Supreme Court Audio Classics Enter P2P Zone Thanks to Creative Commons Licenses

Matt Haughey, June 25th, 2003

Creative Commons Also Rolls Out Strategy for Embedding and Verifying License Information in MP3s and Other Files

Palo Alto and Chicago, USA — Creative Commons and the OYEZ Project announced today the first-stage 100-hour release of MP3s from the Project’s 2000+ hours of Supreme Court recordings using Creative Commons’ machine-readable copyright licenses. Creative Commons also announced its new metadata verification policy, designed to ease the legitimate distribution and copying of audio files online by associating copyright information with the files themselves.

The OYEZ Project, http://www.OYEZ.org, is a multimedia archive dedicated to the business of the Supreme Court of the United States and the lives of its Justices. Founded in 1994 at Northwestern University, OYEZ will now host MP3 audio recordings of oral arguments before the Court dating back to the 1950s, including landmark cases such as Gratz v. Bollinger, 2003 (affirmative action) Grutter v. Bollinger, 2003 (affirmative action) Bush v. Gore, 2000 (2000 presidential election) Regents v. Bakke, 1978 (affirmative action) Roe v. Wade, 1971 (abortion and reproductive rights) New York Times v. United States, 1971 (the “Pentagon Papers” case) Miranda v. Arizona, 1966 (”You have the right to remain silent . . .”) Gideon v. Wainwright, 1963 (a defendant’s right to counsel).

Recordings of the oral arguments from these historic controversies are now available for free download from the OYEZ website under a Creative Commons copyright license, which encourages copying and redistribution of the recordings while imposing certain conditions on their use: OYEZ must be attributed, commercial re-use is prohibited, and any modification of the files obligates licensing under the same Creative Commons terms as the original files.

“With the Creative Commons, we have for the first time found a way to license our content to assure use consistent with our objectives. As long as users meet the conditions of the license, they are free to enjoy and share a small treasure of America’s legal and political heritage,” said Jerry Goldman, Northwestern University political science professor and OYEZ project director.

“By releasing hundreds of important Supreme Court recordings under Creative Commons licenses, the OYEZ Project has demonstrated a commitment to filling the commons with high quality educational material for others to use and learn from,” said Lawrence Lessig, chairman of Creative Commons and professor of law at Stanford. “Just as important, the OYEZ Project’s use of machine-readable licenses with its MP3s is a big step toward a world in which law and technology can work together to promote sharing.”

More About Creative Commons’ Metadata Embedding Policy

Creative Commons also announced today their new metadata embedding policy that defines a standard way to embed metadata into files verified by an external webpage.

“The Creative Commons license information embedded into each of the OYEZ Supreme Court files can be verified by an external webpage maintained by the copyright holder,” said Mike Linksvayer, Creative Commons CTO.

“We hope this will become the standard approach to embedding and verifying metadata.”

More information below, and at: http://creativecommons.org/learn/licenses/embedding.

More about Creative Commons

A nonprofit corporation, Creative Commons promotes the creative re-use of intellectual works — whether owned or public domain. It is sustained by the generous support of The Center for the Public Domain and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Creative Commons is based at Stanford Law School, where it shares staff, space, and inspiration with the school’s Center for Internet and Society.

More information at http://creativecommons.org.

More about OYEZ

Today, The OYEZ Project provides access to more than 2000 hours of Supreme Court audio. All audio in the Court recorded since 1995 is included in the project. Before 1995, the audio collection is selective. OYEZ aims to create a complete and authoritative archive of Supreme Court audio covering the entire span from October 1955 through the most recent release. OYEZ receives support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, FindLaw, Northwestern University, and the law firm of Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw.

For more information http://www.OYEZ.org.

Contact

Glenn Otis Brown
Executive Director Creative Commons
1.650.723.7572 (tel)
glenn -AT- creativecommons.org

Jerry Goldman
Professor of Political Science
Director, The OYEZ Project
1.847.475.6671 (tel)
j-goldman -AT- northwestern.edu

Neeru Paharia
Assistant Director Creative Commons
1.650.724.3717 (tel)
neeru -AT- creativecommons.org

Mike Linksvayer
Chief Technical Officer Creative Commons
ml -AT- creativecommons.org

Creative Commons Welcomes David Wiley as Educational Use License Project Lead

Matt Haughey, June 23rd, 2003

The Silicon Valley Nonprofit Also Takes Up Baton of Wiley’s Trailblazing OpenContent Project

Palo Alto, California, USA — Creative Commons, a nonprofit dedicated to building a layer of reasonable copyright, announced today that OpenContent founder Dr. David Wiley, Assistant Professor of Instructional Technology at Utah State University, will join Creative Commons and officially close the OpenContent Project.

