Creative Commons Launches Legal Music Sharing and Search

Matt Haughey, March 31st, 2004

The Silicon Valley nonprofit announces new file-sharing-friendly music
license alongside its new Get Content search engine.

Austin, Texas, USA - March 18, 2004 - Creative Commons, a nonprofit
dedicated to expanding the range of creative works free to share and
build upon, announced its new Music Sharing License and Get Content
search engine at the South by Southwest Music Festival here today.

The license, which is available free of charge from the Creative Commons
website, allows musicians to clearly mark their songs as free to download
and share while protecting their commercial and other rights. The license
also helps musicians tag their works digitally, which allows Creative
Commons’ Get Content search engine to index them from the web site.

This is the music-sharing notice bands can use to invite their fans to
download and share their music noncommercially.

“Finally, musicians who want to share and fans who want legal downloads
can find each other easily and quickly,” said Neeru Paharia, Assistant
Director of Creative Commons. “The Net already makes widespread
distribution very easy - technically. The Music Sharing license, in
combination with the new Get Content search engine, lets musicians
harness the Net’s distributive power while protecting themselves -
legally.”

Matthew King Kaufman, founder of Beserkley Records and MP34U.com, said:
“If there’s going to be legal p2p, then a Creative Commons Music Sharing
license is a mandatory prerequisite.”

Like all Creative Commons tools, the Music-Sharing License uses a
three-layer interface to put fans on notice of the music’s legal status.
First is the Commons Deed, a plain-language summary of the legal
language’s key terms. Next is the Legal Code, the full copyright license
in all its nitty-gritty detail (identical to the legal code for the
Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivativeWorks license). Third is Creative
Commons’ metadata, a machine-readable expression of the license, so that
users can search for and sort sharing-friendly music with the Get Content
search engine, which indexes web pages carrying Creative Commons’ license
tags and metadata. The search engine is the first that allows users to
find content based on the permissions and restrictions associated with
it.

Links:
Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org
Music-Sharing License: http://creativecommons.org/license/music
GET CONTENT! Search Engine: http://creativecommons.org/getcontent/

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, the John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Hewlett 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/.

Contact

Neeru Paharia
Assistant Director, Creative Commons
1.650.724.3717 (tel)
neeru@creativecommons.org

Glenn Otis Brown
Executive Director, Creative Commons
1.650.723.7572 (tel)

Creative Commons Expands To The Middle East With AGIP

Matt Haughey, March 26th, 2004

Abu-Ghazaleh Intellectual Property (AGIP) is the first to bring the International Commons (iCommons) project to the Middle East.

Palo Alto, USA, and Amman, JORDAN - March 25, 2004 - Creative Commons, a non-profit corporation dedicated to building a body of creative works free for copying and re-use, announced today that it would expand its International Commons (iCommons) project in Jordan and the Middle East. AGIP, the leading provider of intellectual property services in the Arab region, will lead this effort.

Professor Lawrence Lessig, Chairman of Creative Commons and professor of law at Stanford University, in the U.S., said: “We’re very excited to have AGIP lead iCommons project in Jordan. AGIP’s participation is crucial to our growing effort in promoting the international cultural commons.”

Mr. Charles Shaban, executive director of AGIP’s Regional Office said, “We are very pleased to be the first Arab country to bring the International Commons to this region and we hope that this project will be a step forward towards building the digital commons in cyberspace.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Rami Olwan, an e-commerce legal consultant and project lead for iCommons in Jordan stated, “The international Creative Commons project is unique in the sense that it offers new concepts to the current copyright legal system.”

Announced in March 2003, iCommons is Creative Commons’ project to make its machine-readable copyright licenses useful worldwide. As the lead institution for Jordan, AGIP will coordinate a public effort to translate the Creative Commons licenses literally and legally for use there. Jordan joins Australia, Brazil, Catalonia, China, Croatia, Finland, France, Ireland, Japan, Spain, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom in this effort.

