The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit (in California) ruled yesterday that the Beastie Boys’ sampling of a three-note segment of James Newton’s composition to the song “Choir” did not infringe Newton’s copyright. The court ruled that the sample was a “de minimis” — or trivial — instance of copying and thus not…

In the Creative Business section of today’s Financial Times, there’s a good article about how and why Creative Commons was formed, titled “It’s not all or nothing: A middle way for copyright holders is emerging.” A subscription is required to review the article.

The Public Library of Science, an open access journal we covered as a featured commoner, has released new articles from its upcoming Biology issue (which is also Creative Commons licensed). One article in particular (PDF synopsis) details a study that found a strong association between obesity and a gene on chromosome 10. As obesity is…

A month ago, we mentioned the emerging “mob spots” phenomena, and how Creative Commons licenses might play a role. It looks like the folks at MoveOn.org have come close to the goals laid out in our earlier post. They’re doing a 30-second spot contest, with all entries licensed under Attribution, Non-commercial, No Derivative Works. This…

This week’s featured content is Loca Records. This is an “open source” record label that features a variety of electronic music artists, with many of their songs available under a Creative Commons license. Their mission is to change the way record companies do business and follow the GNU/Linux model of releasing work and receiving compensation.

Sounds good in Spanish, too. Here’s an article from Clarin.com on Creative Commons and director James Boyle‘s recent visit to Argentina. The piece doesn’t quite get how Creative Commons’s approach is reliant upon and compatible with copyright, but it’s nice to see another example of interest in our work building across the world.

Earlier today, Steven Garrity’s excellent essay on Mozilla branding was Slashdotted, bringing his server down for several hours (it’s a common effect). What is interesting about it is that I personally could not reach the server to read the document, but thanks to the attached Creative Commons license and the license provisions that allow for…

On October 6 we posted a list of technology challenges that we hoped would inspire developers. It did inspire one: Nathan Yergler has already created and made a few rounds of improvements to a web app that validates and extracts license metadata, just as called for. As an example of what Nathan’s application can do,…

This week’s featured content is Douglas Rushkoff‘s new essay entitled Open Source Democracy. It’s a 70 page essay (available as a free downloadable PDF) that explores the future of politics in an interactive world. It was created for the UK thinktank Demos, and is available under a Creative Commons License. For those unfamiliar with Rushkoff’s…

Earlier tonight at the Lessig vs. Rosen debate, we gave away copies of our second* CD, Copy Me/Remix Me. It features a variety of music from an even wider variety of artists. Among the featured musicians, you’ll find record-at-home independents, magnatune and opsound artists, world music groups, and small town rock bands. As we mentioned…