Creative Commons VP Mike Linksvayer on NBC’s “Press:Here”

Eric Steuer, July 20th, 2009

Yesterday morning, “Press:Here” – a new technology news TV show produced by NBC in the San Francisco Bay Area – aired an interview with Creative Commons Vice President Mike Linksvayer. The episode serves as a nice primer to CC; in it, Mike gives some of our backstory and talks about how people and organizations are using CC’s copyright licenses to make sharing and collaboration easier. Mozilla CEO John Lilly is one of the episode’s other featured guests. Watch it online.

FSCONS 2009: Call for Participation

Michelle Thorne, May 20th, 2009

Free Culture, Free Software, and Free Content will again join forces under the banner of “Free Society” at FSCONS 2009 in Gothenburg, Sweden, 13-15th November.  The organizers, Creative Commons Sweden, Free Software Foundation Europe, and Wikimedia Sverige, have just announced the conference’s Call for Participation.

Last year’s conference featured a host of workshops and speakers, including CC’s Mike Linksvayer on “How far is free culture behind free software?” and Victor Stone on ccMixter’s solution to online attribution via Sample Pool API.

We’re looking forward to what this year’s FSCONS has in store. Submissions close on June 21, so send in your proposal soon!

Creative Commons wins the 2008 Free Software Foundation Award for Project of Social Benefit!

Mike Linksvayer, March 24th, 2009

Saturday at Libre Planet, the Free Software Foundation’s annual conference, Creative Commons was honored to receive the FSF’s Award for Projects of Social Benefit:

The FSF Award for Projects of Social Benefit is presented annually to a project that intentionally and significantly benefits society by applying free software, or the ideas of the free software movement, in a project that intentionally and significantly benefits society in other aspects of life.

Since its launch in 2001, Creative Commons has worked to foster a growing body of creative, educational and scientific works that can be shared and built upon by others. Creative Commons has also worked to raise awareness of the harm inflicted by increasingly restrictive copyright regimes.

Creative Commons vice president Mike Linksvayer accepted the award saying, “It’s an incredible honor. Creative Commons should be giving an award to the Free Software Foundation and Richard Stallman, because what Creative Commons is doing would not be possible without them.”

Congratulations also to Wietse Venema, honored with the Award for the Advancement of Free Software for his “significant and wide-ranging technical contributions to network security, and his creation of the Postfix email server.”

FSF president Stallman presented a plaque by artist Lincoln Read commemorating the award to Creative Commons.

It is worth noting that the FSF Social Benefit Award’s 2005 and 2007 winners are Wikipedia and Groklaw both because it is tremendous to be in their company and as the former is in the process of migrating to a CC BY-SA license (thanks in large part to the FSF) and the latter publishes under a CC BY-NC-ND license.

Only last December CC was honored to receive an award from another of computing’s most significant pioneers, Doug Engelbart.

Thanks again to the Free Software Foundation and Richard Stallman. Please join us in continuing to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his founding of the free software movement. As Stallman would say, “Happy Hacking!”

CC on BeyondTheBook podcast and at UGCX conference

Mike Linksvayer, February 2nd, 2009

The latest Beyond The Book podcast (mp3) features an interview with CC staff Mike Linksvayer and Melissa Reeder. The two main themes discussed are the intersection of public sharing under CC licenses and alternative private arrangements (see our post on Ozmo, a service that enables both, discussed on the podcast) and the upcoming UGCX conference.

Melissa Reeder will speak on a panel titled Sharing, Selling and Defending Photos Online at the conference, February 10 in San Jose, California.

Conference attendees intrigued by what Melissa has to say can make the trip up to San Francisco the next evening (February 11) for our CC Salon SF!

Addendum: Those in San Jose looking for even more CC info, and soon, you’re in luck. Thursday evening (February 5) Mike is presenting Open Licensing 101: How to Get the Most Out of Your Copyrights in the Information Age, hosted by California Lawyers for the Arts.

Update: CC Salon SF venue announced

Allison Domicone, January 29th, 2009

We’re delighted to announce that the next CC Salon SF (Wednesday, February 11, from 7-9pm) will be held at PariSoMa, located at 1436 Howard Street, San Francisco (map and directions). We extend our sincerest thanks to the generous folks at PariSoMa for offering up their lovely space! We hope you’ll join us in making our first evening in these new surroundings a warm and lively one. Light refreshments will be served.

