tute5 21/01

There are two aspects of today material that I found interesting concerning the study of new communication technology. First we talked about the Creative Commons and copyrights. Creative commons is a kind of copyright but more a more flexible version of it as it enable people to share,remix or reuse legally the work of someone else. Creative Commons licenses provide simple, standardized alternatives to the "all rights reserved" of traditional copyright. This idea of more flexible copyrights comes from the free software movement. We still have the choice to use free software but nowadays a majority of people pay for their software. Therefore this idea of sharing knowledge and openness is marginalized as making money is at the head of today society. The real difference is in the concept: free software are available to anyone and you can access the source code so that you can make changes to it and share it with your new arrangement. This idea has created a connection between people and they exchange their software, ideas and knowledge in order to contribute to the community. On the other hand software that you have to buy to use are good but the source code is hidden so that no one can make changes or copy the software. This mean that if there is any thing that you want to arrange in the software, you are not allowed. You cannot change it and share it. You could probably send an email to the creator but he would certainly ask you to wait for the new version and pay for it.