JOI ITO NAMED CHAIRMAN OF CREATIVE COMMONS; LAWRENCE LESSIG TO REMAIN CEO AND BOARD MEMBER

Eric Steuer, December 18th, 2006

JOI ITO NAMED CHAIRMAN OF CREATIVE COMMONS; LAWRENCE LESSIG TO REMAIN CEO AND BOARD MEMBER

Announcement Coincides With Final Call for Contributions to CC’s Annual Fundraising Campaign, Ending December 31

San Francisco, CA — December 18, 2006

Today, Creative Commons announced that Lawrence Lessig will step down as the organization’s chairman. He will be replaced by Joi Ito, a renowned Japanese entrepreneur and venture capitalist, who has been a Creative Commons board member since 2003. Lessig will remain as CC’s CEO and as a board member.

The change in board leadership, which takes place immediately, is a reflection of Creative Commons’ growing interest in supporting the use of CC principles and copyright licenses in commercial applications.

“This is a very happy moment for Creative Commons,” Lessig said. “We are a movement, and it is important that movements have leaders. We are extremely fortunate to work with Joi, who is one of the key leaders in building the sharing economy. Creative Commons’ next big challenge is to figure out how the sharing economy can better interact with a traditional commercial economy. Joi is the perfect person to lead the thinking on this.”

Lessig reaffirmed his commitment to Creative Commons in an email message sent to members of CC’s international community. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “CC will continue to get everything I can give.”

Ito is the founder of Digital Garage, PSINet Japan, and Infoseek Japan. He is also the CEO of Neoteny; chairman of iCommons and Six Apart Japan; and on the boards of Technorati, ICANN, and the Mozilla Foundation.

“I’d like to emphasize that this change is not about Larry doing less, but about another step in Larry’s plan to make other people do more,” Ito said. “As the organization and the movement continue to grow, it makes sense for my role to grow too. I appreciate the confidence and the opportunity to contribute more to Creative Commons.”

Lessig and Ito made the announcement to the Creative Commons community during the organization’s fourth birthday party in San Francisco this past Friday, December 15. Although unable to attend the party in person, Lessig and Ito delivered the announcement via a torch passing ceremony in the virtual world of Second Life. Video of the online gathering, which was attended by CC board members and supporters, was projected against a large wall at the real world event.

This announcement coincides with a final call for contributions to Creative Commons’ annual fundraising campaign, which ends on December 31.

“You can look at this change in leadership in two ways, each of which gives some of you a reason for one last push,” Lessig said. “Some of you have been loyal supporters of me. To you, please show that support one more time. Others of you have been loyal critics, with a strong hope that CC move beyond the particular vision I’ve offered. Now you have your chance: please celebrate the change by supporting us in this final two weeks of our drive.”

Quotes about the change in board leadership:

Hal Abelson, Creative Commons co-founder and board member: “A few of us started CC six years ago as a modest idea about licensing. Under Larry’s leadership, we’ve now grown into a worldwide movement encompassing science and culture, and we have plans for even more activities. It’s great that we’re able to expand CC’s top leadership, and thrilling that Joi will be part of it.”

James Boyle, Creative Commons co-founder and board member: “Larry is a tough act to follow. He is the visionary who has made CC what it is today. But as an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and digital visionary, Joi has an unparalleled breadth of vision about the tasks that face CC. I think we have the best of both worlds going for us with Joi taking over as chairman and Larry continuing as CEO.”

Eric Saltzman, Creative Commons co-founder and board member: “The Wizard of Oz isn’t yet under CC license, so instead of a short clip, just a reference: Larry had the brains to imagine Creative Commons and the heart and courage to build it into the influential global model and successful, practical resource it is today. It has been a great pleasure and an education to work with him on CC’s board these past four years. Luckily for CC, Larry will continue as CC’s CEO to do what he likes best, building the future. We’re all looking forward to our colleague, Joi Ito’s tenure as Board Chair. His breadth of knowledge and deep commitment to the expanding potential for sharing knowledge and creative work promise an exciting, productive next few years at Creative Commons.”

About Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a not-for-profit organization, founded in 2001, that promotes the creative re-use of intellectual and artistic works—whether owned or in the public domain. Creative Commons licences provide a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors, artists, and educators that build upon the “all rights reserved” concept of traditional copyright to offer a voluntary “some rights reserved” approach. It is sustained by the generous support of various organizations including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Omidyar Network, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation as well as members of the public. For general information, visit creativecommons.org.

Contact

Francesca Rodriquez
Chief Operating Officer and Project Manager, Creative Commons
415.946.3069
Email

Eric Steuer
Creative Director, Creative Commons
Email

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CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSES OFFERED IN PORTUGAL

Mia Garlick, December 13th, 2006

San Francisco, CA, USA; Berlin, GERMANY; and Lisbon, Portugal — December 13, 2006 — Creative Commons, a nonprofit dedicated to building a body of creative work free to share and build upon, is proud to announce the celebration of the launch of its licenses in Portugal on December 15, 2006.

