Recent Press — LA Times and SJ Mercury

Neeru Paharia, November 9th, 2004

Two great articles about Creative Commons recently came out in the press. A story in the Los Angeles Times by John Healey, details how the most recent release of Morpheus, the popular file-sharing network, is able to identify MP3 files marked with Creative Commons licenses (registration required).

Yesterday, Dawn C. Chmielewski wrote a story on the WIRED CD, in a full-page spread which made the cover of the San Jose Mercury’s Tech Monday section. Beyond describing the nature of the CD, she presents a thorough overview of the current debate over file-sharing, and sampling (registration required).

Should I Rip This?

Glenn Otis Brown, November 9th, 2004

This flow chart might come in handy the next time you face that insanely complex modern ehtical dilemma: whether to rip a CD or not. (Or, you can just look for a little (cc) Some Rights Reserved and skip all this fuss.)

(Via Serendipity.)

Whispers

Glenn Otis Brown, November 8th, 2004

I’ve just heard from the curiously named jazz group Whispering Johnson, who have released their latest recordings, The Birthday Numbers, under the Creative Commons Sampling Plus license. They’ve even gone out of their way to license their sheet music under CC — nice touch. (Which segues into a nice reminder to all you music folk out there: if you’re CC licensing a song of yours, be sure to license both the composition and the recording, if you’re able to, so that your fans know they can make the most of both aspects of your stuff without legal woes.)

Shout it from the rooftops, or just use your inside voice: you’re invited to sample Whispering Johnson.

(I should have known that Xeni from Boing Boing beat me to the punch on this.)

Minnesota (Land of My Favorite Rockers)

Glenn Otis Brown, November 8th, 2004

Prince. Bob Dylan. Husker Du. The Replacements. Tomorrow morning I head out for Minnesota to give a presentation on Creative Commons at the 32nd annual Museum Computer Network/Minerva Conference — though I’ll be focusing on copyright in the visual arts, not music. (I’ll manage to work The Purple One or The Bard-Turned-Lingerie-Spokesman into the lecture somehow, however, I’m sure.)

The Minnesota Electronic Resources in the Visual Arts (MINERVA) Symposium joins together with the Museum Computer Network (MCN) to present a dynamic Town Hall Meeting at the Hilton Hotel.
The Town Hall Meeting will examine copyright and intellectual property issues associated with the administration of digital image resources. Professionals from around the country associated with libraries, museums, historical and archival centers, academic and other research institutions with an interest in digital image collections are invited.

As more collections become available electronically, the demand for the availability of all types of resources and collections increases. This trend presents fiscal, logistical, and philosophical challenges to the individuals, institutions, and information professionals presiding over collections. MCN/MINERVA ‘04 convenes with a Town Hall Meeting to address the proprietary challenges associated with building, using and maintaining digital image collections.

More info. If you’re in the Land o’ Lakes and want to meet up and talk CC, drop me a line.

Autobiography under Creative Commons license

Glenn Otis Brown, November 8th, 2004

Bob Myers sez: “I’ve put my new book, Bobby and the A-Bomb Factory, up on the web under a Creative Commons License. It’s ‘historical autobiography,’ a romp through the 1950s with me as a child and my atom-bomb-scientist dad. Please take a look!

(Via Mark at Boing Boing.)

California Lawyers For the Arts

Neeru Paharia, November 8th, 2004

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel at the California Laywers for the Arts, Music Business Seminar. It was a great event — we discussed how the Internet is affecting commercial music distribution, and business models. In the context of the file-sharing debate, I spoke about how Creative Commons can clarify whether artists want their works to be shared. I also put forth our vision of creating a market where people can sell sampling friendly content, as is demonstrated on the WIRED CD. Imagine if the next U2 album included sampling rights, and you could interact with your music to create something new — that would be amazing.

Billboard Awards

Glenn Otis Brown, November 8th, 2004

As you know, the WIRED CD was recently nominated for a Billboard Digital Entertainment Award in the category of “best use of technology by a music label.” Neeru and I joined our WIRED counterparts this weekend in Los Angeles to attend the awards ceremony, where we learned that the CD did not take home the award.

It was an honor to be a finalist, and we salute the winner, LL Nation by Island Def Jam.

The WIRED CD: The Calcutta Telegraph

Glenn Otis Brown, November 8th, 2004

A very nice article on the WIRED CD by Subhajit Banerjee in The Telegraph of Culcutta, India.

Can new-age music piracy be curbed by a good old fashioned crackdown? There are stirrings that suggest the way music is shared is about to undergo a drastic change, thanks to the open approach.

The WIRED CD: “Going Legit”

Glenn Otis Brown, November 4th, 2004

Reuters has a piece today about BitTorrent in which the WIRED CD is mentioned as one example among many of perfectly legal uses of the technology.