“Yes We’re Open” and “Free Culture TV” Launch as Miro Channels

Fred Benenson, July 25th, 2008

The Miro team have put their summer video intern, Parker Higgins to work launching two new channels for the open-video application: 

The goal of these channels is to showcase interesting and entertaining material from all over the internet that’s been released under open licenses. Free Culture TV is more specialized, and will contain programming from the Free Culture movement: documentaries, lectures, or short films that address the struggle against a permissions-based society. Yes, We’re Open! will have all kinds of entertainment, from feature length movies to documentaries, shorts, music videos, and anything else you can imagine, all openly licensed.

Miro defines ‘openly licensed’ as:

… an alternative to the “all rights reserved” associated with copyright. When people assign an open license to their work, they are giving the public certain rights, like the freedom to copy and distribute, or to remix and mash up, depending on the terms of the license. One popular example are the Creative Commons licenses, which are applied to many of the videos in these channels.

If you don’t already have Miro installed, download it here. Once you’re set up, click on the following links to automatically subscribe to the channels that Parker is curating:

• Free Culture TV 1-click subscribe
• Yes, We’re Open! 1-click subscribe.

Most importantly, if you have content to submit to either of the channels, get in contact with Parker.

Featured Commoner: Jamison Young

Cameron Parkins, July 25th, 2008

Jamison Young is a musician who records endlessly and plays live as often as he can. Young releases all his music under a CC licence, some through ‘fairplay’ label (and former Featured Commoner) Beatpick, who helped get Young’s track “Memories Child” into the soundtrack for new feature film “The X-Files: I Want to Believe“. We Caught up with Young and asked him some questions regarding his decision to use CC licences and what his current and future plans are - read on to find out more.

photo by Guillaunme Charriau | CC BY

Can you give our readers a bit of background about yourself and your music?

I’ve been writing, performing and recording songs for a while, yet its only in the last five or so years that I have settled down enough to get some kind of career going with what I do. I play live, although mostly based in Europe and that is where I’m based - I’m originally from Australia.

What are your influences?

Any song that lets me escape, songs from the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s of all types and also contemporary artists like Beck. I like songs that I can listen to again and again yet still stay fresh. Learning about copyright and Creative Commons has given me a new view on my influences though.

What licenses do you use and why?

I licensed the songs from the album “Shifting Sands Of A Blue Car” under a Creative Commons Attribution license. When I look at the amount of self published art that is used commercially compared to published content and then look at how much quality self published content is available online, less restrictions for my music makes more sense for me. Also, a lot of home creators that use a song might want to use the content in conjunction with a services like youtube or myspace, and who can say if these services are a commercial or non-commercial from the user of the contents point of view.
Read More…

Jamendo and MP3tunes: Free music for free lockers

Mike Linksvayer, July 25th, 2008

Jamendo, a music site with over 10,000 CC-licensed albums, has teamed up with MP3tunes:

Give it a try at www.mp3tunes.com/jamendo - you’ll find 10 exclusive playlists of the best in rock, hip hop, jazz and more from Jamendo. Sign up for a Music Locker - it’s free to try - and then with a single click get each playlist you like added to your to your collection. You can also add personal music from your computer in your Locker with free, easy-to-use software.

This is very cool. Heavily curated playlists are one way to address the discovery problem. Using freely licensed music is how internet music startups can get the economics of all other internet startups. Unsaid in the announcement linked above, all of the playlisted tracks in the Jamendo/MP3tunes collaboration are licensed under CC BY-SA, allowing commercial use and recalling a recently posted quote from Lucas Gonze on commercial use and “empowering businesses to build support systems for your music.”

Creative Commons Salon NYC Followup

Fred Benenson, July 25th, 2008

Despite the humid weather Wednesday night, around 60 New Yorkers made it out to our July Salon at The Open Planning Project. After presentations from Livable Streets Network, Wikia Search and Max Silvestri’s hilarious Silvestri’s facebook foibles, we adjourned for pizza and beer on TOPP’s wonderful deck.

Check out my flickr photos from last night, and Nick Grossman from TOPP’s post on it here.

Many thanks go to The Open Planning Project and Brooklyn Brewery for supplying us cases of their beer. 

The next CC Salon NYC will be in mid-September, so look for the invite soon.

Upcoming ccSalon - SF

Melissa Reeder, July 24th, 2008

This time around, the SF Salon’s theme will focus on Creative Commons in the realm of film and media. We’ve got an all-star line-up of inspiring folks who will be talking about how CC and open and shared culture are all vital and exciting components of the media world. The night will start off with Jolene Pinder, an Associate Producer at Arts Engine, Inc. in NYC. Jolene will be screening a short CC-licensed film and talking about the various ways in which Arts Engine uses CC licenses. Next, CC’s very own Creative Director, Eric Steuer, will be talking about the soon to be launched film maker’s toolkit. And last but not least, Robin Sloan, Product Strategist from Current TV will wrap up the evening.

Mark your calendars for Wednesday, August 13, from 7-9pm.
The event will be held at Shine Bar in San Francisco.

We hope you will join us for what is sure to be an entertaining and memorable CC Salon!