The Public Domain Project
"I think Wikipedia is one of the greatest inventions ever!"
I bet you thought you'd never hear a professor say that. But when thinking deeper about the information highway, what I really love is that with a tad bit of effort you can find anything.
The Public Domain Project over at Pond5 has so far collected 10,000 film clips, 64,000 images and hundreds of audio files free for public access.
But what does one have access to exactly?
“The project includes digital models of NASA tools and satellites, Georges Méliès’ 1902 film, A Trip To The Moon, speeches by political figures like Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King, Jr., recordings of performances from composers like Beethoven," boasts one of its bloggers.
There are also every one's favorite cat videos . . . Very early cat videos.
Open Culture imagines that some future creator "could make creative use of this stuff indeed, and if they need a score, they could use a concerto for pizzicato and ten instruments, Chopin’s “Nocturne in E Flat Major,” or maybe “Johnny Get Your Gun.” Alternatively, they could part out the very first documentary and use the Public Domain Project’s bits and pieces of Dziga Vertov’s Man With a Movie Camera. Whatever you want to create, the usable public domain can only grow more fruitful, so you might as well get mixing, remixing, and sharing."
What kind of material would you like free access to? How could this be public domain site be used in the classroom? What mash-ups can you imagine?
I would like free access to music and movies. The only problem with that is that the people making movies and music wouldn't be able to make a profit. Actors wouldn't be paid like they are, or probably wouldn't be paid at all. Free access would be good for me, but it could ruin the entertainment industry.
ReplyDeleteThe public domain site could be used in class because it would easily provide students with access to a lot of information. The only problem with that is the validity of the information. On sites like Wikipedia people can easily add information to that site, and who are these "people"? Are they even credible enough themselves to give out that information? Students and teachers that aren't getting the right information would be doomed.
I wouldn't want to imagine any types of mash-ups. Mash-ups today are annoying and musically inferior. Besides i wouldn't want a remake on history. Just the other day I saw a photo of Martin Luther King Jr. that was photo-shopped. The recreated picture featured Martin Luther King Jr. hold up his middle finger. That just made a bad mark on a peaceful man, and something I definitely wouldn't want to see on any other important leader.
“Knowledge is power,” (Francis Bacon). In that consent, I would like the capability to free access all material from all around the world even some consider as classified. The idea behind the public domain site is to provide everyone information being share around the world by everyone around the world. The website also give those with no credibility to share their evidence, or rather their opinion editing onto any professional article on the Wikipedia. In my opinion, I rather not have any public domain site to be used in the classroom. The reason are that anyone could have tamper with the original article or create an illegitimate article for their own benefit of destroy another research or proving their point through lies. The mash-ups potentially be preposterous of one can used multiple other evidence of no credibility with no research. For example, a simply how research on Asia Civil wars on Wikipedia, however, one found the support were African-Americans started those Civil Wars. This kind of mash-ups can ruin one trying to understand of oneself history or research.
ReplyDeleteknowledge is belong to all human beings,so I don't think that we share it in the website is wrong. In this way, I am pleasure to agree all material to be free. But that is not enough. If we just think about personal activities, providing free material is a good advice, but some commercial activities use those free material to earn high profit, we can't ignore them. so I think the free material should be basic and in order to respect the writer of knowledge, we need write down their name and only after their agreement, we can post in free.public domain site be used in the classroom is a good but we need be careful. Because students are studying, they can't distinguish which are bad or good. so information source should be very important. at that time teachers' job is make sure it is really trustworthy and helpful. The mash-ups is that the main study is from textbook and the optional study is from website. That would make class interesting. And in certain way open students' eyes, and encourage students develop their hobbies.
ReplyDeleteI would highly appreciate free access to any information posted on the internet. If it is there to inform people, I believe that everyone should be allowed access to it, especially to college students who need it, since they are more informed and educated about plagiarism. Books, blogs, and essays should be there for free use, as long as it is properly credited. With the new technology of "Turnitin" in most universities like Cal State East Bay and Diablo Valley College, there is less likelihood of plagiarism.
