David Byrne and Brian Eno’s “Bush of Ghosts” remix site launches today

Eric Steuer, May 9th, 2006

David Byrne and Brian Eno’s landmark sampling album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts was recently remastered and reissued with extensive liner notes, photos, previously unreleased bonus tracks, and the short film Mea Culpa by multimedia artist Bruce Conner.

Now comes the best part! Today, Byrne and Eno launched a Web site where the audio source files from two of the classic tracks from Bush of Ghosts — “A Secret Life” and “Help Me Somebody” — are offered under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 license, so you can (subject to the download terms of use) use them to make remixes. The site allows uploads and user ratings, as well as the ability to share videos you make for music on Bush of Ghosts.

This is incredibly exciting and we can’t wait to see all the cool creativity that comes out of this project.

Podcasting Legal Guide Released

Mia Garlick, May 8th, 2006

Creative Commons, Vogele & Associates & the Berkman Center’s Clinical Program have put together a Podcasting Legal Guide to provide general information to podcasters about legal issues they may need to consider when podcasting. The Guide has been is available both online and as a PDF under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 license. A hardcopy of the Guide can also be ordered via Lulu in print-on-demand for $5.37 (black & white) or $10.83 (color). The authors hope that the flexible license chosen will enable practitioners in different jurisdictions to translate and adapt the guide for their own jurisdictions to assist podcasters around the world.

To coincide with the release of the Guide, Creative Commons has released podcast promos from several prominent artists including DJ Spooky, Kristin Hersh, Jonathan Coulton, Finian Mckean, and Au Revoir Simone. These promos are available for podcasters who use CC-licensed music to include in their podcasts. Creative Commons invites other artists to submit promos for inclusion at the site.

Remixers: Last call to enter the Fort Minor Remix Contest

Eric Steuer, May 6th, 2006

The Fort Minor Remix Contest at ccMixter has been a smash success, with hundreds of incredible entries by producers from all around the globe. The contest ends tonight at 9pm PT, so get your last minute submissions in today! The winner will receive a Technics SL-1200 turntable, courtesy of Warner Bros. Records and Machine Shop Recordings.

Diesel–U-Music 2006 accepting entries now!

Eric Steuer, May 4th, 2006

Diesel–U-Music is back! The 2006 edition of the popular international music contest is open to unsigned artists playing rock, urban/hip-hop, and electronic music. This year’s competition is sponsored by Diesel, Sony, and Billboard, and is presented in conjunction with Creative Commons.

Here’s the coolest part: All of the songs entered into the contest will be licensed under CC’s Attribution-NonCommercial license, so they can be legally shared, reused, and remixed by people around the world.

Go to diesel-u-music.com from now through June 25th to upload your best tracks and earn a chance to perform live in London and receive massive press and radio exposure. Past Diesel-U-Music winners include cut-and-paste superstar Mylo, multimedia mixers inside-us-all, and trilingual rapper Nikka — you could be next!

Creative Commons presents: May CC Salon, San Francisco

Jon Phillips, May 3rd, 2006

Please join us for the third CC Salon in San Francisco on Wednesday, May 10 from 6-9 PM at Shine (1337 Mission Street between 8th and 9th Streets). CC Salon is a casual get-together focused on conversation, networking, and 2-3 brief presentations from individuals or groups who are developing projects with relationships to Creative Commons. Please invite your friends, colleagues, and anyone you know who might be interested in drinks and discussion.

The dynamic line-up for May 10 features Chris DiBona, the Open Source Programs Manager for Google, who will discuss Google, Creative Commons, and the Google Summer of Code, of which Creative Commons is a mentoring organization (applications due May 8).

Ken Goldberg (Artist and UC Berkeley Professor) and Tiffany Shlain (founder of the Webby Awards) are presenting their film, The Tribe, an award-winning film screened at the 2006 Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals. The Tribe is described as “the unorthodox, unauthorized history of the Jewish people and the Barbie doll…in about 15 minutes.” Ken will also show a short video that commemorates the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake-”Ballet Mori: a ballet conducted by the Earth”. In this improvisational performance, “SF Ballet Principal Dancer Muriel Maffre responded to a musical composition modulated live by the unpredictable fluctuations of the Earth’s movement as measured in real-time by a UC Berkeley seismometer at the Hayward Fault.”