“When I saw the Creative Commons team, and all their expertise, I saw that they ‘got it,’” said Wiley. “I slowly came to the somewhat painful realization that the best thing I could do for the community was to close the OpenContent project and encourage people to adopt the Creative Commons licenses.”

The OpenContent Project launched in 1998, offering the first license designed specifically to support the free and open sharing of content. While working to evangelize the idea of “open content,” Dr. Wiley next worked with members of the open source software community and commercial publishers to develop an open content license that would be acceptable to publishers. Since its release, numerous books have been published under the terms of the resulting Open Publication License, including titles by O’Reilly, Prentice Hall, New Riders, and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology. Copies of the OpenContent License and Open Publication License will continue to be available from the OpenContent website, http://opencontent.org/, for archival purposes, but newcomers to the site will be encouraged to visit Creative Commons, http://creativecommons.org/, to utilize the licenses available on their site. Neither of the OpenContent licenses will be developed further in the future.

Creative Commons Executive Director Glenn Otis Brown commented: “It is an honor to welcome a pioneer like Professor Wiley to the Creative Commons team. His efforts have been a major source of inspiration for our own, so it is both appropriate and a little humbling for us to be working alongside him now.”

Wiley joins Creative Commons in the capacity of Project Lead for Educational Licensing. “Because I’m an instructional technologist, and my primary field of research and inquiry is using technology to better support learning, my own http://creativecommons.org Press Release work in open content has always focused on reusable educational media. I couldn’t be happier than I am to participate in this manner,” said Wiley.

Creative Commons will announce new Project Leads for a Developing Nations License shortly, said Brown.

More about Creative Commons

A non-profit corporation, Creative Commons promotes the creative re-use of intellectual works — whether owned or public domain. It is sustained by the generous support of The Center for the Public Domain and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Creative Commons is based at Stanford Law School, where it shares staff, space, and inspiration with the school’s Center for Internet and Society.

For general information, visit http://creativecommons.org.

For more information about the community development model, visit http://creativecommons.org/discuss.

Contact

Glenn Otis Brown
Executive Director (Palo Alto)
1.650.723.7572 (tel)
1.415.336.1433 (cell)
glenn -AT- creativecommons.org

Neeru Paharia
Assistant Director (Palo Alto)
1.650.724.3717 (tel)
neeru -AT- creativecommons.org

David Wiley
david.wiley -AT- usu.edu
dw2 -AT- opencontent.org

Creative Commons Welcomes Joi Ito to Board of Directors

Matt Haughey, June 16th, 2003

San Francisco- and Tokyo-based venture capitalist, technologist, and
policy expert joins leadership of the Silicon Valley nonprofit

Palo Alto, USA — Creative Commons, a nonprofit
corporation dedicated to expanding the world of reusable content online,
announced today that Joichi Ito has joined its Board of Directors. Ito is
a venture capitalist, technologist, and internationally popular weblogger
and commentator based in California and Japan.

“We are thrilled to have Joi Ito join the team,” said Lawrence Lessig,
chairman of Creative Commons and professor of law at Stanford University.
“His unique breadth of experience in technology, business, and policy —
and his well-earned reputation as an innovator on an international level
— make him a perfect new colleague for our growing organization.”

“Protecting the commons is essential for enabling emerging technologies
and businesses in networked consumer electronics and the Internet,” said
Ito. “It is critical for Japan and the rest of the world to understand
and embrace Creative Commons‚ principles and tools. I am honored to join
this world-class organization to help make it happen.”

Ito joins a Board of Directors that includes Lessig; fellow cyberlaw
experts James Boyle, Michael Carroll, and Molly Shaffer Van Houweling;
public domain web publisher Eric Eldred; filmmaker Davis Guggenheim; MIT
computer science professor Hal Abelson; and lawyer-turned-documentary
filmmaker-turned-cyberlawyer Eric Saltzman.

More about Joichi Ito

Joichi Ito is the founder and CEO of Neoteny, http://www.neoteny.com, a
venture capital firm focused on personal communications and enabling
technologies. He has created numerous Internet companies including PSINet
Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan. In 1997 Time ranked him as a
member of the CyberElite. In 2000 he was ranked among the “50 Stars of
Asia” by Business Week and commended by the Japanese Ministry of Posts
and Telecommunications for supporting the advancement of IT. In 2001 the
World Economic Forum chose him as one of the 100 “Global Leaders of
Tomorrow” for 2002.