Creative Commons copyright licenses are available free of charge from the group’s website. The licenses allow authors and artists to mark their works as free to copy or transform under certain conditions—to declare “some rights reserved,” in contrast to the traditional “all rights reserved”—thereby enabling others to access a growing pool of raw materials without legal friction.

Staff at Creative Commons’ offices in San Francisco and Berlin worked with the project leads Pedro Oliveira, José Rui Felizardo and Pedro Ferreira in Portugal to adapt the standardized licenses to Portuguese law. The team has also been supported by Filipa Salazar Leite from the law firm Simmons & Simmons in Lisbon. Creative Commons Portugal was hosted by FCEE-Universidade Católica, INTELI - Intelligence in Innovation and UMIC - Knowledge Society Agency.

With the availability of the Creative Commons licenses in Portugal, one of the largest and most prestigious daily newspapers in Portugal, Público, released articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 2.5 license, both online and in the paper edition.

The launch of the licenses will be celebrated by a series of events including a conference on ‘The Future of Intellectual Property’ to be held on Dec 15th 2006 at FCEE-Católica in Lisbon. Professor Lawrence Lessig, CEO & Chairman of Creative Commons, will be the keynote speaker.

About FCEE-Católica - School of Economics and Management, Universidade Católica Portuguesa

The School of Economics and Management of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa (FCEE-Católica) is a leading Management and Economics school in Portugal. The school offers undergraduate, graduate and executive programs in business and economics. FCEE-Católica faculty members are also deeply involved in research activities. For more information, visit their website.

About INTELI - Intelligence in Innovation

INTELI is a private non-profit think tank that promotes intelligence in innovation in areas such as technology and innovation management for the automotive, aerospatiale, energy, biotechnology, regional development and “creative industries”. The Innovation Centre has been supporting public policies and developing strategic consultancy to Ministries, public institutes, R&D institutions and companies. INTELI is actively involved in several national and EU projects aimed at developing “creative cities” or “intelligent cities” across European countries in co-operation with an international network of innovation organisations. For more information, please visit their website.

About UMIC – Knowledge Society Agency, Ministry for Science, Technology and Higher Education

UMIC, Knowledge Society Agency, acts under the tutelage of the Ministry for Science, Technology and Higher Education and oversees all aspects related to the development of the information and knowledge society in Portugal. Major projects related to the inclusive dissemination of information and knowledge include connecting all schools with broadband, managing online repositories of information and knowledge for education and research, deploying wireless networks in all the campus of higher education institutions in Portugal and the installation of hundreds of free-of-charge public-accessible hotspots countrywide for the dissemination of ICTs and training. For more information, visit their website.

About Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a not-for-profit organization, founded in 2001, that promotes the creative re-use of intellectual and artistic works—whether owned or in the public domain. Creative Commons licenses provide a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors, artists, and educators that build upon the “all rights reserved” concept of traditional copyright to offer a voluntary “some rights reserved” approach. It is sustained by the generous support of various organizations including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Omidyar Network, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation as well as members of the public. For general information, visit the group’s website.

Contacts

Pedro Oliveira
FCEE-Católica
Email

Pedro Ferreira
UMIC
Email

José Rui Felizardo
INTELI
Email

Christiane Henckel von Donnersmarck
Executive Director Creative Commons International
Creative Commons
Email

Mia Garlick
General Counsel
Creative Commons
Email

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PUMP AUDIO AND CREATIVE COMMONS COLLABORATE ON COMMERCIAL LICENSING FOR INDEPENDENT MUSICIANS

Eric Steuer, December 12th, 2006

PUMP AUDIO AND CREATIVE COMMONS COLLABORATE ON COMMERCIAL LICENSING FOR INDEPENDENT MUSICIANS

Hudson Valley, NY and San Francisco, CA – December 12, 2006 – Pump Audio, the leading provider of quality independent music to content creators globally, today announced that it has teamed up with Creative Commons to expand and promote fair commercial licensing options for artists worldwide. Pump Audio is offering a variety of Creative Commons copyright licenses to its independent musicians who want to allow various forms of non-commercial use of their music.

“Creative Commons and Pump Audio share a common goal of giving artists the freedom to license their creative works as they see fit,” said Steve Ellis, founder and CEO of Pump Audio. “Pump Audio is all about giving independent musicians a
fair deal by connecting them with the producers in TV, advertising, and the Web who are clamoring for original and legal music to accompany their creations. By working with Creative Commons, we can provide even more independent musicians with greater commercial licensing options for their music.”

