The third beta of the next version of the Firefox web browser is now available for download. For the approximately half of you reading this in a Firefox browser, the next version of Firefox will be (because the beta already is) much faster and more awesome all around (and will be released as version 3.5…

Former Featured Commoner Beatpick have launched a new website that aims to make it easier to explore their diverse catalog, showcasing improved search features and an easy way to find music to be used in commercial contexts. Of course, their entire catalog remains released broadly under a CC BY-NC-SA license, making it shareable and remixable…

Talented animator, writer and producer Nina Paley has freely released her animated film, Sita Sings the Blues under our copyleft license, Attribution-ShareAlike. Copies of Paley’s feature length film are available on Archive.org, LegalTorrents, and various other sites in many different formats. Nina explains her decision to her audience on the film’s site: Dear Audience, I…

Sketchory is a new site featuring over 250,000 CC-licensed sketches, available broadly under a CC BY-NC license that allows for open sharing and remixing. In a unique twist, Sketchory allows the commercial use of up to 5,000 sketches through using our CC+ protocol. Sketchory currently needs help tagging images to improve their search functionality, so…

CASH Music, the CC-friendly non-profit we can’t seem to stop talking about, has teamed up with 50FOOTWAVE to release the band’s entire back-catalog – including a brand new EP Power+Light, prior releases, and various rarities – under a CC BY-NC-SA license. Fronted by songwriter Kristin Hersh, 50FOOTWAVE’s back-catalog is a massive amount of material, now…

In case it weren’t evidenced by their participation in Wikipedia Loves Art, The Brooklyn Museum is an institution that simply “gets it.” On Tuesday, they launched an API. The Brooklyn Museum Collection API consists of a set of methods that return structured data and links to images from the museum’s collections. This is particularly exciting…

As promised in last week’s post on The Commons Video, here’s an interview with David Bollier, author of Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own, which we said in January “will likely establish itself as a definitive guide for those seeking to understand and discover the key players and concepts…

Today, Uncensored Interview, a video producer and licensor of musician interviews, is releasing thousands of videos from its interview footage archive under our most permissive license, Attribution also known as CC-BY. Previously, Uncensored Interview’s library consisted of premium content available for commercial licensing, but now includes videos available via download in Ogg Theora, a free…

Net music innovator and philosopher Lucas Gonze (mentioned on this blog many times, e.g., about net native music) writes in about his new thing: Hey CC guys, this is a note to announce that my new app is live. The app: http://freshhotradio.com The FAQ: http://freshhotradio.com/help What’s special about this is that it’s a mainstream-friendly experience…

Learning Music Monthly is a new subscription-based, album-a-month, musical series from L.A.-based musician John Wood. Launched yesterday in partnership with CC-friendly record label vosotros, Learning Music Monthly grows out of a previous and similar project that began as an album-a-month project for John Wood and his musical cohorts, resulting in releases that ranged from a…