AGIP will field comments relating to their specific initiatives in archived email discussions on the Creative Commons website at:

http://creativecommons.org/discuss#/jordan

More about Creative Commons

A nonprofit corporation, Creative Commons promotes the creative re-use of intellectual works, whether owned or in the public domain. It is sustained by the generous support of The Center for the Public Domain, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Hewlett Foundation. Creative Commons is based at Stanford Law School (U.S.), 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 AGIP

Abu-Ghazaleh Intellectual Property (AGIP) is a pioneering firm in intellectual property protection in the Arab world and today remains the region’s leader in this field. When AGIP was established in 1972 under the name TMP Agents, intellectual property protection was in its infancy in the Arab region. Legislation was weak and few foreign companies attempted to protect their intellectual property in the region.

The situation has changed dramatically over the last 3 decades and AGIP today is the largest IP firm in the Arab world, managing the protection of nearly half of the global Fortune 500 firms among many others. As Arab nations have developed, they have rapidly increased the legal protections applicable to intellectual property and have continued to work on increasing the effectiveness of enforcement of IP laws. AGIP has consistently been at the forefront of efforts to improve the infrastructure of Arab intellectual property protection.

It has always been the most generous Arab contributor to regional and global intellectual property associations and has worked in close coordination with Arab governments and multilateral governmental organizations such as WIPO to improve the climate for intellectual property protection.

Operating from its headquarters in Amman, Jordan, AGIP has offices in every major Arab city with liaison offices in Europe, UK, Canada and the USA.

For more information about AGIP, please visit:

http://www.agip.com

Contact

Christiane Asschenfeldt (Berlin, Germany)
iCommons Coordinator, Creative Commons
christiane@creativecommons.org

Rami Olwan (Ammam, Jordan)
Project Lead, iCommons Jordan
rolwan@tagi.com

Glenn Otis Brown (Palo Alto, USA)
Executive Director, Creative Commons
glenn@creativecommons.org

Creative Commons expands to Australia with Queensland University of Technology (QUT)

Matt Haughey, March 25th, 2004

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) will lead the license translation and work to expand global access to Australia’s culture

Palo Alto, USA, and Brisbane, AUSTRALIA - March 25, 2004 - Creative Commons, a nonprofit dedicated to building a body of creative works free for copying and re-use, announced today that it would expand its International Commons (iCommons) project to Australia.

Queensland University of Technology (QUT), in Brisbane, will lead the effort.

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

As the lead institution, QUT will coordinate a public effort to translate the Creative Commons licenses literally and legally for use in Australia.

“We are thrilled to be working with Queensland University of Technology,” said Lawrence Lessig, Chairman of Creative Commons and professor of law at Stanford University, in the U.S. “Australia will be a vital participant in bringing the international cultural Commons to fruition.”

“We are also excited to be involved in developing Creative Commons in Australia,” explained Project Co-Leader Brian Fitzgerald, Professor and Head of the School of Law at QUT. “There is already strong demand within the Australian community for a legal means of facilitating the distribution of Open Content, and Creative Commons will be a tremendous platform on which to build these protocols and agreements.”

Tom Cochrane, Project Co-Leader and Deputy Vice Chancellor at QUT, said that with copyright law and regulation getting more attention by the day, QUT was pleased to be associated with this international effort to find collaborative solutions more appropriate to rapidly changing digital environments.

“Even within the University, there are already numerous direct applications of the model in our day to day academic work,” Mr Cochrane said.

QUT will field comments on an archived email discussion at the Creative Commons website, http://www.creativecommons.org/discuss#australia.

Australia joins Brazil, China, Croatia, Finland, France, Ireland, Japan, Spain, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and Jordan in the iCommons effort.

More about Creative Commons

A nonprofit corporation, Creative Commons promotes the creative re-use of intellectual works, whether owned or in the public domain. It is sustained by the generous support of The Center for the Public Domain, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Hewlett 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 Queensland University of Technology

QUT is a major Australian university with a strong interest in and commitment to information law and policy. As well as its large Law Faculty, QUT is also home to the Faculty of Creative Industries, which is keen to utilize the Creative Commons model to further develop innovation in the creative industries; the Faculty of Information Technology, which is a leader in information security; and the Faculty of Business, which has recognized expertise in technology policy and innovation.