We’ll have the entire CC staff under one roof, and the evening’s program includes brief presentations from:

Mike Linksvayer, Vice President
Eric Steuer, Creative Director
Catharina Maracke, Director, Creative Commons International
John Wilbanks, Vice President, Science Commons
Ahrash Bissell, Executive Director, ccLearn
Joi Ito, CEO

Following the presentations, we’ll open the floor to questions and discussion. Whether you’ve been a fan of CC from the start or you’re new to the world of free culture, this salon is not to be missed!

You can also check it out on Upcoming!

We rely on the generosity of our community to keep us afloat, so we’ll be accepting donations for CC at the door. If you didn’t get a chance to support us during our fundraising campaign, now is your chance.

CC Salons are global events, and anyone can start one, no matter where you live. We encourage you to check out our resources for starting your own salon in your area.

CC Salon SF 2/11/09

Allison Domicone, January 22nd, 2009

For February’s salon, we’re thrilled to have the entire CC staff under one roof, coming from as far as Los Angeles, Dubai, Boston, and Berlin, and as near as SF’s SOMA district, to speak about what they’ve been up to internationally and in the realms of science, culture, and education. Whether you’ve been a fan of CC from the start or you’re new to the world of free culture, this salon is not to be missed.

The salon will be held on Wednesday, February 11, from 7-9pm. Location TBD. For location info, please check back at http://wiki.creativecommons.org/San_Francisco_Salon

From 7-8:15pm, we’ll have brief presentations from:
Mike Linksvayer, Vice President
Eric Steuer, Creative Director
Catharina Maracke, Director, Creative Commons International
John Wilbanks, Vice President, Science Commons
Ahrash Bissell, Executive Director, ccLearn
Joi Ito, CEO

At 8:15pm, we will open the floor for questions and discussion.

Come meet the members of CC’s fabulous staff for a fun-filled evening of presentations, conversations, and mingling. We hope to see you there!

Check it out on Upcoming!

CC Salons are global events, and anyone can start one, no matter where you live. We encourage you to check out our resources for starting your own salon in your area.

Nordic Cultural Commons Conference

Michelle Thorne, October 14th, 2008

In the wave of free culture gatherings this October, don’t miss out on the Nordic Cultural Commons Conference 2008, in Stockholm on October 22-23, organized by the Creative Commons Nordic network.

How is business created around open licensing? What benefits does the Creative Commons model provide for public broadcasting and archiving? How open licensing changes the production of cultural works? How does the common Nordic legal environment affect re-use of cultural works?

Nordic Cultural Commons Conference provides insight into these questions. Bringing together all Nordic Creative Commons scholars and practitioners, it is also a great opportunity to meet and discuss the latest open content practices and ideas.

Speakers include Mike Linksvayer (Creative Commons), John Buckman (Magnatune), Nicklas Lundblad (Google) and Paul Gerhardt (BBC Creative Archive), as well as Creative Commons Project Leads Henrik Moltke (CC Denmark), Prodromos Tsiavos (CC England & Wales), and Herkko Hietanen (CC Finland).

For more information, please visit the conference web site: http://www.hiit.fi/nccc/.

FSCONS: Free Society Conference and Nordic Summit

Michelle Thorne, September 26th, 2008

Free Culture, Free Software, and Free Content will join forces under the banner of “Free Society” at FSCONS on October 24-26 at the IT University of Götheborg, Sweden. The orgnaizing trinity, Creative Commons Sweden, Free Software Foundation Europe, and Wikimedia Sverige, see FSCONS as a chance to reach out with their respective communities and build joint projects with like-minded activists and organizations.

A strong speakers lineup provides the rhetorical food-for-thought in the Free Culture track. Mike Linksvayer (Creative Commons) asks, “How far is free culture behind free software?” as he charts key indicators and historical factors in the progress of each. Eva Hemmungs Wirten argues that the digital commons extends back to nineteenth-century London, while Oscar Swartz keynotes the events with the warning that Sweden’s controversial “Lex Orwell” may usher in “The End of Free Communication”.

Nikolaj Hald Nielsen spotlights Amarok 2, the intuitive music player for Linux and Unix, demonstrating a viable intersection of Free Culture and Free Software. Meanwhile, other landscapes are being analyzed by Inga Walling (Open Street Map), who recounts the project’s efforts to create and provide free geographic data.

John Buckman (Magnatune) riffs on “Squeezing the Evil out of the Music Industry” by using CC licensing to rethink record labels. And since online attribution persists as a thorny issues for many music content sites, Victor Stone (ccMixter) reports on how some platforms are solving the problem with the Sample Pool API.

The blend of timely topics and kindred communities makes FSCONS an exciting event to follow this autumn. Thanks a lot to the organizing teams for their efforts — we’re looking forward to this!