Creative Commons: A Sad Sampling of Society’s Art

I was already familiar with Creative Commons through some other projects I’ve done in high school and college, so I was excited to see this as the topic of today’s blog post. However, I discovered quickly that I am now less impressed with it than I used to be, though I’m not thoroughly sure why this is the case. I went through many terms, searching and looking at the varied results, before I chose one to write about.

I chose very specific interests and likes of mine that I thought may have ambiguous results, some of which were certain franchises. Of course, nothing from said franchises appeared in my searches, and thus I abandoned the idea of writing about such things for this blog post. I decided to search for the term “dance.” I figured this would be vague and broad enough to garner a variety of results. I have to say, I was fairly disappointed in the results of my search.

Provided here are examples of some of the results I got for the word “dance,” showcasing the variety.

 

                

 

While this variety can be a good thing for those using the commons for projects, I found it extremely difficult to find photos relevant to what I wanted, which could make this very difficult to use for a project. While I respect the concept and appreciate its existence as a useful tool, we have a ways to go to make it ideal. But that says more about the money-grabbing capitalist nature of our society and some copyright laws, and less about those trying to make this a useful tool for the public to use.

 

                

 

Artists aren’t paid well. That’s just kind of a sad fact of life. So it makes sense that, even though they may be artists for the love of their art form, many might not want their work to be available to be seen or used for free. It’s unfortunate, but it makes a lot of sense in a capitalist, business-drive society such as ours. To an extent, anyway.

 

Word Count: 342