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New Website Puts 2004 Campaign Media in the People's Hands

About CC

P2P-Politics.org lets friends and colleagues share political videos with just a click, thanks to Creative Commons copyright licensing

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA —October 17, 2004—A new people-to-people website, P2P-Politics.org,
today announced a free service for sharing political expression online.
The site enables anyone to select from a menu of video clips the ones
that best express their view of the U.S. presidential elections, and
then email links to those clips, along with a personalized message, to
friends, family, and colleagues. Like a cross between an online
greeting-card service and a gallery of campaign advertisements, P2P-Politics.org makes everyday people broadcasters of political expression from across the spectrum.

The site launched today with 150 clips from http://MoveOn.org’s
“Bush-in-30-Seconds” contest. Because all entries to that contest are
under Creative Commons “some rights reserved” copyright licenses, their
reuse on P2P-Politics.org did not require the cumbersome process of rights-clearance.

The
site invites anyone to upload their own video clip, and it has invited
the Bush, Kerry, and Nader campaigns to contribute content to be
shared. So far, only the Kerry campaign has responded favorably to the
invitation, but organizers are optimistic that the other campaigns will
participate as well.

“Political ads have one purpose,” said
Lawrence Lessig, chairman of Creative Commons. “That is to elect the
candidate they support. With just over two weeks to go, we expect the
campaigns will be eager to help their supporters get the message out.”

The
ads are hosted by the Internet Archive, which hosts and serves files of
any size at no charge—provided they are under Creative Commons
licenses. P2P-Politics will curate content
to assure its appropriateness, and no content will be posted without
the authority of its copyright owner.

The site was built by
volunteers responding to a weblog post earlier this month. It was
designed by J Christopher Garcia and Aaron Swartz. It will be supported
through the election; afterwards, all content will remain at the
Internet Archive.

<http://p2p-politics.org>

About Creative Commons

A 501(c)(3)
nonprofit founded in early 2002, Creative Commons promotes the creative
re-use of intellectual and artistic works — whether owned or in the
public domain — by empowering authors and audiences. It is sustained by
the generous support of the Center for the Public Domain, the John D.
and Catherine T. Mac Arthur? Foundation, the Omidyar Network Fund, and the Hewlett Foundation.

For general information, visit <https://creativecommons.org>.

About the Internet Archive

The
Internet Archive is a 501©(3) public nonprofit that was founded to
build an “Internet library,” with the purpose of offering permanent
access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical
collections that exist in digital format. Founded in 1996 and located
in the Presidio of San Francisco, the Archive has been receiving data
donations from Alexa Internet and others. In late 1999, the
organization started to grow to build more well rounded collections,
like its Open Source Music and Open Source Movies catalogs.

For more information, visit <http://archive.org>.

Contact

Glenn Otis Brown

Executive Director
Creative Commons
glenn@creativecommons.org
+1.415.336.1433

Press Kit
https://creativecommons.org/presskit/

Posted 17 October 2004