Times (UK)

Press Robot, April 7th, 2004

“Copyright for Every Occasion” by Richard Susskind

Everyone in Silico

Matt Haughey, April 7th, 2004

Everyone in Silico is a futurist sci-fi novel set in Vancouver, 2036. It came out a couple years ago, but this week the author decided to license it under Creative Commons and produce free downloadable ebook versions. As the author says “So if you like the book, send pals this link, e-mail it to friends, fileshare it on illegal networks — you’ll be helping me out. I know from experience that I’ll reap dividends.”

Playing the web’s music on Webjay

Matt Haughey, April 6th, 2004

Webjay is a cool little hack. You toss in a URL, and it scans pages for mp3 files, making iTunes/winamp/realplayer playlists on the fly. As an example, Common Content’s audio page as a MP3 playlist looks something like this.

Woody Guthrie free culture

Matt Haughey, April 5th, 2004

Joel Blain recently wrote in with an interesting observation:

“I’ve been reading a bio on Woody Guthrie. It’s pretty interesting. The book reprints one of the “Copyright Warnings” he included on his recordings in the ealry 40’s

“This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.”

It just made me think of Creative Commons. I dunno if you’ve seen or heard it before, but I thought I’d pass it along.”

Nice find, thanks Joel!

Nature Open Access Debate

Mike Linksvayer, April 2nd, 2004

Nature is hosting a debate on open access science publishing. At the center of the debate are Public Library of Science and BioMed Central, two open access journal publishers using the Creative Commons Attribution License. The PLoS evidence paper presents a good summary of what is wrong with the current scholarly publishing model, why open access is important, and an open access business model.

Even as the much needed debate on open access journals heats up, it is just one part of a bigger picture where science, creativity, law, and society collide. Perhaps with this in mind, note the recent post on this weblog concerning the launch of the Science Commons exloratory phase.

VIBGYOR

Matt Haughey, April 1st, 2004

I recently stumbled across a nice photoblog from Australia, called VIBGYOR. It’s sporting a Creative Commons license that allows for commercial use, too.

Public Domain Acquired

Glenn Otis Brown, April 1st, 2004

Breaking news: “In a move shocking to all, Duke University, of Durham, North Carolina, purchased the entirety of the public domain late last evening for a fee of 2.2 trillion dollars . . .” (Full story)