Also, Abram Stern and Michael Dale from UC Santa Cruz will present Metavid, a system for the collective remediation of public government proceedings. Metavid uses Free and Open Source Software to capture public domain footage along with closed captioning to make the archive searchable.

Filling in the gaps throughout the CC Salon is Quarterbar, who will be spinning a CC-licensed electronic mix.

We’ve set up http://www.creativecommons.org/salon where you can find the latest information about CC Salon. It is also place where you may contribute ideas, make suggestions, submit proposals for future events, and learn how to start a CC Salon in your neck of the woods.

You can track this event on upcoming.org as well as other future CC Salons.

Wanna start your own CC Salon? See this post on icommons.org.

3voor12 plundert musea

Mike Linksvayer, May 3rd, 2006

Marco Raaphorst writes in about ‘3voor12 plundert musea’ (this is an expanded version of an entry on his blog):

The Dutch VPRO have asked me to compose a special song for the release
party of ‘3voor12 plundert musea‘
VPRO is a Dutch broadcasting
organisation for national non-commercial TV and radio. They are payed by
tax-money. Their 3voor12.nl is a site for music and
music-video’s (not specifically under CC licenses, sometimes embedded in
a Flash-player) as well as hosting several forums, news and interview
pages.

This project ‘3voor12 plundert musea‘
is based on high quality
recorded samples which are available under the Creative Commons
Attribution 2.5 Netherlands license. People who create a remix can decide which CC license they
would like to choose, but only CC licenses can be chosen, so this is
really interesting.

For this event, a release party of the first winners of the ‘3voor12
plundert musea’ contest, I will compose a special song. This song will
be demonstrated by me using Ableton Live, showing you how you can tweak
and mangle samples and create something new out of it.

The winners will receive 250 copies of their songs on vinyl!

Details: 16th of May at Studio 80, Amsterdam. Doors open at 8:30 PM.

I guess it will be fun; me, a laptop, a keyboard, a mic and a projector. Bjorn Wijers of Creative Commons Netherlands told me he’ll be there too. Drinking
beer and promoting Creative Commons…

Classical Music Goes Digital (& CC)

Mia Garlick, May 3rd, 2006

John Buckman from Magnatune drew our attention to
recent press coverage about the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra’s decision to eschew traditional music distribution methods and release their performance of Handel’s 1736 opera “Atalanta” exclusively through Magnatune. Apparently, the Orchestra’s decision was prompted by disappointing CD sales. Now the music can be enjoyed either by streaming at no cost, by download, by license (eg., by adding PBO to your home movie for next commercial film), or as a CD-on-demand. The Wall Street Journal quotes conductor Nicholas McGegan as saying that the Internet “has potentially given the industry a tremendous shot in the arm” letting orchestras reach “new audiences, including ones that are unlikely to hear you in person.” And of course, Magnatune supports “open music” & licenses its downloads to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

Summer of Code application period open

Mike Linksvayer, May 2nd, 2006

Google is accepting student proposals for its Summer of Code program yesterday through May 8. Student signup starts here.

Creative Commons has a page for SoC proposal ideas. In the last few days Jon Phillips has greatly expanded our Developer Challenges section, another place to look for proposal ideas.

“Boy Who Never Slept” film trailer offered under CC

Eric Steuer, May 1st, 2006

Filmmaker Solomon Rothman has released the trailer to his upcoming movie Boy Who Never Slept online. Both the trailer and the full-length film are being offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 license. Rothman shot, starred in, and directed the movie, which centers on the friendship between an insomniac writer and a girl he meets online. From the press release:

“I’m very excited about how powerful the internet is as a distribution source for movies, and how new technologies like Google video have empowered amateur filmmakers with the ability to reach a large audience and have their work be accessible to everyone. That’s powerful,” says Solomon Rothman.

ccSalon article at iCommons.org

Eric Steuer, May 1st, 2006

iCommons.org has published a very cool article about Creative Commons Salon. Give it a read — there are some helpful hints about starting a CC Salon in your community.