“People are always looking for what side to be on, and there isn’t just one side. . . . I think we’re looking for a kinder, gentler, more equitable model where more people can make a living off of this stuff.” The wise words of Jenny Toomey, musician, policy wonk, and Executive Director of the…

One more from today’s cosmic copyright coincidence file: “Some of These Bootleggers, They Make Pretty Good Stuff” — a Salon piece on Bob Dylan and “the hidden industry he (unwittingly) helped create.” Thought-provoking.

An interesting piece in the New York Times today discusses “Illegal Art: Freedom of Expression in the Corporate Age,” an exhibition dedicated to works built in part from other copyrighted works — without permission. By sign-of-the-times coincidence, I participated in a panel yesterday entitled “The Illegal Imagination,” at the Future of Music Coalition’s superb summit…

Innovative content licensing seems to be catching on — even beyond the efforts of Creative Commons. Prentince Hall PTR recently announced that they’ll publish a series of technical books under open-content licenses. Read the Slashdot story. Kudos to Bruce Perens for brokering the move, and to Prentice Hall for joining O’Reilly and Associaties in the…

Do you know someone using a Creative Commons license for a unique or compelling project? We like to profile such Featured Commoners, and we’d like your suggestions. Email us.

UK-based media artist (and Creative Commons license adopter) People Like Us will perform in New York City this week. On January 8th, People Like Us (a.k.a. Vicki Bennett) will screen the intriguingly titled “We Edit Life” at Subtonic. On the 12th from 5pm to 7pm EST, People Like Us will hit the airwaves with WFMU,…

The Future of Music Coalition will host their third-annual Policy Summit January 4 through 7 in Washington D.C. The FMC3 summit will bring policymakers, academics, lawyers, activists — and, of course, a number of premier musicians — together for a discussion of artists’ rights and technology’s influence on the music industry. Glenn Otis Brown, Creaitve…

For some particularly excellent commentary about Creative Commons licenses, check out Denise M. Howell’s Bag and Baggage, one of the snappiest law-and-tech blogs out there. Denise chronicles her own experience applying one of our licenses to her blog and addresses readers’ questions about the licenses, among other things. As our chairman has pointed out in…

Clay Shirky, prominent web thinker and investor, has released essays from his email newsletter NEC (Networks, Economics, and Culture) under a Creative Commons attribution license. Here’s how to subscribe to the list if you haven’t already.

Just in time for the new year, we’re pleased to announce the new Creative Commons Weblog and associated RSS feed.