Forging the Internet in Our Own Image (copyright approval pending)

"Of all of our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speak the most universally understood language."

Walt Disney

I’m sure I’m not the only person tempted to start this part of the 23 Things programme with ‘a picture is worth 1000 words’. However, I’ll swerve away from that and instead crash into the image week from a different angle and start with a quote from the leader of the Mouse House.

I never use other people images. Well, very rarely. Hardly ever. Usually that is because I can’t find just the right image or I have one in mind already that I’d use. When I do I tend to clumsily alter them in Photo Shop or similar as opposed to using them outright. For a birthday a few years ago I put my head on Rhodes’ body in his Cape to Cairo poster and have dabbled with WW1, WW2 and Warsaw Pact Cold War propaganda posters as well. I suppose I assume they are out of copyright, or that the Stasi are unlikely to file a case against me.

Images and pictures can really change a webpage, poster, presentation or document but they do have to be carefully applied. A series of badly added clip art pictures can be as bad as a droning monochrome PowerPoint, so the pick has to be right. I’ve added some pictures to this blog right from the start as they are a good way of illustrating a point and I really like the surprise factor in clicking on a highlighted word and then seeing an image which makes the point hit home.

Creative Commons is like the feature on a DVD player whereby if you’re watching a DVD, turn it off and then turn it on again later it starts in the same place. Really, really useful, a delight but something you take for granted very soon. Not being massively active on-line with images on a regular basis it has no continual effect on me, but I see how it makes it easier for many people to crack on with creating some really great stuff, be it Photoplasty competitions or B3TA or anything else.

But is it a case of trying to establish law in the Wild West when the West is infinite? How often do people get the knock on the door that their images violate copyright? Sure, if what you create becomes a meme or is popular you may get caught and the same if you start to make money and get noticed. But even then, are there effective sanctions? Those who are after you are very unlikely to have the power the film and music businesses have.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that copyright has become more flexible and adaptable to the modern world and as someone who’s future inheritance / income may well depend on an application of some form of copyright and intellectual property I want there to be rules. It’s just that in the real internet I’m not sure how many people follow CC or would be aware of it.

In the future they will doubtless look back at these past 15 or so years of the internet and see it as a really wild and free time. Even while I have been online it has changed and become more restrictive, more bound by law which has been positive and negative. More awareness of things like CC may change it further in the future, but who do you start educating and when?