IP thievery

Posted by karen on October 3, 2008 in Uncategorized

Have you seen any of the Web 2.0 applications that have a button to add an image to your document according to a topic you type in? They then go and search the web (Yahoo images, in the cases I’ve seen) for an image to rip off and put in your document. No source or attribution listed, and yes, they include copyrighted image.

Does this seem like copyright infringement to you? It does to me.

This is even worse than right-clicking any image off the internet or inserting an image from a URL, because as a user, you could innocuously choose this feature and not really know you’re doing something wrong.

I can’t quite imagine how anyone thinks this is ok, though I know my idea of fair use is not the broadest in the world. Let me know if you can rationalize this somehow.

Now if someone did this with CC-licensed content (and included an attribution), that would be brilliant.

Tags: copyright | creative commons | web 2.0

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It is an awesome world… or How Web 2.0 Came Through for Me

Posted by karen on July 2, 2008 in Uncategorized

I had a weird experience today. I was at NECC, sitting at the back of a big room waiting for a session to start. It was on open content, something I am very passionate about and am always looking for new information and perspectives on.

The time of the presentation came and went, and there were no presenters. I could see concern mounting, and people starting to shift around, getting ready to leave. I approached the person coordinating things and asked if they needed a “stand in.” They said sure. (There were over 100 people in the room, and I hated to see that many people interested in the topic leave empty-handed. I think OER is such an important topic that everyone needs to know about… and I’m mostly not very shy. :)

Lately, I’ve been putting up all my presentations and workshops on the web with a variety of tools such as wikis, Slideshare, etc. Because of this, it was super easy to stand up and use any Internet-connected computer to present. (Bizarrely, it was probably the first time during the conference that I didn’t have my own laptop with me.) Considering what a weird situation it was, I think the presentation went really well. This is something I wouldn’t even have dared attempting without technology. It is an awesome world we live in.

And best of all, some great new people know about the kids open dictionary and are helping up build this important tool.

Thanks to everyone who attended the session (even though it may not have been exactly what you expected :). Special thanks to Randy Orwin and Brad for helping with the tech setup to make this happen.

…and yes, for those of you wondering, I did verify that the small intestine is approximately 7 meters long!

Tags: n08s352 | necc2008 | oer | wikis | web 2.0
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