"When you share your creative wealth, you can accomplish great things" Creative Commons and Sharing

"When you share your creative wealth, 

you can accomplish great things" 

from the Want to Work Together? video from creative commons.org

I learned something today that I'm kind of embarrassed that I didn't know! Whenever you create an artwork, publish a photo, or compose music... it's automatically copyrighted. As in, All Rights Reserved. Seriously, I did not know that.  I always assumed a copyright was something you have to add.  Or it was a license that you had to buy (and would be a worthy investment for a professional photographer or musician...)  To see an explanation about how exactly this works, check out this short video from creativecommons.org.

Cathy Newsome explains a teacher's responsibilities in A Teacher's Guide to Fair Use and Copyright Modeling Honesty and Resourcefulness © 1997  All Rights Reserve

Fair Use and Professional Responsibility: Beyond the legal aspects of the copyright law lies an important issue -- Ethics. Educators, without regard to or knowledge of copyright restrictions, sometimes duplicate materials illegally or load software without license. Such copying, seemingly convenient and unnoticeable, is, in fact, stealing--taking someone's property without permission, thus depriving the author of income or control to which he/she is entitled. 

Teachers have a moral obligation to practice integrity and trustworthiness. Just as they expect students to refrain from cheating on tests and from taking others' belongings at school, teachers should honor the law when it comes to fair use and copyright. Thus, teachers not only should protect themselves from legal liability but should also model honesty and truthfulness by knowing when and what may be copied for educational use.

Not being a teacher, I've never faced this dilemma yet. As an artist, I guess I've never been worried about my artwork or personal photos being "stolen" or used inappropriately.  But then again, I've never painted something and set out to sell it - I've given them as gifts... or been commissioned at the outset... But if I had some sort of online gallery where I was hoping to sell artwork - and my financial well-being depended on it - I suppose I'd be upset if people were just "copy-and-pasting" my images and I wasn't seeing a dime.  Even worse, what if I came across someone else using my art to make money themselves?!  

These are a series of self-portraits in which I was experimenting with different methods of achieving light and shade. They are very dear to me and I'm not sure how I'd feel about someone offering prints, or claiming these as their own work.  Or altering them.  Luckily, apparently they are copyrighted.  Who knew?

On the other hand, this "Breakdown of a Breakdown" series has been helpful to others... I showed it once to a therapist I was seeing (I've battled depression since I was 16).  She liked them so much, she asked for prints. She wanted them as sort of a visual aid for other patients.  A way to discuss exactly how they are feeling by pointing out which "stage" they felt they were in.  That was an awesome feeling... knowing something I created could truly help other people.  If that's the case, I love to share.  I like that it is my choice.  

It's hard to police the internet - that much is true. The anonymity it affords users is empowering.  I mean, I admit it - I've never really checked the copyright on images before using them for projects (although, I've never claimed someone else's work as my own.)  In fact, in my undergrad painting class, part of our usual assignment process - which always included a short written proposal before and written reflection after - was to find an "inspiration" of some kind (usually an image of artwork we found online).  We weren't copying by any means and we always had to include attribution to the artist. It was more of a "find something you admire about this piece and incorporate that technique into your own original work" thing.  Here's an example of the process.

Georges Rouault, Head of Christ, c.1937. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art

Sara Vandygriff, Self Portrait: Burst of Courage. 2009. Wadsworth: My Living Room Wall

There was a written proposal - stating what I wanted to try (i.e. the dramatic yellow coloring - trust me, that photo is way darker than the painting is in person - and bold black lines) and why I found it inspiring (the eyes are so incredible - although mine ended up more realistic). So, you see, there is a way to incorporate proper usage of imagery - with attribution.  In fact, before those classes - of which there were several since I was a painting/drawing focus within my fine art major.  

Side note - please don't take the abundance of self-portraits as egocentric or anything. I find the psychologically revealing nature of how artists represent themselves fascinating and did my honors thesis as both a written history and exploration of self-portraiture.  I complemented the written history by attempting to incorporate many different approaches to self-portraiture it in my own body of work.

Anyways, so that professor was pretty effective at helping us incorporate Fair Use into our projects (we lost points on the proposal if we didn't cite it properly).  As an art teacher, I think I'll continue my professor's tradition - at first I found it annoying - I mean, I just wanted to pick up a brush and paint!! - but over time in most cases I found it helpful.  But imagery is so important in visual art (duh...) that it will be important to make sure that both I and my students understand copyright, public domain, and creative commons licenses.  I liked this teacher's approach (even though it's not specifically art-based)




And although I will be teaching art, the same applies to literature, poetry, movies, and music...  and as teachers we need to teach students the sanctity of others' creations.  And the consequences of not doing so. To remember that we need to respect that people make a living from the works they create.  But if they want to share - to contribute to the general creativity of the world at large - then as long as our students use the correct procedures to cite original artists then it's fair game!