Magic Sharing Box: Use It

Mike Linksvayer, July 21st, 2006

Canadian author MCM has created a kid’s storybook and fable for the commons:

The Pig and the Box is about a pig who finds a magic box that can replicate anything you put into it. The pig becomes so protective of it, and so suspicious of anyone that wants to use it, that he makes people take their copied items home in special buckets that act as… well, they’re basically DRM. It’s like a fable, except the moral of the story is very modern in tone.

The book is licensed under the CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada license and published the sources — the book has already been translated into Chinese, Danish, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. A colouring book version is also available.

MCM has pledged free the pig from its repressive NonCommercial chains and release the book under the truly free (as defined by free software activists) Attribution-ShareAlike license — if he can raise $2000. Patrons who pledge $20 toward the cause will get a signed copy of the book.

Inside cover of Pig and the Box by MCM.

Future of Media

Mike Linksvayer, July 17th, 2006

The Future Exploration Network recently published a report on the future of media (pdf) that touches on many trends relevant to Creative Commons, including Creative Commons (and the report itself is CC licensed, of course):

Intellectual property and media

The Future of Media Strategic Framework is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike
2.5 License. This means that while Future Exploration Network retains copyright you can use it – even
for commercial purposes – as long as you attribute it to the creator. It also means, that if you think it
should be different or want to improve on it, you can do so as long as you release it under the same
license – feel free to do so! There are a plethora of dilemmas and thorny issues for media organizations to
resolve in how they protect their own content, as well as license user-submitted content. Locking content
down will in many cases prove to be less valuable than allowing it to be reused appropriately by other content
creators. A living content landscape benefits content creators far more than a rigid world.

Strategic questions:

What licenses do you offer for user-submitted content?

In which situations should media-generated content have Creative Commons or similar licenses that allow reuse and adaptation?

I’m giving a twenty minute presentation on Creative Commons and the future of media at a Future Exploration Network summit tomorrow evening in San Francisco. Fortunately it looks like I won’t need to spend much time on the basics!

“Framework” graphic from the report, read for explanation.

Innovation Happens Elsewhere

Mike Linksvayer, July 15th, 2006

Ron Goldman and Richard P. Gabriel have published Innovation Happens Elsewhere, their 2005 book on open source software, online under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. The book covers the ins and outs of open source software development for business without using much jargon. Here’s the authors’ summary of who the book is for:

We wrote this book to help business executives understand when and how an open-source strategy can help them to achieve their company’s business goals. We also want to provide support for the managers charged with implementing that strategy in their day-to-day work running a project that makes use of open source.

The book is also aimed at the engineers who may need to work on open-source projects. We want to give them an idea of what they will experience and what will be expected of them. We also want to give them the information they will need to educate their managers and co-workers about open source.

Third, the book is for anyone interested in a better understanding of open source–its larger history, its philosophy, and its future prospects.

One of the more novel parts of the book may be its comparison of open source and agile methodologies (a hot topic in software development).

IHE is all about software. One can imagine in the not too distant future someone writing an equally thorough and approachable Creativity Happens Elsewhere.

La Stampa Goes a Little CC

Mia Garlick, July 14th, 2006

JC de Martin from our CC Italy team recently drew our attention to the fact that one of the leading Italian newspapers - La Stampa - based in Torino, has just released its two cultural supplements, TuttoScienze (science) and TuttoLibri (books), with a Creative Commons license (Attribuzione-NonCommerciale-NonOpereDerivate 2.5). Great news!

Meet the CC Interns - in Second Life Next Week!

Mia Garlick, July 14th, 2006

So we have four fabulous interns this summer - Amy, Katy, Margot & Asheesh. They have all been working closely with the CC team about the various projects that we have in the office right now and have been busily exploring Second Life & getting to know their SL selves. Here are some photos of them in world (looking a little like a virtual boy band, I must confess)…

As Jen posted yesterday, the CC interns are going to be in Second Life next Thursday, July 20 at 4pm PDT at our HQ on Kula Island, talking about what they have been working on this summer. If this is how crazy their virtual selves are - can’t wait for the discussions!

