Giving It Away (for Fun and Profit)

Matt Haughey, April 22nd, 2004

Andy Raskin wrote a long, detailed piece about Creative Commons for the May 2004 issue of Business 2.0 magazine entitled “Giving It Away (for Fun and Profit).” The thrust of the artice is a look at what the future landscape might look like for artists that license their work under Creative Commons. The article also talks about ways current artists are making money and what types of future economies might be built around the licensed work.

ATRIP Conference, Utrecht

Roland, April 22nd, 2004

Last week I gave a talk on the licences and their relationship to the public domain at the ATRIP Conference in Utrecht, Holland. ATRIP is the International Association for the Advancement of Teaching and Research in Intellectual Property. Abraham Drassinower of the University of Toronto Law School gave a fascinating paper dealing with CCH Canadian Ltd. v. Law Society of Upper Canada, a recent judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada involving a fresh look at the nature of authorship. I hope we can blog the paper later on. Many thanks to Professor Grosheide and the organizers for this spendid opportunity to situate our project in a wider context and to spread the word.

ECHO Conference Berlin

Roland, April 21st, 2004

I delivered a talk on Creative Commons’s international efforts yesterday at the conference of European Cultural Heritage Online. The conference took place in the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Germany. ECHO is an EU-funded collaborative research endeavour that provides support for scientific and cultural institutions in Europe that enrich cultural heritage through new technologies. Some of these partners (such as a state library in Lower Saxony specializing in Leibniz manuscripts dating from the 17th century or an online museum on the Fontana di Trevi) have articulated a strong interest in using the CC licences for making their collections digitally available. Thanks again to the Max Planck Institute for inviting us.

The times, they are a-changin’

Matt Haughey, April 21st, 2004

A recent study of people that download music from the internet found that 21% of the participants had also downloaded a feature film before. 9% had even downloaded a film in the past month. These are some fairly high numbers and point out that while everyone has been predicting what happened to music would eventually happen to film, it may actually come true. Hopefully the Hollywood studios pick up on the success of things like Magnatune and the iTunes Music Store and provide an easy-to-use and relatively inexpensive way to download movies legally, before everyone figures out a way to pirate the stuff behind their backs. [via Outside the System]

Oyez putting current cases online

Matt Haughey, April 21st, 2004

The US Supreme Court is currently hearing Gitmo cases, which involve a review of post-9/11 captures and detainment of suspected al-Qaida and Taliban members. Oyez, the Supreme Court archive has begun posting audio from the hearings, including streaming and downloadable mp3s licensed under Creative Commons.

Theory and Practice of Online Learning

Neeru Paharia, April 21st, 2004

A new book entitled Theory and Practice of Online Learning, published by Athabasca University, is now available for download under an Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial license. The book is also being sold.

Sir John Daniel, Assistant Director-General for Education of UNESCO, had this to say about it:

“I am delighted that educators all over the world will be able to enjoy this book at no cost because, in the true academic spirit of an open university, Athabasca has published it as an open source book under a Creative Commons License. UNESCO strongly encourages this form of publication as a way of bridging the digital divide and thereby helping to bring online learning to all the world’s people.”

CC Remix Music — Opsound Radio

Neeru Paharia, April 20th, 2004

Opsound has a great Flash-based Internet radio application, highlighting an hours worth of Opsound music. Lots of mellow electronica, and low-fi tracks — a very soothing collection of tunes, all offered under Attribution-ShareAlike licenses.

iCommons.edu

Glenn Otis Brown, April 19th, 2004

I had the chance to speak about Creative Commons yesterday at the Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information Access Conference (TICFIA) at San Diego State University. With the support of the US Dept. of Education, the group is up to some innovative and interesting things on education across borders via the Net. Some great iCommons leads will surely come out of the meeting. Thanks again to my hosts from SDSU, the University of Chicago, and the Dept. of Education.

Let your fans know they won’t get sued

Neeru Paharia, April 19th, 2004

If you’re a musician, and you want to let your fans know they won’t get sued if they download your songs, you should check out the Music Sharing License. It lets your fans know they can download and share, but not sell or make any commercial use out of your music. The Uptones, a Bay Area based ska band, are a great example of a band who makes a few songs available under the Music Sharing License, so their fans can download, but not worry about lawsuits.

Media Archeology

Neeru Paharia, April 19th, 2004

Yesterday, I spoke at the Media Archeology Film Festival in Houston, Texas. The festival was put on by the Aurora Picture Show Microcinema and showcased the collections of several 16mm film collectors, including Rick Prelinger who makes many of his public domain films available online.