Help us build a shared culture: CC’s annual fundraising campaign launched

Melissa Reeder, October 15th, 2008

Creative Commons has now officially launched its 2008 fundraising effort – our Build the Commons Campaign. Many skeptics think this is a precarious time to launch our major fundraising initiative; we disagree. This is an opportunity. An opportunity to call our community members to action – to help us make sure that the Commons continues to grow and be supported. These times demand creative problem solving and innovation on a global level – innovation that stems from collaboration and knowledge exchange, both of which are facilitated through access and sharing, and all of which are made possible by the Commons.

Since I started at CC, I’ve made sure that our annual campaigns (I can’t believe this is my third!) have always had two goals. The first is to raise a large sum of money from our community members (this year’s goal is $500,000) by the end of the year. The second, and in my opinion more important of the two, is to build awareness and community. The Commons is only as strong as the community behind it, and only by working together can we build a Commons that withstands the challenges of this generation and those to come. With this campaign, we’re asking that you help us Build the Commons by using CC licensed works and CC licensing your own work, educating others about the value of the CC approach to openness and access, and lastly – by joining the CC Network.

We are launching several cool things in conjunction with the campaign, and at the top of the list is the chance for you to join the CC Network. By joining, you will become part of a worldwide community dedicated to building the Commons and bringing open content to all corners of the globe. When you join you receive several benefits: a profile page where you can list your CC licensed works; an OpenID you can use at many different sites; and a button you can put on your work’s page to show you’re part of the CC Network. The button shows your support Creative Commons and allows us to add provenance information to the deed when people click through from your work.

We’re also launching the CC Video Project, where we’re asking you to produce a 90-second video that explains why you’re a Creative Commons supporter. So get creative and let the world know why you think what CC does is important. As the commons continues to grow, it’s important that we capture the stories of the community responsible for building it. Creative Commons has only succeeded because of the incredible work that you do. We want to hear and share your stories. How CC has helped you create, access, and collaborate?

This project happily coincides with the release of Jesse Dylan’s new video “A Shared Culture” which is an incredible short that features members of the Creative Commons board talking about the work we do and why we do it. Maybe you’ll choose to use Jesse’s video for inspiration. Maybe you’ll even take some of what he’s done and remix it, mash it up, or sample it in your own video. Whatever you make, be sure to let us know about it - we want to highlight all of the interesting people and stories out there. Check out the CC Video Project page for details on how to participate.

In addition to joining the CC Network and participating in our video project, there are many ways to support CC. Our financial goal is to raise $500,000 – a lot of money, I know, especially now; but any amount you can give makes a difference. You may even be able to double the value of your contribution by taking advantage of your company’s corporate matching gifts program. When you give to CC, you play a central role in helping to sustain the CC infrastructure, enabling us to continue our work maintaining and improving the existing tools and resources that millions of people use and rely upon.

As I said before, CC is around and important thanks to you and what you do with it. The livelihood of the Commons relies upon its community members – the builders, users, and supporters of the open web. If we don’t come together, and if CC is not sustained, the Commons runs the risk of stagnation and restriction – the antithesis of innovation, and innovation is so desperately needed right now. Help us make sure the Commons remains strong and continues to grow by taking part in the campaign today!

Stay involved and informed by signing up for our bi-monthly e-newsletter and by checking out upcoming CC events.

Check out the press releases for the CC Network and Jesse Dylan’s new video “A Shared Culture” for more information.

Geograph British Isles Releases 1 Millionth Image

Cameron Parkins, October 15th, 2008

The Geograph British Isles project, which aims to collect geographically representative photographs and information for every square kilometer of Great Britain and Ireland, announced today that they have recieved their 1 millionth image submission. All images are licensed under a CC BY-SA license, meaning the images can be shared and reused as long as the author(s) are properly attributed and any derivative works are shared under the same license.

The White Lyne | David Liddle, CC BY-SA

Just three months ago, we were praising the GBI project’s effort to release torrents of their image database, which then totaled 860,000 images. Congrats to the GBI project on this huge milestone - read more about their project here, including their well articulated points on the benefits of remaining free and open.

Nordic Cultural Commons Conference

Michelle Thorne, October 14th, 2008

In the wave of free culture gatherings this October, don’t miss out on the Nordic Cultural Commons Conference 2008, in Stockholm on October 22-23, organized by the Creative Commons Nordic network.

How is business created around open licensing? What benefits does the Creative Commons model provide for public broadcasting and archiving? How open licensing changes the production of cultural works? How does the common Nordic legal environment affect re-use of cultural works?

Nordic Cultural Commons Conference provides insight into these questions. Bringing together all Nordic Creative Commons scholars and practitioners, it is also a great opportunity to meet and discuss the latest open content practices and ideas.

Speakers include Mike Linksvayer (Creative Commons), John Buckman (Magnatune), Nicklas Lundblad (Google) and Paul Gerhardt (BBC Creative Archive), as well as Creative Commons Project Leads Henrik Moltke (CC Denmark), Prodromos Tsiavos (CC England & Wales), and Herkko Hietanen (CC Finland).

For more information, please visit the conference web site: http://www.hiit.fi/nccc/.

IBM’s “Mastering the Creative Commons”

Cameron Parkins, October 13th, 2008

IBM, outside of their endeavors in personal computing and technology, is an active participant in the world of open source technology. It should come as no surprise then that IBM has an article on their website titled Mastering the Creative Commons. Filed in their “Web Development | Open Source” series, Uche Ogbuji does a nice job summing up what CC does:

Creative Commons (CC) is an organization of lawyers, technical experts, and managers, with a very broad community, whose goal is to “use private rights to create public goods”, by allowing creators to express degrees of licensing between the knee-jerk “all rights reserved” and public domain (in other words, “no rights reserved”). Creative Commons provides the legal framework and text of licenses that allow you to say that “some rights are reserved”, and allows this to be clearly discovered by others, so that they can determine whether their use is compatible with your reservations. The lawyers are involved when these reusable licenses are crafted and updated, with support and feedback from the community, with the idea that afterwards, the sharing can proceed on the Web with much less legal interference. In this article, learn how to express CC licenses for your work, how to use public services for finding work from others you can use, and how to identify such work yourself.

The article explains what our licenses do, how to license a work under CC, how to indicate that a work is CC-licensed (including a discussion of RDFa), and how to find CC-licensed works. While the article is available online and as a free PDF download, it is unfortunately not under a CC license. Regardless, it is great to see an organization like IBM support CC accurately and whole heartedly like this.

Netwaves Bytes: Electro 1

Cameron Parkins, October 10th, 2008

Netwaves Records, a netlabel that focuses on genre-oriented compilations, just released their first album, Electro 1. Focusing on music that ranges from “electro-pop” to “electro-clash”, Electro 1 has been released under a CC BY-NC-SA license. this means it can be freely shared and remixed as long as proper attribution is given, the resulting and original works are not sold, and any derivative works are shared under the same license. Download it here for weekend listening.