QUT’s partner in this exercise has been Ian Oi and his team at Blake Dawson Waldron Lawyers. Ian Oi is a recognized expert in Technology and Intellectual Property Issues and plays an active role in the development of law and policy in this area.

For more information about QUT, visit http://www.qut.edu.au.
For more information about Blake Dawson Waldron Lawyers, visit http://www.bdw.com.au.

Contact

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

Professor Brian Fitzgerald (Brisbane)
Project Lead, iCommons Australia
Head of School of Law, Queensland University of Technology
email: bf.fitzgerald@qut.edu.au

Glenn Otis Brown
Executive Director (Palo Alto)
glenn@creativecommons.org

Japanese Creative Commons Licenses Available Now

Matt Haughey, March 3rd, 2004

Creative Commons and GLOCOM release official Japanese copyright licenses for iCommons Japan, the first country-specific adaptation of the open content system.

Palo Alto, USA, and Tokyo, Japan - Creative Commons, a nonprofit dedicated to building a body of creative works free for copying and re-use, and GLOCOM, its Japanese affiliate, today announced the official roll out of their iCommons Japan licenses.

“The launch of the Japanese iCommons licenses is a major milestone for both Creative Commons and the global free culture movement, generally,” said Lawrence Lessig, Creative Commons’ chairman and professor of law at Stanford University. “We would like to give special recognition to GLOCOM, and to Yuko Noguchi and Emi Wakatsuki, the lawyers whose dedication helped make this possible.” Lessig also acknowledged the contributions and comments of Machina, http://homepage3.nifty.com/machina/, a technology commentator and Japan-based blogger.

“We are pleased to be among the first international Commons (iCommons) participants,” said Motohiro Tsuchiya, project lead iCommons Japan and assistant professor and senior research fellow at GLOCOM, International University of Japan. “This launch is a joint effort of many ‘commoners’ here in Japan. It has always been part of our age-old culture to share creative works such as drawings, poetry, music and more. iCommons Japan is a natural extension of this practice.”

The licenses, translated into the Japanese language and adapted to Japanese law, allow copyright holders easily to inform others that their works are free for copying and other uses, under specific conditions - to declare “some rights reserved.” These self-help tools, which are free of charge, offer new ways to distribute creative works on generous terms along the rich spectrum between full copyright and public domain. Authors and artists in Japan can now express a preference for sharing their work on their own terms.

Japanese-speaking visitors to the Creative Commons Web site now automatically view a full Japanese translation of the license choice process as the site detects the users’ web browser settings.

See http://creativecommons.org/license/?lang=ja for the license selection page in Japanese, and http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/jp/ for an example of a Japan-specific license.

Japan is the first country to launch iCommons licenses.

More about Creative Commons

A nonprofit corporation, Creative Commons promotes the creative re-use of intellectual works, whether owned or in the public domain. It is sustained by the generous support of The Center for the Public Domain, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Hewlett 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 Glocom

GLOCOM was established in 1991 as a social science research institute specializing in the study of information society as well as Japanese society. From the outset it was thought that the collection and dissemination of information through the utilization of computer networks was important, and this goal was realized in 1993 when the center established an Internet connection. Ever since, by utilizing the most up-to-date information and communication technologies, GLOCOM has been able to engage in various research activities, including generation of policy proposals and involvement in education-related projects. GLOCOM has set out to be a modern information “intelprise,” an institution promoting the distribution and sharing of “wisdom.”

For more information about GLOCOM, visit http://www.glocom.ac.jp/.

Contact

Christiane Asschenfeldt (Berlin)
International Commons Coordinator, Creative Commons
christiane@creativecommons.org

Motohiro Tsuchiya, (Tokyo)
Project Lead, iCommons Japan
Assistant Professor, Senior Research Fellow, GLOCOM
taiyo@glocom.ac.jp

Glenn Otis Brown (Palo Alto)
Executive Director, Creative Commons
glenn@creativecommons.org