Onemedia Unconference

Greg Grossmeier, November 13th, 2008

If you can’t attend the Standford Open Source (Un)Conference this Friday because you are in London, you are in luck! There is another unconference option right in your city!

The Onemedia Unconference, which is being held in London today and tomorrow, is hoping to provide a venue for all who are interested in how new or multiple media technologies will transform the business landscape. The attendees of the conference will represent a variety of industries including TV, Film, Games, Animation, Mobile, Software, and Music industries.

Especially useful will be what is produced by the conference: a report that collects all of the unconference’s output from the wide breadth of topics that will be covered. The report will be provided under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license so attendees are free to share this report with others to allow for more enhanced discussion to happen.

If you are interested in how businesses are reacting to and creating new changes in the content arena you should check out the conference if able or at least the report when it is released.

Stanford Open Source Lab (un)Conference this Friday

Mike Linksvayer, November 12th, 2008

The Stanford Open Source Lab is a nexus for people in the Stanford University community engaged with open source software, open access, and other forms of openness as users, developers, creators, and more. They’ve had an excellent workshop series, including a talk by ccLearn’s Ahrash Bissell, available online for your viewing pleasure.

This Friday the lab is hosting its first conference — free and open to the public. They’ve put together a list of speakers (including me), and there’s also a self-organizing unconference component.

If you’re in the area check it out.

CC Salon LA 11/11/08 recap

Eric Steuer, November 12th, 2008

Last night, we hosted another edition of our CC Salon series in Los Angeles. Dublab’s Mark McNeill and Ale Cohen discussed their endeavors in Web radio, art, and film – as well as Into Infinity, the art and music exhibition they’re producing in collaboration with Creative Commons. Lucas Gonze gave a presentation about the economics of online music, which developed into an extended audience conversation about media business models and self-distribution. The night was a great success, with some of the most thoughtful interaction we’ve seen come out of these events. Thanks to the presenters, all of the attendees, and to Jonny Coleman of Found Gallery, who has graciously let us use his space for CC Salon LA for the past year.

There are a few photos of the event online at Flickr, in the creativecommoners CC Salon LA set.

Update: Thanks to Flavorpill for pointing people our way. Also thanks to boredLA for coming through, checking out what we’re all about, and posting a great event write-up.

CC Salon LA TONIGHT: Dublab and Lucas Gonze

Cameron Parkins, November 11th, 2008

A reminder that TONIGHT CC Salon LA returns with a fantastic combination of presenters – joining us will be web radio collective Dublab and Lucas Gonze, net-label theorist and XSPF developer.

Both presentations will discuss how CC, and ‘openness’ in general, is affecting web radio and net labels, both from an economic and artistic vantage, with a Q&A to follow each. Additionally, Dublab will ask salon attendees to create noise – both as a group and as individuals – which will be recorded and turned into audio loops that will be used for the Into Infinity project, a new art exhibition produced in collaboration with Creative Commons.

The Salon will be taking place at the always wonderful FOUND Gallery (Google map) between 7:30PM – 9:30PM. Follow the event on Upcoming, mark attending on Facebook, and make sure to come down and hear from two exemplary members of the CC community on their experiences with open licensing. As always, there will be free (as in beer) drinks for the entire night.

EVENT: “Rip, Mix & Burn: Is Creative Commons a Viable Business Model?” London, 11/6

Cameron Parkins, November 5th, 2008

For those in the CC community based in London, take note of upcoming event Rip, Mix & Burn: Is Creative Commons a Viable Business Model? Featuring a keynote from CC Board Chair James Boyle, the event will take place tomorrow (11/6) and will give those in London a chance to meet up and discuss CC as a commercially viable form of licensing.

DETAILS:

When: Thursday, 6th November, 2008
Time: Registration from 5.30pm with presentations to start promptly at 6.00pm, a networking reception will follow until 7.30pm
Where: NESTA, 1 Plough Place, London, EC4A 1DE

Register in advance here.

CC Technology Summit Program and Registration available

Nathan Yergler, November 4th, 2008

Two months ago we announced the second CC Technology Summit, taking place December 12, 2008 in Cambridge, MA at MIT. The response to the call for presentations was good, and the initial program is now available. I’m excited about the mix of topics we have on the program. The day will include reports from our community, including a presentation on copyright registry interoperability by Safe Creative and Registered Commons and a report from the Queensland Treasury on their use of licensing and metadata. We’ll also have presentations from within CC — a report on open source knowledge management from Science Commons and an update on what’s next for RDFa.

Registration is also now open for the event. While the first Technology Summit was free thanks to Google’s generous support, we do have costs associated with the December Technology Summit. To offset those costs, there is a registration fee: $50 for CC Network members or $75 for non-members. If you’d like to sign up for CC Network membership at the same time as you register, we’ve enabled that as well (no discount, though; $100 total).

It’s been a busy year at CC and I’m looking forward to the Technology Summit as an opportunity to review what we’ve done and look ahead to 2009.

