Commons News
Clone Contest
If you missed out on our moving images contest earlier this year, you have a second chance of sorts.
The Center for the Study of the Public Domain’s Arts Project Contest is based on our moving images contest.
A contest to create a 2-minute moving image that explains to the public some of the tensions between art and intellectual property law, and the intellectual property issues artists face, focusing particularly on either music or documentary film.
Entries, due November 1, must be released under a Creative Commons license.
No Comments »WIRED CD — going forward
Needless to say, the concert last week was unbelievable, especially after two years in the basement of the Stanford Law School (thank you Stanford), trying to convince people that new copyright licenses are the key to the evolution of culture and intellect in the new millennium — often responded to with a deafening silence, and then: “click.” When we’re not preaching to the choir, we’re often faced with this challenging task: communicating a complicated concept to people who aren’t really sure why they’re talking to you.
Hopefully, not for much longer. What excites me most about this project is that people will get it instantly. Download Gilberto Gil’s song, cut it up in the latest music-editing software, add your own unique flavor, and put it back on the Net (or webcast it, or play it on a loudspeaker from the back of a truck). No problems — it’s all legal.
What I look forward to most is to see what people are going to do with the CD. How many people will sample songs and make something new? Will they be hobbyists, or music professionals? Will we hear these new samples on the radio? Or, will communities on the Net interact with each other, interacting with the CD? Is this my beautiful house? What else is possible? Wait and see, I guess. In the meantime, I’ll keep talking to people about copyright licenses, and how they are the key to cultural evolution.
No Comments »Browsing and searching for licensed photos at Flickr
Flickr is a great online photo sharing app that allows you to tag all your photos with a Creative Commons license. We’ve blogged about it in the past and interviewed the founder as well. Today they launched an entire area of their site devoted to showing off all the photos within their system that are tagged with each license. If you jump to any of the “see all” links below, you’ll find a stream of photos that are even searchable, within license type.
What’s great about Flickr exposing this functionality is that it makes the thousands of licensed photos readily available. Say for instance I want to find photos of last week’s Gilberto Gil-David Byrne concert in New York? Just drop into one of the popular licenses and search for a keyword. Flickr also exposes their innovative keyword tagging system among licensed files. Here are what the most popular tags look like on attribution-noncommercial-sharealike photos, allowing you to browse photos containing those keywords.
No Comments »Well, how did I get here?
Back in Indiana after a whirl-wind week in New York City, I’m still processing the whole experience, telling everyone I can about Creative Commons and the concert. Never having been to NYC, the entire experience is worth remembering. That said, the concert definitely stands out in my mind. Seeing the sheer energy of the volunteers manning our t-shirt table was inspiring. Seeing the audience dancing in the aisle was heartening. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to listen to “This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)” without picturing David Byrne jumping up and down on stage, and the entire audience jumping in time with him.
As I sipped my wine at the after party, reflecting on how lucky I am to have this job, David Byrne walked by. Gil wasn’t far behind. And I thought to myself “Now this is a Once in a Lifetime moment,” followed by
“Well, how did I get here?
This is not my beautiful life!
This is not my beautiful job!
These are not our beautiful offices!”
And most important, “Where does that highway go?” And by “highway” I mean CC.
No Comments »David Byrne’s Journal
David Byrne’s tour journal now has an entry for last week’s WIRED concert and Creative Commons benefit. Byrne on the songs he and Gilberto Gil played together:
Over the last few weeks I’ve been E-mailing his people regarding the possibilities of us doing a song or 2 together. We’ve exchanged ideas and MP3s via Email, as we only have the afternoon soundcheck to rehearse together. It’s been kind of crazy, but it works.
Ever wonder what a rock star does after the after-concert party?
No Comments »I ride my bicycle home – It might be around 3AM.
At Hewlett
I’m at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation today and tomorrow for an “open knowledge” grantees’ meeting. It’s striking (1) how large the group is this year and (2) how many other grantees are close friends of and collaborators with Creative Commons: The Internet Archive, Connexions, MIT OpenCourseware, David Wiley, Foothill-De Anza Community College, and more.
A good part of the network that I thought Creative Commons had built through scrappy business development seems to have been part of a Hewlett master plan. That’s downright Willy Wonka — in a good way.
No Comments »Press bonanza
While we’ve been plugging away at copyright licensing it appears, at least according to our recent press hits, that Creative Commons is starting to hit a critical mass. Two high profile features came out today: one about legal downloads at the Internet Archive released under a Creative Commons license (in next month’s PC World Magazine), and another from eWeek, about how well our licensing is catching on. There are many more stories coming out every day about Creative Commons, and then, of course, there’s next month’s big mention in WIRED.
No Comments »The WIRED Concert: A Testimonial
This from someone who attended the concert last Tuesday:
This was truly one of the most inspired shows I’ve seen in a while. Not just the music, which was tremendous, but the entire feeling, established early on through the films; that we were involved in reclaiming and resuscitating creativity and the cross fertilization of cultures. The only downside for me was that it was SO inspired, I started beating up on myself during the performance for not cleaving closer to my own personal dreams. So ever since that show I’ve been working on getting the hell out of TV production. Thanks, Creative Commons!
I promise I didn’t write this myself. I don’t even think I could have come up with this. Inspiring stuff.
No Comments »Spain up next
There is no end in sight, as yet.
In Barcelona, on Friday, Creative Commons will launch its Spanish licenses. Ignasi Labastida i Juan, the Spanish project lead, has organized a promising launch event that will feature, amongst other speakers, Mr. Oriol Ferran i Riera, General Secretary of Telecommunications and the Information Society, Generalitat de Catalunya (Catalan Government), and a round table on “New ways of publishing and publicizing culture”. Roland is going to give a talk on iCommons, while Christiane is busy proselytizing in England.
It will all happen in Barcelona, at the Aula Magna of the Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes 585, Spain, on Friday at 10am. All readers of this blog are welcome to attend and contribute to the discussion.
No Comments »Looking forward, Creative Commons recalls extraordinary week
At Creative Commons, there is hardly ever time to look back and reminisce about great events past. But last week’s congregation in NYC being such a landmark event in our organization’s history, here are a few things to recall.
First, Tuesday’s concert made it clear that we’re becoming truly global now. There is no better way to describe a collaborative project that today encompasses academics and volunteers from all continents. Also, the concert’s coverage in the New York Times – and the fact that we are getting endorsement from high-calibre artists like Gil and Byrne – should create increased attention in many of the world’s cultural capitals – and not only from people who are already Creative Commons devotees. As we can testify from our personal experience over the last days in Germany and Britain, it has had that effect already.
Second, there was the wonderful experience of bringing the two offices of San Francisco and Berlin together. We should do this on a regular basis. The latter one still being in its infancy, Christiane and myself profited immensely from exchanging our ideas and from seeing at close quarters the sheer energy Creative Commons as a project is able to impart on its staff. Neeru, we also enjoyed carousing with you in the meat-packing district when it was all over! I hope we can share the great time we all had with many more Commoners in the future.
Third, there was of course the usual deluge of side meetings associated with an international conference (if that is the word), so we think we should single out just one that was particularly seminal for our work at iCommons. Something great might be in the making in our proposed partnership with the Arts Council England, and we are extremely thankful for being handed this opportunity. Stay plugged in for further details – it will be yet another sign that Creative Commons is well on its way from start-up idea to worldwide institution.
It’s been an extraordinary week. We can all be so grateful for being present at the creation.
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