The Semantic Web — Live!

Glenn Otis Brown, March 14th, 2005

Our very own Mike Linksvayer and Matt Haughey are on a panel at SXSW discussing metadata, the semantic web, and the one-of-a-kind Creative Commons search engine at this very moment. If you’re at the Austin Convention Center, get over here to Room 15.

CC USB

Mike Linksvayer, March 10th, 2005

Last week on this weblog:

USB memory and hardware media player vendors take note — you can ship your device with great music without asking for permission, because permission has already been granted.

Today:

Magnatune and Hana Micron Launch TunePlug Portable USB Drive With Pre-Loaded MP3 Music From Leading Independent Artists

This isn’t exactly a “permission has already been granted” case. Magnatune uses a NonCommercial license, so the USB drive vendor had to ask permission to sell drives filled with Magnatune tracks. However, it is a device shipped chock full of CC-licensed music, which is pretty cool.

CC@SXSW

Mike Linksvayer, March 9th, 2005

We’ll have a booth at the interactive conference, do two panels (Notes From the Underground: The Rise of Remix Culture and The Semantic Web: Promising Future or Utter Failure), an interview and a party (see below). Also check out Colin Mutchler’s Free Culture Performance.

See you in Austin, Texas next week. By the way, we’re all friendly.

Real World Creative Commons

Mike Linksvayer, March 9th, 2005

London-based music business magazine Five Eight has published an article by Magnatune founder John Buckman titled Using the Creative Commons in the Real World in which Buckman explains how he chose to use a CC license for his record label.

Also, Buckman in response to a question on his blog regarding source material:

I’m in the process of consolidating all the various individual tracks we’ve received, to make a “remix sources” page at Magnatune, so you can easily find them all, and create new, interesting works.

Keep up the good work John!

Help MediaRights find music for festival!

Neeru Paharia, March 8th, 2005

MediaRights, who run the Media that Matters Film Festival, has come across a licensing problem from one of its festival entries. The youth-produced flash animation Neglected Sky sponsored by Global Solutions uses the song Such Great Heights by The Postal Service in their animation, however, they only have a license to stream the song. MediaRights had planned to put the entire 5th festival on a DVD and distributes it under a Creative Commons license. They had some confirmation that they’d be able to license the music, but at the last minute, things fell through.

MediaRights now has five days to find replacement music for this piece and is looking to the commons for alternatives. Help MediaRights out: watch the flash and listen to the music. If you know of any CC licensed music that sounds similar, drop MediaRights a line. They prefer an Attribution license or something that’s in the public domain.

CC search index breakdown

Mike Linksvayer, March 7th, 2005

Folks love a license distribution breakdown, so here’s another, this from the current index of 1.2 million pages (larger crawls forthcoming) used by the Creative Commons search engine:

All numbers in the above table are percentages: 32 percent of pages marked as containing audio content use licenses that allow commercial use, 78 percent allow derivatives, and 32 percent allow both. In the case of audio works, almost nobody has chosen to allow commercial use without also allowing derivatives.

It appears that people licensing audio have chosen to offer more liberal terms than average while those licensing still and moving images have chosen less liberal terms than average.

Creative Commons Internship Opportunities

Francesca Rodriquez, March 7th, 2005

Creative Commons is happy to announce this summer’s internship opportunities at the San Francisco office. If you are interested in applying, please follow the instructions below.

Legal Internship

Creative Commons is currently accepting resumés from law students interested in interning in the San Francisco office. This paid internship will focus on intellectual property and copyright, especially in relation to the internet as it relates to building the pool of licensed content and encouraging the reuse of content.

Technology

Creative Commons is currently accepting resumés from persons interested in interning in the San Francisco office. This paid internship will focus on aiding the Chief Technology Officer and Software Engineer with the development of software and maintenance of services. Knowledge of Linux and Python a must.

Free Culture Marketing/Media Internship

This internship is open to students involved in their respected colleges’ FREE CULTURE club. Creative Commons is currently accepting resumés from those students interested in interning in the San Francisco office. This paid internship will focus on a grass roots effort, and/or media development to encourage the reuse of content. Duties will also include working on a “street team” campaign to other Free Culture club members. This position will be offered to a non-law student.

Internship terms

• SPRING (Mid-January through late April)
  Applications should be sent between October 1st and December 1st
• SUMMER (Late May through August)
  Applications should be sent between January 1st and April 1st
• FALL (Mid August/Early September through December)
  Applications should be sent between July 1st and August 31

Quotes from past Creative Commons interns

Here are what some of the past intern from Creative Commons had to say about their internship.

“I loved working for Creative Commons. The people are wonderful and I had the chance to do cutting-edge legal work that made a real difference to a great cause. My summer at CC was like taking a vacation to the future.”

James Grimmelman, Yale Law School ‘05

“My experience at Creative Commons was invaluable. I got to work closely with a diverse team, improve my writing, and study copyright, all while serving an important public interest.”

Derek Slater, Harvard College ‘05

Compensation

Creative Commons does offer compensation for internships. If your school offers a stipend for internships, this factor is figured into the compensation.

How to apply

If you are a student interested in our internship program, send us your:

• Cover Letter

• Resumé
• Two References
• School Transcript (optional with your application, required at the interview)
• Writing sample (optional with your application, required at the interview)

Applications and questions can be sent to:

Francesca Rodriquez

Office/Project Manager

francesca@creativecommons.org

fax: 415.946.3001

Thank you for your interest in our organization.
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Creative Commons on Yahoo! Netrospective

Neeru Paharia, March 5th, 2005

To celebrate Yahoo!’s 10th birthday, they created a great Netrospective, highlighting significant events on the Web over the last ten years. We were honored to learn that Creative Commons is number 79 of 100 moments on the Web. Happy birthday Yahoo!

WIRED LiveCD

Mike Linksvayer, March 4th, 2005

The developers of the amaroK media player for KDE have used the tracks from the WIRED CD as content for their demo Live CD. Boot the CD in a PC and you can try out armaroK with zero installation. Great idea. USB memory and hardware media player vendors take note — you can ship your device with great music without asking for permission, because permission has alreaedy been granted.

Letter to Hypatia

Roland, March 3rd, 2005

Carlos Sánchez Almeida, a Spanish abogado and fellow Creative Commons proselytizer, has published an English translation of his talk ‘Carta a Hipatia’, originally delivered by him at the Spanish launch event at the University of Barcelona in October 2004. The paper can be found here. Thanks to all involved in the translation effort and to Republica Internet for hosting it.