As part of the collaboration, Pump Audio has introduced an online badge for artists, allowing them to designate on any Web page, artist blog, or MySpace profile that their music is available for commercial licensing through Pump Audio. Artists can pair their new Pump Audio badges with similar badges for their Creative Commons copyright licenses, enabling them to promote both their commercial and non-commercial licensing preferences. (Examples can be found at lovetheory.com/listenbuy.html and myspace.com/garynewvision).

“The goal of Creative Commons is to provide authors and artists with easy ways to mark their creative work with the freedom they intend it to carry,” said Lawrence Lessig, Creative Commons’ CEO. “We’re incredibly excited to work with Pump Audio to offer independent musicians a fair and innovative licensing option for the commercial use of their music in both traditional and online media.”

Under Pump Audio’s artist-friendly system, licensing revenues are split equally with musicians, and the artists retain complete ownership over their music. Pump Audio helps independent musicians license their music to traditional producers in TV, advertising and interactive media through the PumpBox, its advanced search software and delivery system, as well as to content creators of all types through Pump Audio’s Soundtrack service on the Web. Pump Audio’s production customers include MTV Networks, NBC Studios, HBO, New Line Cinema and advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi.

Creative Commons copyright licenses allow authors and artists to mark their works as free to copy or transform under certain conditions — to declare “some rights reserved,” in contrast to the traditional “all rights reserved” — thereby enabling others to access a growing pool of raw materials without legal friction.

About Pump Audio

Pump Audio licenses the world’s best independent music to content creators worldwide. Founded in 2001, Pump Audio has established itself as a leading provider of digital music for TV and advertising producers. Now Pump Audio is becoming the soundtrack of the Internet, opening Web access to its catalog of tens of thousands of songs so creators of all types can build music into their video and interactive productions. With Pump Audio, artists can license their music into productions without giving up any ownership, while content creators can discover new music ready for use. Based in the Hudson Valley, Pump Audio can be found at pumpaudio.com.

About Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a not-for-profit organization, founded in 2001, that promotes the creative re-use of intellectual and artistic works—whether owned or in the public domain. Creative Commons licences provide a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors, artists, and educators that build upon the “all rights reserved” concept of traditional copyright to offer a voluntary “some rights reserved” approach. It is sustained by the generous support of various organizations including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Omidyar Network, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation as well as members of the public. For general information, visit creativecommons.org.

Contact

Matt Hicks
SutherlandGold Group for Pump Audio
415-722-3603
Email

Eric Steuer
Creative Director, Creative Commons
Email

Press Kit

Creative Commons and Owl Multimedia Introduce the World’s First “True Music Search Engine”

Eric Steuer, December 7th, 2006

Creative Commons and Owl Multimedia Introduce the World’s First “True Music Search Engine”

10,444 Tracks Available Under Creative Commons License Searchable by Sound Via Collections From Magnatune and ccMixter

San Francisco, CA, USA and New York, NY, USA — December 6, 1006

Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that provides flexible copyright licenses for authors and artists, and Owl Multimedia Inc., a leading music search technology firm, today announced the launch of Owl Music Search, a revolutionary music search engine that enables Internet users to discover new music using sound similarity instead of traditional text-based queries. The first-of-its-kind music search engine is the initial offering of a collaborative alliance forged between the two companies to develop and deliver a range of innovative music services to the Creative Commons community and the Internet at large.

The search engine, developed by Owl Multimedia, whose tagline is “finding music through music™,” enables music lovers to discover thousands of tracks released under Creative Commons licenses by comparing the sounds of songs they own with the sounds of thousands of new songs. It is available on Creative Commons’ website by visiting search.creativecommons.org.

Owl Multimedia and Creative Commons share the vision that the open exchange of musical works is integral to the creative process and to the growth of culture itself. By enabling search without text, the companies hope to increase access to music outside of the mainstream and facilitate the legal sharing and reuse of music.

“Our aim is not only to increase the sum of raw source material online, but also to make access to that material cheaper and easier,” said Lawrence Lessig, Creative Commons founder and CEO. “We hope that the ease of use introduced by Owl Music Search will further reduce barriers to creativity. Owl’s innovations in music search and discovery make them the logical choice for us to work with to realize this vision.”

There are currently over 300,000 tracks by independent and emerging artists that are released under Creative Commons licenses and hosted on sites like Magnatune, a “try before you buy” digital music store; ccMixter, a music remixing community; Jamendo, a free and legal music sharing community; and others. Owl Music Search aims to provide access to all of these tracks while eliminating the need to know what or who you’re looking for.

“Over the past decade, search engines like Google and Yahoo! changed the way people interacted with text-based information, but these systems have barely scratched the surface of what is possible in the music space,” said Frank Geshwind, CTO of Owl Multimedia. “This collaboration represents a giant leap forward for music search and discovery.”