ReplyDeleteThe Public Domain Project would highly be useful to teachers and students like me. With a few clicks they can find and watch any videos that are related to the topic materials in the classroom.
It would be great and useful in the classroom if the teacher was just able to show videos of her lecture material to the class as she keeps talking. I think it would be a great visual, and it would definitely make it more interesting for her students.
I think a great mash-up is a video of all the evolution and history, and put hip hop music in it to make it funny. For example, a video of one of the American presidents winning an election and "Feeling Myself" by Mac Dre would be playing just to represent how that president felt winning the hearts of the Americans.
I would love to have access to free movies that are war related or have history to it. The reason why is in so many history classes you will have to do a project and talking about how bad the war is just gives you a little of information on how bad it was. But videos are able to show a person how bad a certain war was. Also you can make remixes to show certain parts over and over again.
ReplyDeleteOther materials that need to be public are books! There are so many times where you just need a page or two from a book but can not use it unless you buy it. If they were to make this for students this will help a lot.
Having an access to all the information that is being stored on billions of pages on Internet is like unbelievable, all information in your hands. Its the power that no one can even think about. Information is a most powerful weapon against aggressor, was and always will be. Being able to create weapon by yourself, start a revolution or over through the government, that sounds crazy, right? But do we need it actually? I dont think so, because knowledge comes with years and experience. But by having all information at once, life would become so boring, people wont have thirst for knowledge anymore. In my opinion that would be the end of the human era.
ReplyDeleteI believe that those who want access to various types of information, should have the right to do so. Well the most important thing is understanding what history has done for our world. When I say world, it is referring to the human contributions. For example, a child can fly a kite for the first time. Just 5 seconds of excitement can light a fire towards the next biggest innovation. Do not get me wrong because information can be just as harmful as not. But without information, we would not be able to enhance our style of living. They can monitor us all they want but as long as they do no harm, we will be in a state of longevity. Let's take a look at our historic timeline and see how far we have come. Flashback to 20 years ago. Computers did not even exist during that time. Evolution is an ongoing process that never ends. Its a factory of memories that keeps its legacy. The present actually helps with understanding the past. It is also interchangeable as well. So next time you get something free, take a moment to think about where it came from and who gave it to you.
ReplyDeleteThe public domain is an amazing thing. I'm glad to hear that there's a project going on that is increasing the number of things in it. There's a saying that almost everything has been done by someone else, so there's almost nothing you can do that hasn't been done. New inventions and ideas almost always use the ideas of other people.There's so much information out there, especially on the internet. However legally, it's not responsible to use most of it. With all the copyright laws and the threat of being accused of plagiarism, it's nice to have a public domain where people draw from freely.
ReplyDeleteIf I had the access to be in any website it would be the one that offer movies that have been from many years ago but with color and noise. Those are interesting because there aren't seen as often. Because its history that we should be paying attention to. There are so many sources that we can see and read off but we aren't allowed to use them if we don't go through a whole copyright process. Even just to make a copy of a page from a book we aren't allowed to because we can get into trouble for plagiarism.
ReplyDeleteI would really appreciate it if we all had free access to any information posted on the internet. It is for the purpose of to inform the people and I believe that everyone should be allowed to access it. Knowledge should belong to all humans and it would be especially helpful to college students. We could possibly use the information on essays are on school work.
ReplyDeleteI would love it if they could actually give us access to everything that is actually posted on the internet, I can not tell you how many times where I've been trying to researching stuff for a paper, find an interesting and informative looking paper, begin to read only to get cut off halfway through and being informed that I have to purchase the entire document to learn anything more. It has always been entirely frustrating to me to be unable to gain access to a piece of writing as simple as an essay that someone wrote or an excerpt of a book. I feel as if having access to all the information out there would be extremely beneficial for students who are just trying to get by and do their work,. It would just be great if everyone could literally have the world at their fingertips without having to
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