Why Do People Share?

Are you one of the many educators who have struggled with how to provide students with music and photos that students can ethically use in multimedia presentations? The increased access to photos and music available on the Internet increases our responsibility to model and teach computer ethics and help our students understand copyright. The Read/Write Web has created a wealth of opportunities for anyone to publish text, images, video, or music. With these increased opportunities for creative works to be shared, came the need to redefine the way we share.

Along came - Creative Commons with the mission of "Enabling the legal sharing and reuse of cultural, educational, and scientific works.” Creative Commons has changed the way I teach "intellectual property". While I still use valuable resources like Kathy Shrocks's Copyright and Citation Resources as a reference and the free NoodleBib MLA account by Noodletools , I no longer start by introducing students and teachers to "what they can't do" because of copyright and the restrictions of Fair Use Legislation. Instead I start by introducing them to what they CAN do because of new ways to share and grant permission for others to use your work. Creative Commons newcomics and videos make it fun and easy to help students understand copyright and also spread the spirit of sharing.

I still stress the importance of proper documentation and respecting copyright. I show them my email correspondence with author Tom Friedman granting permission for me to use some of his materials in my presentations as testimony to how the Web has made it easier than ever to contact authors of copyrighted materials for permission. But now I start my lessons with a different 'essential question' --- "Why Do People Share?"

We explore Yvonnie Kim's insight that "Some might share because it is more fun, some might share because they believe it is for social goodness, and some might share because they want more people to see what they have done. No matter what motivation individuals might have for sharing, it seems obvious that ’sharing’ is related to the issue of how people are motivated and eventually how they are rewarded.”

I have discovered that the approach to teaching intellectual property combined with the spirit of independence and sharing that is an inherent part of adolescent development makes the students desire and seek out legal resources instead of grumbling that they can't use "Green Day" as the music to their presentation.

人们为何要共享 ？

     很多教育者一直在努力考虑到底该如何给学生提供音乐和图片资料，才能让学生在遵守网络道德的基础上，将之用于自己在多媒体上的陈述（建议是“多媒体演示”，实际上指的是运用多种媒体制作的讲演时候使用的计算机演示，后面这个presentation出现了好几次，请斟酌修改），你也是这些教育者之一吗？在因特网上找到图片和音乐的渠道越来越多，这使我们更有责任去规范和教授网络道德，帮助学生理解版权。可读写的网络为所有人了创造了很多的发表文本，图片，视频和音乐的机会。随着共享创造性作品的机会越来越多，我们需要重新界定我们的分享途径。

     创造性作品的共有，同时给我们带来了这样的任务（应该是“‘知识共享’被引入，担负着这样的使命”，CC的标准翻译是知识共享，参见http://cn.creativecommons.org/，后面请自行修改）：使共享和重新使用他人的文化·教育·科学作品合法化。创作性作品的共有，已经改变了我教授"知识产权"的方式。虽然我仍然用像凯西史洛克斯的"版权和引用资源"等一些有价值的资源作为参考，也使用由努顿工具软件（http://www.noodletools.com/） 提供的免费的努顿比博MLA账户(努顿比博，一种在线的用于生成参考书目的工具，MLA:美国现代语言协会推荐的学术著作原稿和学生研究论文的格式 )。我已经不再开始向学生和老师介绍因为版权和公平使用法的限制，他们不能做什麽了，取而代之，我开始告诉他们，现在有了新的共享方式和新的方式来授权他人使用你的作品，他们可以做些什麽。共有的创造性的作品中滑稽的表演（应该是“漫画”）和视频资料使学生可以更有趣更容易地理解版权的意义同时传播了共享的精神。

     我仍然要强调在自己的文档中正确的引用资料以及尊重版权的重要性。汤姆弗莱德曼通过电子邮授权我可以在我的陈述中引用他的一些材料，我给学生看了我与他的邮件，作为例证来证实：网络，使与已有著作权的资料的作者联系来取得允许这一过程，变得前所未有的容易。然而现在，在我的课程中，我又开始探讨一个不同的"本质的问题"---"人们为什么要分享?"

     让我们看一下伊冯凯莫的见解：一些人愿意共享，是因为那会更有趣，一些人是因为觉得共享会给社会带来好处，还有一些人是因为想让更多的人看到他们做了什麽。不论个人的共享动机是什麽，似乎很明显，"共享"这一活动，与人们如何被激发和通过共享最终得到的回报如何，是有联系的。

     我发现，把教授知识产权和培养作为青少年发展的核心部分的独立又乐于共享的精神相结合，可以激发学生的欲望去寻找合法的资源，而不是去抱怨他们没法把绿日乐队（90年代之后美国朋克音乐复兴时期的重要乐队之一）的歌曲下载到他们的个人陈述中。