Bloomsbury Academic to Release “Science, Ethics and Innovation” Series for Free Under CC Licenses

Cameron Parkins, May 13th, 2009

Bloomsbury Academic, the recently-launched academic publishing imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, just announced their first series publication, Science, Ethics and Innovation. The series will be edited by Nobel Laureate Sir John Sulston and professor John Harris.

The series will be released online as free, CC-licensed downloads with hard copies available for sale. More from The Guardian:

The series will be the first from Bloomsbury’s new venture, Bloomsbury Academic, launched late last year as part of the publisher’s post-Harry Potter reinvention. Using Creative Commons licences, the intention is for titles in the imprint to be available for free online for non-commercial use, with revenue to be generated from the hard copies that will be printed via print-on-demand and short-run printing technologies.

In related news, Bloomsbury Academic’s digital publication of Lawrence Lessig’s Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy has now been downloaded for free in over 105 countries, while hard copies have also been selling well.

Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

Fred Benenson, May 12th, 2009

We somehow missed last March’s release of Mark Tovey’s collection of essays called “Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace” from the Carleton University Press. The book is a 648 page collection of essays from the likes of Yochai Benkler, Howard Rheingold and David Weinberger and is now available to download as a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial PDF. If you want to support the book’s non-profit publisher, we encourage you to purchase the hardcover copy at Amazon.

The Story of the Story of Stuff’s CC License

Fred Benenson, May 12th, 2009

On Sunday The New York Times covered Annie Leonard’s massively successful “Story of Stuff” short, noting that it has been viewed millions of times and that Leonard has sold over 7,000 DVD copies of the film. We were delighted to discover that the short is licensed under our BY-NC-ND license, allowing for non-commercial reuse and sharing. On the DVD order page, the team notes that the DVDs can be duplicated and shown in classrooms, but also points those looking to prevent waste to a 50mb .mov download of the whole film. The site also encourages supporters to organize their own screenings of the shorts using free PDF resources to help with promotion and discussion.

The story of “The Story of Stuff” demonstrates a kind of savvy that more activists using media should adopt: create an engaging message and find every possible way to encourage your supporters to promote, share, and distribute it.

Open Translation Tools 2009

Jane Park, May 12th, 2009

One of the social barriers to wide adoption of educational resources is the availability of them in various countries’ native languages. When educational resources are licensed openly, sans the ND term, this barrier is easily overcome via translation practices. However, a lot of issues still remain even with OER at hand to be freely translated, such as stream-lining translation processes, exploring tools that aid in translation, and seeking the best ways to distribute such translations.

To address these issues and more, FLOSSManuals.net and Translate.org.za, with generous support by the Open Society Institute, are putting on Open Translation Tools 2009, a conference that,

“…will convene stakeholders in the field of open content translation to assess the state of software tools that support translation of content that is licensed under free or open content licenses such as Creative Commons or Free Document License. The event will serve to map out what’s available, what’s missing, who’s doing what, and to recommend strategic next steps to address those needs, with a particular focus on delivering value to open education, open knowledge, and human rights blogging communities.

… “Open content” will encompass a range of resource types, from educational materials to books to manuals to documents to blog content to video and multimedia.”

One of the agenda items is “Addressing the Translation Challenges Faced by the Open Education, Open Content, and human rights blogging communities, and mapping requirements to available open solutions.” ccLearn’s Ahrash Bissell will be in attendance, having helped to shape the vision for the event.

Open Translation Tools 2009 will take place in lovely Amsterdam from June 22-24. They are currently calling for participants and do not require a registration fee (though donations are requested). Limited scholarships are also available.

U of Oregon Library faculty research to become more open

Jane Park, May 8th, 2009

Steps towards openness were taken yesterday by the University of Oregon Library, as its faculty unanimously passed a resolution requiring all library faculty-authored scholarly articles to be licensed CC BY-NC-ND (thanks to Peter Suber of Open Access News). Although NC-ND does not allow derivations (which may include translations and other adaptations) of the articles, library faculty also have the option of licensing their works under one of the more open licenses, including CC BY-SA and CC BY.

We highly encourage library faculty (and libraries in general) everywhere to consider adopting these more open CC licenses for their content (especially CC BY). If you remember from last October, the University of Michigan Library adopted CC BY-NC for all of its works, including those to which the University of Michigan held copyrights. Stripping away the ND term enables collaboration across institutions, as you are granted more than the simple right to access, but to also adapt, translate, and improve the work.

However, adopting CC BY-NC-ND is a step in the right direction. From the announcement,

“We largely followed the leads of Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and most recently Oregon State (our friends and rivals). One area where we differ is in explicitly mandating a CC-BY-NC-ND license. Choosing that license was very conscious. We believe that it is vital that the community standardize on a small number of licenses to move beyond the present mess where every publisher and practically every author has their own unique terms. The license we chose is a good candidate for standardization. … Authors who wish to can of course also license their works under a more liberal license such as CC-BY-SA.”

For more information on our Open Access work, visit the Scholar’s Copyright Project page.

Registration for the Open Video Conference is Open!

Fred Benenson, May 7th, 2009

The Open Video Conference is a two-day gathering of thought leaders in technology, business, public policy, art, and activism from around the world to explore the future of the moving image. The conference is happening at NYU Law School on June 19th and 20th and will feature keynotes from Clay Shirky, Yochai Benkler and Jon Lech Johansen. You can read more about the panels and workshops on the schedule.

I’ll be there representing CC (so ask me for some schwag if you see me) but many other important organizations will be in attendance as well, so it will be a great opportunity to put many names to faces.