While most existing Internet music search engines rely on text-based associations to generate results, Owl Music Search looks “inside the music” to extract hundreds of acoustic features and create a digital description which can then be matched against other descriptions, providing a higher degree of accuracy and granularity in its results.

Geshwind continued, “Our technology paired with Creative Commons’ commitment to the open sharing of creative works will bring greater opportunity to artists whether they are looking to distribute and share their work or looking to remix, reuse, and build upon the work of others.”

Owl’s intuitive search interface makes discovering music as simple as opening a file. Using the site’s browser-based application, which includes a built-in media player, a user can open a song, pinpoint a region of interest, and then search for tracks containing similar sounds. Owl’s search engine uses sophisticated acoustic analysis, audio description and similarity algorithms to create and compare digital descriptions of thousands of tracks, and return similar sounding songs.

The results returned to the browser can be further refined by the user, using filters on other attributes such as artist, album, genre, year, and Creative Commons license. Users can preview the results, get additional information about them, and optionally purchase or download copies of the tracks. The site also offers community-based features, such as tagging, which help train the company’s comparison algorithms.

“Music is an international language, but the language used to describe music is not. It is much simpler to search for and discover music with music than by recalling and typing complex search terms,” said Todd Carter, CEO and co-founder of Owl Multimedia. Owl Music Search is the first major innovation in the world of music search since the advent of the search engine. Web searches will no longer have to rely on text that may or may not be attached to a given song file.

“Owl Music Search will change the way consumers look for music online, enabling the next-generation of online music. Owl Music Search truly allows consumers to hear a great variety of music that matches their musical tastes,” added Carter.

About Owl Multimedia

Owl Multimedia, Inc. is a privately held company and was founded in 2005. Owl’s mission is to build the world’s largest online index of music and other content and make this information available to anyone with an Internet connection. Owl’s automated “finding music through music™” search technology helps people obtain nearly instant access to music from this vast online index. Owl’s main office is located 419 Lafayette St. 2nd floor New York, NY 10003. For general information, visit owlmm.com.

About Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a not-for-profit organization, founded in 2001, that promotes the creative re-use of intellectual and artistic works—whether owned or in the public domain. Creative Commons licences provide a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors, artists, and educators that build upon the “all rights reserved” concept of traditional copyright to offer a voluntary “some rights reserved” approach. It is sustained by the generous support of various organizations including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Omidyar Network, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation as well as members of the public. For general information, visit creativecommons.org.

Contact

David Furfero
Creative Director, Owl Multimedia
Email

Eric Steuer
Creative Director, Creative Commons
Email

Press Kit

Creative Commons and New World Notes Present Judge Richard A. Posner in Second Life

Jennifer Yip, December 6th, 2006

San Francisco, CA, USA — December 5, 2006
Creative Commons and New World Notes are pleased to sponsor a conversation with Judge Richard A. Posner in the virtual world of Second Life on December 7, 2006 at 6-8pm PST. Second Life is an online society in a 3D world, where users can explore, build, socialize, and participate in their own economy. Visit this SLurl to launch the Second Life application and link to Creative Commons’ virtual headquarters, where the event will take place.

Judge Richard A. Posner is a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School and a judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He will log into Second Life as an avatar crafted in his likeness to discuss his new book, Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency. In his book, Judge Posner discusses the role of constitutional law and government conduct as it relates to enforcing national security and adjusting civil liberties in a time of heightened terrorist watch.

After a brief discussion between discussion moderator James Au (AKA “Hamlet Au” in Second Life) and Judge Posner, the audience will have a chance to ask questions. Judge Posner will also sign virtual copies of his book.

To attend the event, register for a free Second Life account and download the software at SecondLife.com. Please RSVP to Jennifer Yip (AKA “Genevieve Junot” in Second Life) via SL IM or email her directly at jennifer@creativecommons.org with your Second Life first and last name. Space is limited to the first 100 people who respond. For those who cannot attend, the conversation’s transcript will be made available on James Au’s blog, New World Notes.

About New World Notes

New World Notes is the blog run by James Au (AKA “Hamlet Au” in Second Life). In NWN, Au and his contributing writers document the controversial and innovative happenings of the virtual society in Second Life. Au also currently contracts for Creative Commons to help promote and coordinate in-world events that highlight CC-licensed work by SL creators.

About Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a not-for-profit organization, founded in 2001, that promotes the creative re-use of intellectual and artistic works—whether owned or in the public domain. Creative Commons licences provide a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors, artists, and educators that build upon the “all rights reserved” concept of traditional copyright to offer a voluntary “some rights reserved” approach. It is sustained by the generous support of various organizations including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Omidyar Network, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation as well as members of the public. For general information, visit creativecommons.org.

Contact

Wagner James Au
Journalist, New World Notes
Email

Jennifer Yip
Office Manager, Creative Commons
Email

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