The Second Lives of CC’s Interns

Jennifer Yip, July 13th, 2006

These 4 talented students have been working on a variety of licensing projects with the CC staff. To show how innovative this summer has been, they will present their work in virtual space as the fourth event in our monthly Second Life series. Be ready for discussions about new ways that CC licenses can be used in architecture and designing, sampling music, writing, and technology. It’s going off at our HQ on Kula Island: Thursday, July 20 at 4pm PDT.

Chinesepod and Englishpod

Mike Linksvayer, July 13th, 2006

Since last Septmeber Chinesepod has podcast a daily lesson in Mandarin Chinese under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Here’s a recent lesson on ordering vegetarian in China. The site has attracted a large following, with dozens of questions and helpful comments from fellow learners and Mandarin speakers on every post.

Silicon.com recently posted an interview with Chinesepod that reads like a “featured commoner” interview on this site:

silicon.com: Why are you giving away your product for free?

Horkoff: We realised last year that language training is extremely inconvenient - some people here have to travel across town in China for three nights a week to attend a class. There’s a different culture of language learning here.

What we do is on-demand training. We use web-based systems and community platforms. And we also have a subscription-based model.

To be honest we didn’t know how to design or service this. We had no real model to build it on. We put out a daily podcast and then we have a supplementary model too, that you pay for.

We’re seeing the model resemble an open source business, one with a free Creative Commons approach at the heart of the service. Meanwhile we find ways to make money on the edges with additional services and products.

The premium subscription has a scroll-over mouse option - over the Chinese characters. We have exercises, tests and a vocabulary builder. We give a one-week free trial so there’s no real risk to people seeing if they’re interested. The podcasts we give you forever - those are free.

Do you get annoyed that people rip your material off?
No. We encourage people to use our Creative Commons-licensed podcasts as it assists us with our product development and helps push our brand into the community.

We’ve had all kinds of crazy stories about how people are using it. There’s this hypnotist in the UK. He says he can increase memory retention by adding a hypnotic audio layer into the podcast. So he’s mashed up ChinesePod with his own hypnotic stuff to create his own version. There’s one guy in France who just cut out the English intros and put in French ones.

As long as you say it’s ChinesePod, at the end of the day you’re driving people back. We don’t have that much of a problem with it. I’m still waiting for the first thing to come out that violates the rules. We’ve found that people have come up with some really innovative uses.

Read the full interview at Silicon.com.

The people behind Chinesepod recently started Englishpod, a similar site for learning business-oriented English — also CC licensed!

WpLicense 0.6.0 Released

Nathan Yergler, July 13th, 2006

WpLicense, a plugin for the WordPress blogging system, has moved to the Creative Commons wiki. WpLicense allows you to select a Creative Commons license for your WordPress blog. Coinciding with the move an updated version, 0.6.0, is now available. This release adds support for including license information in your RSS2 and Atom feeds, so check it out.

Movin on Up

Nathan Yergler, July 12th, 2006

Working for Creative Commons has been a great experience with one exception: the telecommuting. I’ve realized over the past two years it’s just not for me. It’s not so much the distance as it is being by myself all the time; I prefer to be around people when I’m working. So when my former employer, Canterbury School, offered me a desk in their technology center where I could continue to work for Creative Commons, I jumped at the chance. Canterbury School is one of the leading college preparatory schools in northeast Indiana and has a strong computer science requirement for high school students (including Python).

I’ve been working in the new office since Monday, and it’s a nice change from working alone. Thanks to Canterbury for supporting Creative Commons so generously.

Reminder: CC Salon tomorrow night in SF featuring Facebook, EFF, and Good Magazine

Eric Steuer, July 11th, 2006

Join us tomorrow night (Wednesday, July 12, from 6-9pm) at Shine, (1337 Mission Street between 9th and 10th Streets) for CC Salon!

This month’s line-up:
Chris Hughes and Jeff Hammerbacher from Facebook
Derek Slater and Jason Schultz from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
Max Schorr of GOOD Magazine

We’re also going to try something new and will be featuring “OpenSalon” — an open mic where the community is invited to give short (five minutes or less) off-the-cuff presentations. Show up if you are interested in this chance to demo your new project, play your new remix, get feedback from the community, or shamelessly plug your upcoming event (if it relates to CC, of course!).

Track this event on Upcoming.org!