Emerging Technologies in STC

"What's yours?" is probably a question that goes along with intellectual property. My brother-in-law's niece when she was going through the "terrible two's" would always say "NO, IT'S MINE!" She was probably talking about her teddy bear or blanket or some other children's toy. When we're talking about intellectual property and moreover copyright, it is not so simple as whose toy that belongs to. It is definitely more complex. Nonetheless, it is important because we need to give credit to people's work. How would you feel if you worked really hard on something and someone else claimed it as there's? It's probably happened before. At work maybe? You worked on a project or came up with an idea only to have someone else take credit for it. For example, you as a worker discovered an answer to this huge problem. You share it among your teammates/department. Then during a meeting with let's say management involved, one of the management personnel asks about the discoverer. Someone else speaks up and claims discovering it. How devastating! You just want to say, "NO, IT'S MINE!"

Krista painted a good picture with what she wrote in the moodle this week, "You might also know that you automatically hold the copyright on any creative or intellectual work you produce. When you doodle on a napkin, you own it the second you finish and remove the pen from the paper. And you own it for 70 years after your own death. . . . The Internet complicates all this" . . . and yes complicated it is. I guess I could start by trying to learn more and more about copyright at http://www.copyright.gov/ BUT with the internet taken into consideration, I would probably need another brain to store the information. Anyone know where to find another brain?--Just kidding! Creative Commons also painted a good picture and uncomplicated the topic so I could understand more about copyright and how internet fits in with it. It definitely had a positive spin, which I totally like. The message was: collaboration, working together, and sharing your knowledge and creativity for the common good. Bringing up again what I had written what Krista had written: ". . . you automatically hold the copyright on any creative or intellectual work you produce. When you doodle on a napkin, you own it the second you finish and remove the pen from the paper. . ." That was mentioned at 0:56 on the video, "Did you know when you create something, anything, from a photograph to a song to a drawing to a film to a story, you automatically own an 'All rights reserved' copyright to that creativity. It's true!" For some reason, I've always thought in my head that we have to apply for copyright. Now I know!

Regarding my thoughts on what type of licensing we should use, it is a very hard decision and sometimes I'm the most indecisive person. There are so many to choose from in http://creativecommons.org/about/license/ After thinking and thinking, I am still not sure what to use, but if I had to choose now, I would probably choose:
"Attribution (by)
This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered, in terms of what others can do with your works licensed under Attribution." (http://creativecommons.org/about/license/)
The reason why: because it "is the most accommodating of licenses offered". I'm all about accommodation. In the end, others "credit you for the original creation".

All in all, copyright is important because giving credit to the respective person is the right thing to do. Looking from a historical standpoint, it may help in accurate recording/archiving. Furthermore, the person behind the copyrighted work would be considered the expert or knows the work the best. I myself would rather talk with the person who created the work rather than someone else who claims he/she created the work. Overall, copyright tells us simply the creator of the work without having to hear, "NO, IT'S MINE!"