Registration is now open, so go and sign up now!

Scratch.mit.edu now at 400,000+ projects

Jane Park, May 7th, 2009

A couple years ago, the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at MIT Media Lab developed a Web 2.0 programming platform for kids called Scratch. Scratch allows kids, and virtually anyone else, to create and remix rich media of all kinds—video, video games, even simple photo animations. The programming behind Scratch focuses on building blocks, like Legos, to get kids not only friendly, but adept at the technology that dominates our world. Each user can create a project, whether it be a video or a video game, and upload it to share on the Scratch website. Scratch currently exceeds more than 400,000 projects, all licensed CC BY-SA, allowing any youth to flex her creative muscles and enhance a peer’s project by remixing it with her own.

The School Library Journal wrote up an excellent article about them last week, emphasizing that “Literacy in the 21st century encompasses the full range of skills needed to engage in our global society—computer, information technology, media, and information literacy skills.” The SLJ reports that Scratch is now being tested in libraries in the Minneapolis area, “to determine if the workshops and classes for young people are replicable and sustainable for a range of libraries.” Unsurprisingly, library staff are finding that kids quickly learn the program on their own, and are guided more by their own intuitions than an “expert’s” instruction.

I decided to try out Scratch myself, and found some cool projects along the way. One project by “cougars” is a photo animation of a human skateboard. Another is a video game simulation of the Buggers war from Ender’s Game by PetertheGeek. (How cool is that?)

What’s more, the Scratch program is global, available in more than 40 languages, and the code itself is free for anyone to copy, publish, or distribute.

Kutiman Talks to CBC; Interview Audio on ccMixter

Cameron Parkins, May 6th, 2009

If you’re interested in online culture, you’ve probably come across the amazing THRU YOU project from Israeli producer Kutiman (see this WIRED profile for some background). Kutiman mashed together various YouTube clips of people playing instruments (many of them instructional videos) to create something totally new and unique. The result was a collection of seven songs and videos that artfully demonstrate the potential of digital collaboration.

Last month, CBC Radio’s Spark talked to Kutiman about the project and posted the interview audio posted to ccMixter under a Creative Commons BY-NC license for producers to chop up and use in their own tracks. Check it out!

CC Case Studies: Share your Story

Michelle Thorne, May 5th, 2009

Creative Commons kicks off its global case studies effort. Share your story. Discover new works and new models.

With upwards of 150 million CC-licensed works published from every corner of the world, no single use case can tell the whole story. Creators and users come to CC for different reasons, and for many, CC solves different problems. We’re trying to capture the diversity of CC creators and content by building a resource that inspires new works and informs free culture.

Creative Commons Case Studies 2009 kicks off today – and we want to hear your story! We’re collecting cases big and small on our re-launched Case Studies wiki, an online portal to upload and discover documentation about CC-licensed projects.

The top community curated stories will be featured on our website and in the next printed volume of Creative Commons Case Studies. You’ll also collaborate with our CEO, Joi Ito, whose doctoral work focuses on select case studies about CC and the sharing economy.

How to get involved

• Visit the Case Studies wiki and learn about how people are using CC licenses around the world. Browse existing studies and download Building an Australasian Commons: Creative Commons Case Studies Volume I, a stunning publication edited by Rachel Cobcroft and supported by CC Australia. The book highlights 60 exemplary CC-licensed users in Australasia and worldwide. Source files and PDFs are available for the entire book and easily digestible booklets covering particular fields.
• Curate a collection of case studies with PediaPress, a service that builds an OpenOffice document, PDF, or printed book from selected wiki pages. Publish your collection on a site that supports CC licenses such as Scribd. Tailor the material to meet your needs and add your entry to list of case study collections.
• Teach with real-life examples. We’re encouraging educators to follow CC Australia’s lead and integrate the CC Case Studies into their curricula. Teaching with case studies is compelling and instructive. Have your students analyze existing studies or write their own.
• Most importantly, add your CC story, or one you’re familiar with. Improve, categorize, and assess existing case studies. We’re particularly interested in the addition of data relevant to the cases.

Not sure what a good case study looks like? Check out these featured submissions: Blender Foundation, SomeRightsReserved, and the African Sleeping Sickness Test.

Whether you’re looking for inspiration, business models, or precedents, the CC Case Studies are a perfect place to start. Help us expand this resource by sharing your work and telling your story.

Rhizome Interviews Free Music Archive

Cameron Parkins, May 1st, 2009

Rhizome, the digital art and media outlet of the New Museum in New York (and CC supporter), posted a fantastic interview today with Jason Sigal of the Free Music Archive. The whole interview is worth a read, but Sigal’s discussion of how CC licensed music can help U.S. radio stations is of particular note (Rhizome question in bold, Sigal’s answer follows):

Was the move to bring together an international group of curators intentional? I ask this only because I feel the model of FMA is not only informed by the direction presented by web 2.0 technologies but it is also a response to outdated US copyright law and its impact on American radio stations. The reason why so many American broadcast stations are now turning to talk radio is because they are also trying to podcast their content online, and talk radio allows them to side step restrictions regarding music licensing and podcasts.

Exactly. (I just snapped my fingers in agree-ance!) Of course it’s going to be international, that’s the nature of the web. And that’s one reason we offer Creative Commons licenses — they adapt out-dated copyright law to fit the world wide web.

The FMA has already become a fantastic resource for curated CC-licensed music and is a database that looks to continue to grow in quality and quantity over time - see featured curators dublab and CASH Music for two prime examples. Also, be sure to check out our initial coverage of their launch for more information.