people's creations so others could not profit off the same invention. In our current technologically advanced age, and ever expanding internet, we have much more uses for other people's work other than selling it. We should be able to allow producers to freely share their work with others to expand knowledge and interest in any given subject, under the condition the shared information is not used for profit. I do not think information (journal articles, TV, movies, music, etc.) should be automatically free, but we should at least update current outdated laws which give a producer a choice. This choice should allow people to modify their individual copyright terms which best suit their needs. We shouldn't expect all music, movies, TV shows, books, etc. to be free; people have spent countless hours and much money on producing these works, but if they wish to share they should be able to and still have ownership of their product. Information which was produced through government funding or any connection to the money supplied by the people of any given country, should be freely available to the public. In February of 2013, a plan was released which would require research that is funded by at least $100 million in Research and Development expenditures, must release their results freely within a year.[1] I believe this is a great idea, but we should not have a minimum on the amount received.
Works Cited:
[ 1 ] : Havey, Joseph. "Open Access Research Grows in Popularity." Technician. North Carolina State University, 11 Nov. 2013. Web. 27 Mar. 2014. .
