The Washington Post ran a piece today on Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling’s views on fan fiction. Quoted in the piece are our own Hal Abelson, a Creative Commons board member and chief technical advisor, and the EFF‘s Wendy Seltzer.

Hello Creative Commoners! We are back with a new episode of CC’s Open Minds … from Creative Commons podcast. In this episode, Creative Commons’ General Counsel, Kat Walsh, sits down for an hour-long discussion with award winning science fiction author, journalist and technology activist, Cory Doctorow (craphound.com).  Cory is a renowned advocate for liberalizing copyright…

A couple weeks old, but worth reading: Cory Doctorow excoriates Science Fiction Writers of America for issuing takedowns on his behalf, without his permission, against sites hosting his books, with permission (under CC licenses). Meanwhile, Cory blogs about another author’s science fantasy trilogy released under a CC license and is writing a column in Locus…

With all of the public debate about the role of innovation in music and movies, it’s not surprising that discussion of the uses of Creative Commons licenses tends to be about their place in the music and movie industries. When there is discussion about text and books, it tends to be about academic works, like…

This guest blog post was written by Niki Korth. If you’re in the Bay Area, come see Marc read from his new book at City Lights Thursday night and come hear Niki speak at next week’s CC Salon. Marc Weidenbaum / Jorge Colombo In 1996, Marc Weidenbaum founded the website Disquiet.com, which focuses on the…

As CC continues to grow and expand, one of the best ways we’ve found to communicate our mission and what our licenses can provide to new members of our community is by letting the rest of the community do the talking. We highlight stories on our blog and twitter, work with groups to flesh out…

BloodSpell is a feature-length machinima movie written and directed by Hugh Hancock and produced by Strange Company. The fantasy film uses the game engine behind the popular RPG Neverwinter Nights and is currently being released in serial form, with short episodes hitting the Web every two weeks. BloodSpell is licensed under CC’s Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license, so…

A museum exhibit called “Illegal Art” might sound like a history of naughty pictures. Turns out that the exhibit (through July 25 at SF MOMA Artist’s Gallery) is more innocuous than most primetime TV: A Mickey Mouse gasmask. Pez candy dispensers honoring fallen hip-hop stars. A litigious Little Mermaid. Not kids’ stuff, exactly—but illegal? Copyright…

Today we launched a new site, and a new contest. Check out CC Mixter to win a chance to be on the next Fine Arts Militia album featuring Chuck D, or a chance to be featured on the Creative Commons release, THE WIRED CD: Ripped. Sampled. Mashed. Shared. Sample The Beastie Boys, David Byrne, DJ…

“Reading between the lines of fan fiction” by Ariana Eunjung Cha