Take an entertaining and compelling soundbite, easy to use digital audio tools, and cheap bandwidth, what do you get? Spontaneous remix culture. DeanGoesNuts.com has in a few days collected dozens of remixes of Howard Dean’s 2004 Iowa Caucus concession speech culminating in the infamous “yeagh!” utterance. While the curator (a Dean supporter) has licensed the…

Independent musicians looking for a way to get paid for their work might want to check out Pump Audio. They serve as a marketplace of independent music for film, tv, and radio, representing thousands of independent artists. The thing that really makes them stand out is that they don’t assert control of an artist’s copyright,…

This week’s featured content is Nomads’ Land, a site for photographs taken by Jean-François Maïon during travels around the globe. A great place to start exploring the site is the map on the main page. All 1000+ photos are licensed under a Creative Commons license and we can wait to see where Jean-François travels to…

We’ll be posting drafts of the new versions of our licenses later this week. About a month of review time will follow, and then we’ll revise as needed and turn the new licenses on. Throughout the next couple of weeks we will explain how the process of versioning will happen. Meantime, here’s a preview of…

Participatory creativity is hot, hot. The Lollapoola Mash-Up Contest. Our Own GET CREATIVE! Moving Images Contest (winners to be announced next month). MoveOn.org’s Bush in 30 Seconds advertisement contest. And now even the New Yorker has announced the winner of its own analog-version of an open-source creativity contest, which was more interactive than contests past.…

Among the many cool features of our re-design this fall, we may not have given one page the attention it deserved. If you’re marking your work or web page with our little Some Rights Reserved button, you should take a look at our suggestions for making a precise statement about what’s being licensed, complete with…

NPR’s Science Friday last week spoke with Howard Chang, of Stanford Medical School’s Biochemistry Department. Chang discussed his recent article, co-authored with several colleagues and published in the Public Library of Science Biology open-access journal, which explores how scientists can learn about cancer from studying the way common wounds heal. Like all PLoS publications, Chang…

The International Commons project expanded this week to include the launch of UK license discussions. Those interested in participating can check out the draft license and mailing list for details.

“Welcome to the Tech Boom” by Alex Steffen

“Copyright Law: The Education of Larry Lessig” by Jason Krause