Creative Commons » CC BY-ND

FrostWire’s Creative Commons Focus

Fred Benenson — Thu, 28 May 2009 21:16:27 +0000

FrostWire has been quietly promoting Creative Commons licensed musicians and content on the front page of their Bit Torrent and Gnutella client for quite a while now. Previous featured CC artists include ESPSIX, Mike Falzone, and CC veteran Brad Sucks.

Today the team announced that another up and coming artist, Danny “Legacy” Mcbride, is releasing his new album under our Attribution-NoDerivatives license so he can be featured on FrostWire. This was a smart choice for Legacy (and all of the highlighted musicians) as FrostWire boasts millions of active users which helps them garner substantial exposure they might not otherwise would have received.

Kudos to FrostWire for taking the proactive step of encouraging legal filesharing with CC in an otherwise murky climate. Check out the FrostClick blog for more featured artists and downloads.

Macedonia Timeless: CC-Licensed Tourist Video

Cameron Parkins — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:39:37 +0000

Macedonia Timeless is the name of a recently produced Macedonian tourist video written and directed by Milcho Manchevski. There is nothing new about these sort of videos being produced, but what is novel is that the video is being released under a CC BY-ND license, a decision that encourages the legal sharing of the video.

If the point of Macedonia Timeless is to drive tourism to Macedonia, then licensing the content in a way that allows legal re-posting shows foresight – fans of the video can upload it to whatever video sharing site they like as long as the provide proper attribution. You can watch the video on YouTube or download it here. Be sure to read Global Voices’ nice analysis of the video as well, which touches upon a variety of issues beyond CC licensing.

Bulgarian President Chooses CC BY ND

Michelle Thorne — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:33:38 +0000

The official website of the Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov is now available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 Bulgarian license. Bulgaria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been releasing its material under the same license since 2006, but ordinarily, these websites would be under full copyright, explains CC Bulgaria Project Lead Veni Markovski.

“Bulgaria has taken a step in the right direction to complete its image as a country where the politicians are aware of the most advanced technologies and use them for the good of the society,” Veni adds.

Government leaders in other countries are also choosing similar paths. The Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan licenses his official website under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license, and governments in Australia and Mexico (pdf) use and recommend CC. Another licensing decision already bearing fruit is Change.gov, the website of US president-elect Barack Obama’s transition team, which is published under the most permissive of Creative Commons copyright licenses – CC Attribution 3.0 Unported.

For a listing of more governmental uses of CC, please visit our wiki page: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Government_use_of_CC_licenses.