More information at http://joi.ito.com.

More about Creative Commons

A nonprofit corporation, Creative Commons promotes the creative re-use of
intellectual works — whether owned or public domain. It is sustained by
the generous support of The Center for the Public Domain and the John D.
and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Creative Commons is based at
Stanford Law School, where it shares staff, space, and inspiration with
the school’s Center for Internet and Society.

More information at http://creativecommons.org.

Contact

Glenn Otis Brown
Executive Director
Creative Commons
1.650.723.7572 (tel)
1.415.336.1433 (cell)
glenn -AT- creativecommons.org

Joichi Ito
jito -AT- neoteny.com

Neeru Paharia
Assistant Director
Creative Commons
1.650.724.3717 (tel)
1.510.823.1073 (cell)
neeru -AT- creativecommons.org

Creative Commons Begins Work On Finnish Versions Of Copyright Licenses

Matt Haughey, June 3rd, 2003

The Helsinki Institute for Information Technology Will Drive Public Discussion from the Silicon Valley Nonprofit’s Website

Palo Alto, California, USA - Creative Commons, a nonprofit dedicated to building a layer of reasonable copyright, announced today that it would begin development of Finnish versions of its copyright licenses as part of its ongoing International Commons (iCommons) project. The Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT), an authority on law and technology in Finland, will lead the effort.

Announced in March 2003, iCommons is Creative Commons’ project to make its machine-readable copyright licenses useful worldwide.

“With iCommons, we are building a system for promoting creativity across borders,” said Lawrence Lessig, Chairman of Creative Commons and professor of law at Stanford. “If you imagine different countries as legal operating systems,’ iCommons will port our licenses for use across the world.”

As project lead, HIIT will coordinate a public effort to literally and legally translate Creative Commons’ licenses for use in Finland. HIIT will field public comments on an archived email discussion at the Creative Commons website, http://www.creativecommons.org/discuss#finland.

“HIIT is enthusiastic to host iCommons in Finland,” said Martti Mäntylä, research director of HIIT and a professor at Helsinki University of Technology. “Creative Commons could do the same for the entertainment and publishing industries that free software and open source did for the software business.”

Christiane Asschenfeldt, the iCommons Coordinator at Creative Commons, commented: “It is great to get the iCommons drafting process underway with a project lead of HIIT’s experience and expertise. Finland will set an excellent precedent for many other iCommons countries, which in the near future will include Brazil, Japan, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.”

“Finnish copyright law doesn’t differ much from the U.S. system,” said HIIT project lead Herkko Hietanen. “But by translating the licenses to Finnish, we’ll make it even easier for Finnish artists and authors to adopt Creative Commons licenses and share their works with the world.”

More about Creative Commons

A nonprofit corporation, Creative Commons promotes the creative re-use of intellectual works — whether owned or public domain. It is sustained by the generous support of The Center for the Public Domain and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Creative Commons is based at Stanford Law School, where it shares staff, space, and inspiration with the school’s Center for Internet and Society.

For general information, visit http://creativecommons.org.

For more information about iCommons, see
http://creativecommons.org/projects/international/.

More about HIIT

Helsinki Institute for Information Technology, founded in 1999, is a joint research institute of the University of Helsinki and the Helsinki University of Technology. HIIT represents high expertise both in computer science and law and has close institutional bonds with academic legal science, law-courts, and The Finnish Bar Association.

HIIT conducts internationally high-level strategic research in information technology, especially in areas where Finnish IT industry has or may reach a significant global role. HIIT works in close co-operation with universities and industry, aiming to improve the contents, visibility, and impact of Finnish IT research to benefit the competitiveness of Finnish IT industry and the development of the Finnish information society.

For more information about HIIT, visit http://hiit.fi.

Contact

Christiane Asschenfeldt (Berlin)
iCommons Coordinator, Creative Commons
christiane -AT- creativecommons.org

Herkko Hietanen (Helsinki)
Helsinki Institute for Information Technology
herkko.hietanen -AT- hiit.fi

Glenn Otis Brown Executive Director (Palo Alto)
1.650.723.7572 (tel)
1.415.336.1433 (cell)
glenn -AT- creativecommons.org