EVENT: “Takeovers & Makeovers: Artistic Appropriation, Fair Use, and Copyright in the Digital Age”, Berkeley 11/7-8

Cameron Parkins, November 3rd, 2008

Those in the Bay Area take note – on Nov 7 and 8 (this Fri/Sat) a great event is happening at UC Berkeley titled Takeovers & Makeovers: Artistic Appropriation, Fair Use, and Copyright in the Digital Age. Focusing on “appropriation rights in the digital era”, the event will feature “artists, lawyers, art historians, and representatives from the information technology community to discuss the changing field of appropriation art in the wake of the emergence of new digital media technologies that have radically altered access to and manipulation of information.” Our own Virginia Rutledge will be speaking, along with a slew of preeminent thinkers in the world of copyright including Fred von Lohmann, Rick Prelinger, and Jason Schultz.

DETAILS:

Where: Berkeley Art Museum Theater
When: 11/7 (10AM – 4:30PM), 11/8 (10AM – 4PM)
Price: FREE and Open to The Public (No Registration Required)

CC Salons: Denver/Boulder and Starting Your Own

Cameron Parkins, October 31st, 2008

We recently caught wind of some inspiring news – unbeknown to us, a very active CC Salon has been happening in the Boulder/Denver CO area through Slice of Lime, a design and development firm. They are on their 8th installment, an impressive feat we haven’t even matched ourselves in certain locations. If you live in the area, be sure to check them out next month on 11/19 for discussions of CC over “beer, chips, and cupcakes.”

It seems a good time then to feature our recently revamped Salon wiki page. Borrowing heavily from our good friends at dorkbot, we are hoping to make the process for starting CC Salons in your area (if one doesn’t already exist) simple and straight forward. Simiarly, we hope that we can explain realistically what making a successful Salon entails.

More than anything, a successful Salon boils down to the interests of your specific geographical community – each city and area has its own identity and it is important to approach the Salon format from that perspective. What issues are important to you and the people in your area, and how does CC relate?The Salons are meant to address the belief that, while CC exists primarily as a digital tool, it is nothing without the actual people who use it.

The Salons are a great way to meet people who are using CC and open tools, and remains one of our best methods to help people understand exactly what CC does and how they can use it in their own lives. Check out Salon page for details on cities that have featured Salons, both currently and in the past – we currently curate Salons in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City but there are a slew of other cities that have shown active interest in the past.

Regional Workshop in Caucasus Leading CC Projects to First License Drafts

Michelle Thorne, October 31st, 2008

On October 23, CC Legal and Public Project Leads from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia met in Tbilisi, Georgia for a workshop to discuss the CCi license porting process in their jurisdictions. The workshop was facilitated by representatives of the Eurasia Partnership Foundation (EPF) and Nena Antic, Legal Project Lead from CC Serbia.

At the workshop, the Project Leads from the South Caucasus presented base-line assessments of their jurisdiction’s copyright legislation, a follow-up to the detailed reports they conducted in summer 2008. The results were evaluated to determine the steps required to port the core CC licenses to the legal framework in each respective jurisdiction.

Nena Antic shared her experience with the CCi license porting process in Serbia by highlighting the main obstacles, lessons learned, and CC Serbia’s tangible results so far. Nena provided in-depth explanations for the changes she introduced to adapt the CC licensing suite to Serbian law and led the workshop’s discussion on legal terminology, the NC & ND license elements, and Collective Rights Management.

Vazgen Karapetyan, EPF’s Senior Cross-Border Programs Officer and co-organizer of the workshop, remarked, “As a whole, the workshop proved highly instrumental in familiarizing the participating Affiliate Institutions with the successful experience of their Serbian counterpart. Learning about the necessary changes to port the CC licenses will definitely help the Legal Project Leads in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia develop their own first draft licenses.”

The first drafts from the three South Caucasus nations are expected to enter the public discussion on December 1, 2008.

The CC license porting commenced in the South Caucasus in May 2008 when the EPF announced a regional grant competition titled Support to the Adoption of Creative Commons Licensing Framework in the Countries of the South Caucasus. The Center for Information Law and Policy (Armenia) and the Young Lawyers Union (Azerbaijan) were identified as competition winners. On July 14, 2008, the two organizations were awarded individual grants to implement their 12-month projects in collaboration with Creative Commons International. In Georgia, a team of local legal experts representing Business Intelligence and Valuation GROUP – “BVG”, Ltd. was contracted by EPF/Georgia to oversee the CC Georgia project in partnership with the above Armenian and Azerbaijani organizations and CCi.

Image: “Tbilisi Old District” in the public domain.

CC Salon LA (11/11/08): Dublab and Lucas Gonze

Cameron Parkins, October 30th, 2008

In a little under two weeks, CC Salon LA returns (11/11/08) with a fantastic combination of presenters – joining us will be web radio collective Dublab and Lucas Gonze, net-label theorist and XSPF developer.

Both presentations will discuss how CC, and ‘openness’ in general, is affecting web radio and net labels, both from an economic and artistic vantage, with a Q&A to follow each. Additionally, Dublab will be bringing a physical ‘Into Infinity’ loop station, allowing Salon goers to create their own 8-second loops in the vein of Into Infinity, the CC/Dublab co-sponsored art exhibit ask salon attendees to create noise – both as a group and as individuals – which will be recorded and turned into audio loops that will be used for the Into Infinity project, a new art exhibition produced in collaboration with Creative Commons.

The Salon will be taking place at the always wonderful FOUND Gallery (Google map) between 7:30PM – 9:30PM. Follow the event on Upcoming, mark attending on Facebook, and make sure to come down and hear from two exemplary members of the CC community on their experiences with open licensing. As always, there will be free (as in beer) drinks for the entire night.