Well…so much for my diminutive definition of “collaboration”!!!!! Not that I was wrong about the definition in its basic state, but it involves so many different criteria, especially as it relates to communication and social media. I certainly hope that for the rest of my life when someone asks me if I am interested in a collaboration of any sort, I don’t barrage  them these 20 or so questions that the writer asks of us here in the reading. However, these questions do make a lot of sense as you read them. Certainly “intent” is a pertinent, and probably obvious question as it relates to collaboration, as are the “goals”. There are other questions mentioned here that it may not necessarily be in our first nature to ask, but that certainly are important in the overall picture – “governance”, “property” and accessibility”  are three that seem to be key as well. One idea that I’d never put much thought into is the “coordination mechanism” aspect – mainly because most projects that I work on tend to be human-operated. However, what if a project could be properly contributed to without human attention? What types of projects could be contributed to without  human attention? I’m sure that the creator of any such product will have a very high earning power. I’ll put on my thinking cap and brainstorm for something at a later time.

The beginning of the reading led us to the use of open-source technology, and later the ideology of copyright. Open-source  in a nutshell allows for input and modification from people other than the original developers. Although this concept certainly is not new, it’s advancement is now evident to a mainstream audience. Wikipedia is probably the best  modern-day example of what we use as open-sourcing. Personally, I have strong feelings about the idea of copyright. Talents and ideas are special and unique, and should be treated as such. As a person who has a love for music and was myself a musician (way back when), the idea of copyright is very much necessary to protect the originality of an artist, writer, inventor, etc. Innovation is critical, and innovators deserve to be compensated for great ideas. These ideas should by all means, in my opinion, be protected, and furthermore, generate revenue and profit by the originator when applicable. I certainly expect that when I record that hit record (which at this point is probably no more than a fantasy!!!) that my work will be original, innovative, and PROTECTED from mutilation by a party that comes along later and tries to reproduce my hard-developed idea.