Cable Green CC Reflection

After watching the discussion with Valerie and Cable Green, I found the information to be very interesting. It was quite informative to hear about how Creative Commons first came to be, and why. With the widespread public access of the internet in the early 2000’s, as Green mentions, the public quickly began to shift to a digital lifestyle. With the public now creating digital content, the legality behind ownership needed to be established, and the project behind Creative Commons licensing began. I didn’t fully grasp the “why” of the need to put a CC license on my online content. After listening to Green talk, he gave many examples of possible reasons why someone may want to license content and now it’s become clear. Openly sharing information and content helps everyone, especially when it pertains to the greater good of the public. With a CC license, an individual as an author is protected when sharing their work (depending on the license) and can confidently share their findings with the world with the certainty of being credited, while allowing the public access into their potentially very valuable resource. To progress as a society, free open legal access to each others works and research is the best way to help the society as a whole. In the words of Green, “it’s the right thing to do, it doesn’t cost you anything to share this resource with every public school in the world”. Most importantly while having the copyright, the author retains ownership of the material, and can update the content as they see fit. The entire concept is logical and necessary to have implemented, and I will ensure to be adding a CC license to my work just as it makes sense, and it’s free!