IB Art and Creative Commons
I had an interesting conversation with our IB Art teacher after school today. We were initially talking about Photoshop and the best way for her students to learn new techniques. Very quickly, however, the conversation turned towards copyright, fair use and creative commons.
We came up with some very interesting discussion points and I wonder what you think about any or all of them. (My thoughts are in parentheses.) I also wonder what the IBO and the examiners think on these matters:
- If a student is creating digital artwork (in Photoshop for example), under what circumstances would you – as the Art teacher – allow him/her to use CC-licensed photos? (Personally, I would allow it. But it better be good!)
- How does one attribute CC media when it is used to create a piece of art? (No clue!)
- Is it a violation of copyright to use images from a magazine in student work? (Yes, definite violation.)
- What if he/she is taking the images, cutting them into unrecognizable pieces and creating a mosaic with those images? (Less certain… does this make it transformative?)
- What if he/she is only taking a small portion of the image so as to make it unrecognizable? (My feeling is this is a violation.)
I am certainly no expert on copyright, fair use or creative commons. But as Shepard Fairey and others before him have shown, not very many people can agree on boundaries of these terms. Do your boundaries as an artist and as a teacher of art differ?
Note: Just for fun we sat down and watched A Fair(y) Use Tale. I always enjoy watching that!
I definitely think the answer to your last 2 questions, maybe even the last 3 questions, is that the work is transformative, and therefore this is not a violation. Artists do this all the time. Look at someone really well-known, like Peter Blake. Almost all of his work is collage of this nature; he even “borrows” from other artists. But his work is truly unique and his own. I have said it before — I often respect artists of this kind even more than those who create everything from scratch. In many ways I think it is more difficult to put a completely different spin on an artifact widely recognized and identifiable by the public than it is to create something totally new. It’s the same reason I love the Lost Fingers and their remakes of all the 80s pop music tunes — as jazz standards. That takes brilliance, in my opinion.
I personally hate copyright – as a linux user it is extremely annoying, because many everyday things are copyrighted (such as the gif format, DVD format + encryption, etc) which really limits linux’s capabilities. For that reason I support Richard Stallman and the Free Sofware Foundation.
If a student is creating digital artwork (in Photoshop for example), under what circumstances would you – as the Art teacher – allow him/her to use CC-licensed photos?
Well, the idea of the CC is that everyone is allowed to copy and redistribute work, only the work may not be sold, only one sub-license of CC (No Derivative Works) does not allow any changes to be made on the work.
How does one attribute CC media when it is used to create a piece of art?
the created piece must also use the CC license
Is it a violation of copyright to use images from a magazine in student work?
Depends on the license. I would say generally not.
What if he/she is taking the images, cutting them into unrecognizable pieces and creating a mosaic with those images?
No idea.
What if he/she is only taking a small portion of the image so as to make it unrecognizable?
I read something about this. It was a porject where they tried to make a free version of windows by writing a linux-based OS and making it windws-compatible (http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html) and they had a probelm with copyright, and they wrote that copying windows by rewriting the code is legal, only copying code would be illegal. So, here i would say taking a portion of the image without modifying it in some way would not be allowed.