Kutiman Talks to CBC; Interview Audio on ccMixter

Cameron Parkins, May 6th, 2009

If you’re interested in online culture, you’ve probably come across the amazing THRU YOU project from Israeli producer Kutiman (see this WIRED profile for some background). Kutiman mashed together various YouTube clips of people playing instruments (many of them instructional videos) to create something totally new and unique. The result was a collection of seven songs and videos that artfully demonstrate the potential of digital collaboration.

Last month, CBC Radio’s Spark talked to Kutiman about the project and posted the interview audio posted to ccMixter under a Creative Commons BY-NC license for producers to chop up and use in their own tracks. Check it out!

Boing Boing tv Archives Running CC Ads

Cameron Parkins, April 20th, 2009

Boing Boing tv, purveyors of all things awesome, recently began running short adverts for CC as bumpers for almost all the videos produced up until February of this year. Check out their video archives to see the spots in the wild, one of which is cut from Jesse Dylan’s A Shared Culture.

As noted previously, all Boing Boing tv episodes are released under a CC BY-NC license. A big thanks to the great people at Boing Boing and Boing Boing tv for making this happen!

Randall Munroe on XKCD’s Book & Creative Commons

Fred Benenson, April 20th, 2009

Today’s New York Times reports on XKCD cartoonist Randall Munroe’s foray into IRL publishing, so we wanted take the opportunity to congratulate Randall for the book deal, but we also wanted to point out his typically pithy and brilliant perspective in the NYTimes article on the book’s copyright and his choice to use Creative Commons:

Does that mean that the book won’t carry a traditional copyright and instead take its lead from the online comic strip itself, which Mr. Munroe licenses under Creative Commons, allowing noncommercial re-use as long as credit is given?

“To anyone who wants to photocopy, bind, and give a copy of the book to their loved one — more power to them,” he said. “He/She will likely be disappointed that you’re so cheap, though.”

Randall’s award winning webcomic XKCD is updated frequently and released under our Attribution-NonCommercial license.

BBC Releases R&DTV Under CC

Fred Benenson, April 10th, 2009

Turning the tables, the BBC recently interviewed Digg’s Kevin Rose for their R&DTV series. R&DTV is a monthly program consisting of interviews with BBC developers and technology leaders. In conjunction to licensing the shows under our Attribution-NonCommercial license, the BBC is also releasing all of the content that got left on the cutting room floor in their “Asset Bundles.” This is a fantastic effort for the commons, so hats off to the BBC!

“RiP: A Remix Manifesto” Released, Online Remixing Through Kaltura

Cameron Parkins, March 23rd, 2009

RiP: A Remix Manifesto, a community-driven documentary that focuses on copyright and remix culture (covered earlier here and here) is just beginning to creep out into theaters, having its U.S. premier last week at SXSW. While the film largely focuses on the story of Greg Gillis (Girl Talk) it includes interviews with a wide variety of figures, including both Lawrence Lessig and Cory Doctorow.

Perhaps most interesting is that the filmmakers have teamed up with open source video platform Kaltura (early coverage here) enabling anyone with a computer to remix the film only at opersourcecinema.org. All the footage of the film is released under a CC BY-NC license.

Gawker Media Empire Goes All CC

Fred Benenson, March 20th, 2009

Gawker Media, the blog conglomerate that includes Gizmodo, Gawker, and Lifehacker among others has adopted our Attribution-NonCommercial license for all of their original content. Gizmodo’s Brylan Lam blogged about the decision here:

… I’m happy to announce that we’re being published under a Creative Commons license now. Although it’s a non-commercial license, remixes and quotes are fine by blogs commercial or otherwise, with attribution/links. But splogs can—as always—go to hell. This has always been our policy, but it’s nice to have the license right there on the bottom.

You can read more about the policy on their legal page if you’re so inclined. Congrats and thanks for contributing to the commons, Gawker Media!

Sketchory: CC-Licensed Sketches

Cameron Parkins, March 6th, 2009

Sketchory is a new site featuring over 250,000 CC-licensed sketches, available broadly under a CC BY-NC license that allows for open sharing and remixing. In a unique twist, Sketchory allows the commercial use of up to 5,000 sketches through using our CC+ protocol.

Sketchory currently needs help tagging images to improve their search functionality, so be sure to lend a hand when possible.

JoCo Looks Back on LegalTorrents

Fred Benenson, March 2nd, 2009

We’ve posted all of the data that was offered on Jonathan Coulton’s “JoCo Looks Back” USB jump drive promotion on LegalTorrents. The zip file contains the entire “JoCo Looks Back” album (also available on CD for $15 from CDBaby.com) plus all of the separated source audio files from each track, all licensed under our Attribution-NonCommerical license.

Download the 730mb torrent and start your remixes today!

Australian public broadcaster releases first material under CC

Michelle Thorne, February 17th, 2009

From CC Australia:

A couple of days ago the [Australian Broadcasting Corporation's] excellent collaborative media site, Pool, posted a recording of genetics professor Steve Jones talking about Darwin’s life and work under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial licence. As far as we’re aware, this is the very first time material from the ABC archives has been released under a Creative Commons licence.

And this is just the beginning. Pool plans to release a whole series of ABC archival materials for remixing as part of its its Gene Pool project.

We’re all very excited here at CCau. The ABC has, almost without question, the largest historical audiovisual archive in Australia. Just think what we can do with it.

We’re excited as well. Last year we conducted a round-up of broadcasters implementing CC, and twelve months later, with exemplary license usage by Al Jazeera and now ABC’s Pool project, it seems the broadcasting world is poised for more. Stay tuned and enjoy exploring the remixable, high-quality material.

Rock Proper Release Jitney’s 86-300, CC BY-NC Licensed Album

Cameron Parkins, January 26th, 2009

Chicago-based record label Rock Proper just added another impressive notch to their discography with today’s release of Jitney’s 86-300. The work of musician Casey Meehan, 86-300 is released under a CC BY-NC license, making the experimental rock songs therein freely sharable/remixable as long as Jitney is properly attributed and reuses are noncommercial in intent.

This is the second featured release from Rock Proper, who previously put out Jay Bennett’s CC-licensed Whatever Happened I Apologize. Of interest to those in the CC community is a remix from artist Fabakis who took Bennett’s stripped down I’ll Decorate My Love and transformed it into a song complete with drums, organ, electric guitar/bass, piano, and a slew of instrumental treats. All of this was legal and encouraged through the album’s CC BY-NC license, and if comment sections are to be trusted, might even result in an unexpected collaboration between the two artists in teh future.