Circle 7, the Violent Against Art: Thing 10

Every year I teach Dante's Inferno, and every year the students are responsible for covering one or more of the circles and presenting their findings to the rest of the class. I require they find 3 or more humanities that go with their circle--art, music, movies, whatever. The present fad is to present it all in a power point (I don't require that), and they slap those images in and rarely give credit as to where they found the information.

How handy that Dante himself put the Usurers into Circle 7, a sterile plain of burning sand with flakes of fire falling from the sky. Apparently, he hated usurers as much as he hated Boniface VIII. When I watched "Get Creative", I immediately thought of Dante. The use of the term "intermediaries" I believe can be translated to "usurers"--people who make money off of money. I can see I've confused you. Let me back up.

A modern day usurer makes money off the products others create. No innovation on the part of the usurer is necessary. So when a band records a song and they want to put it on the web as a teaser, some lawyer at the record label has a conniption. Why? Because he / she is getting paid by the record label, who in turn makes money off the creative genius of say Alison Krause or the Rolling Stones. Did Mr. Stuffed Shirt write "Start Me Up"? No, that would be Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. But Mr. S. Shirt makes cashola off it, but he makes more if Jagger / Richards don't publish it online for everyone to have. That is way over-simplified, I know, but it works. It only takes a quick look around to see that our economy is populated with usurers who draw huge salaries from the backs of their workers. Does anyone seriously believe they are worth millions of dollars a year being a CEO of a company? At least an athlete is out on the field actually working; what do these chuckleheads do all day besides spend money on private jets and "corporate retreats" to Aruba?

But I digress. The changes in copyright that confuse everyone do so because our technology has superseded our laws' ability to keep up. In the '70s, who would have dreamed you could film your cat drinking water out of a tap--albeit awkwardly--post it online and have a million hits on it in a matter of days? No one, that's who, and our laws now demonstrate it. The people who can afford the lobbyists to pass such copyright laws are the ones losing money from "instant collaboration" found online. My guess is sites like Creative Commons are going to really test the patience of the usurer and their ilk. The situation reminds me of Inherit the Wind. In the play, a teacher in the south teaches evolution in a science class and all hell breaks loose. The back story of this drama (since it is based on truth) is that the ACLU wanted to take this issue to court, and so Scopes, the teacher, taught it (more interestingly, the authors say they wrote it as commentary on the McCarthy communism trials--funny how it works for both). I wonder sometimes when some one will take on the use of online materials in an educational setting, even though we do have more leeway than the average bear.

I myself use stuff from the web all of the time, and I include citations. I have never given work to cites like Creative Commons, though I may start should I ever get around to it. But then, I've never really thought that my photographs or whatnot needed sharing with the world (I reference back to the vacation photos quip in post 5). From what I understand, the district owns any creative thing I come up with on their computers, so I use my own most of the time, and save my cool ideas for fleshing out on my own time in my own home, with my own technology, but maybe I do own more than I realize--trust is not my strong point, however, so I'll keep working at home.

At least I have the imagination to come up with most of my teaching ideas and the ability to ask for help from my colleagues who offer great insight on how to make them work better, and with Creative Commons, I can dress up my lessons with visual and auditory enhancements. As long as my brain doesn't become Dante's sterile plain, I should be able to pay my bills. . .