Budapest, Hungary — February 15, 2006

Creative Commons Hungary, a collaboration between Center for Media Research and Education and the nonprofit organization Creative Commons, today announced, together with the band Nomada and Tilos Radio, the first Creative Commons remix competition in Hungary.

The five-member group Nomada was founded by Roma singer-guitarist Balogh Gusztáv in 2003. Nomada’s music is derived from the Hungarian Gypsy tradition in addition to drawing from other musical styles such as Spanish, Arabic and Serbian folk elements.

Nomada have released their song Aven le Roma! – Here come the Roma!, and its component elements, under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license which authorizes members of the public to remix it. To be considered as part of the content, remixes must be uploaded to this site by March 31, 2006. Six of the best remixes will be selected by panel of Hungarian and international musicians including DJ Vadim, Szakcsi Lakatos Béla, Mitsou and Dj Palotai.

Balazs Bodo of the CC Hungary project team said “Nomada has its roots in the Roma music tradition where music is ‘free’ as the common heritage of Roma people. The band has created something unique out of this, and by releasing their remix of this tradition under a CC license, they are giving it back to those to whom it belongs: a community where it is kept alive. The only difference is that we have stepped out from the analogue, manual music tradition into the realm of electronic music and digital remixes. Use it, fuse it, diffuse it!”

About The Center for Media Research and Education (MOKK)

The Center for Media Research and Education (MOKK) was founded in 2002 as a joint effort of the Department of Sociology and Communication at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics and the leading Hungarian telecommunication company, Hungarian Telecom, with the aim of furthering multi-disciplinary research and education in the field of new media in Hungary. MOKK is built around the conviction that it is impossible to understand the sociocultural effects of new technologies without taking into account their technical foundations and attributes—and equally, that in order to develop successful new media applications one needs to understand the sociocultural context of their use. For more information about MOKK, visit their site.

About Tilos Radio

Tilos Radio is a community, a non-profit radio station in Budapest, Hungary, that was established in 1991, to draw the public’s attention to the fact that there was at that time no legal framework for independent and community broadcasters. During the first years of its broadcasting, Tilos (which means “forbidden” in Hungarian) enjoyed wide public interest and played a key role in the liberalisation of the airwaves in Hungary, which happened in 1995. In 1995, Tilos Radio secured a frequency license and has since transitioned to become a key player in the cultural and lifestyle scene of Budapest.

The services of Tilos are mainly financed by listeners’ donations and the income from fund-raising events, and partly by support from EU programmes, international NGO’s and charity institutions. For more information about Tilos visit their site.

About Creative Commons

A nonprofit corporation founded in 2001, 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. MacArthur Foundation, the Omidyar Network Fund, and the Hewlett Foundation. For general information, visit their site.

Contact

Balazs Bodo (Budapest)
CC Hungary
Email

Christiane Asschenfeldt (Berlin)
Creative Commons International
Email

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