Friends of Creative Commons,

As 2004 draws to a close, Creative Commons is strong. In the past two
years since Creative Commons licenses have been available, we’ve taken
our first large first steps with you–building some of the essential
tools, adding critical pieces of infrastructure and assembling a vibrant
community.

In 2004, Glenn, Larry, and the legal team made huge improvements and
released version 2.0 of the main Creative Commons licenses. These new
versions added many needed features while at the same time they reduced
the complexity of the licenses for our users. Christine, Roland and all
of the iCommons volunteers worldwide took that work, and have ported
Creative Commons licenses to 12 countries. We expect to add another
dozen countries early next year, and we’re in conversation with more
than 70.

We’ve found more than 5,000,000 pages with content and links back to our
licenses. But the commons is about more than simply putting the work out
there. So, Mike, Neeru, Matt, and Nutch.org have collaborated to develop
and debut a metadata search engine that makes it easy to find content
marked with Creative Commons licenses. As if that were not enough, that
search functionality now ships with the amazing Firefox browser from
mozilla.org.

Neeru and the tech team have also worked with other software developers
to make it easy to integrate Creative Commons licenses. The list is
long, and includes Flickr, Moveable Type, Squarespace, Manila,
Archive.org, WinkSite, plus DMusic, Soundclick, Garageband.com, and
others I’m sure I’ve forgotten.

We’re nearer to making worry-free sampling and re-creativity mainstream.
What better place to start than the cover of WIRED magazine? The WIRED
CD contains sixteen sampling-friendly tunes — and includes the Beastie
Boys, David Byrne, Gilberto Gil, Chuck D and more.

In 2005 we will continue to build our worldwide community of
contributors to free culture. We will continue to enable more images,
music, films and text, and we’ll start to work on the Science Commons.
We’ll have much more to tell you about it at the start of the year.

ou can help make Creative Commons and “some rights reserved” household
phrases. Visit https://creativecommons.org/support/ and you’ll find out
how you can make your contribution via PayPal, Amazon’s Honor
System, or by sending a check to Creative Commons at 543 Howard Street,
5th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105.

Thank you for your support. It’s not the commons without you.

Mark Resch, CEO
Creative Commons

Creative Commons a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Contributions
are tax-deductible in the U.S. to the extent allowed by law.