Filmmaker Andy Pavis has made an eight-minute-long public service announcement about Creative Commons and our mission, entitled Some Rights Reserved. Andy cleverly frames the copyright debate between two extremes in the context of a talk show hosted by “Larry Commons.” The PSA then explores an example of Aaron, a musician who goes through the process…

Ran across a couple interesting bits related to musicians having their songs online and record sales. In a roundtable interview with the Chicago Tribune (registration required to view), Creative Commons chairman Lawrence Lessig and the online manager of the band Wilco talk about the internet and music. The gist of is that putting Wilco’s music…

One-man band Brad Sucks recently signed with Magnatune and licensed all his tracks under Creative Commons (and began selling them on a sliding scale on Magnatune’s site). We were delighted to hear that Brad’s song “Making Me Nervous” was recently licensed for use in radio ads and TV ads that played in Canada. Thanks in…

My most vivid memory from South by Southwest: Thursday night in Austin, TX, USA, MSN threw a party across the street from the convention center. It was in a spare warehouse space, like a rave or fly-by-night underground party, but the fancy lighting, free drinks, and imported-looking crowd (L.A.) all said Big Bucks. The women…

Although they’re not selling any Creative Commons licensed music, it’s worth noting that there’s a new player in the downloadable music arena: Audio Lunchbox. They specialize in small indie rock labels, selling albums for around ten dollars each in instantly available downloadable formats. Additionally, the high bitrate MP3 and ogg vorbis tracks contain no DRM…

As far as I’m concerned, the very best among the many great things about being part of Creative Commons is getting to meet CC users and supporters face-to-face. Knowing that one and a half million web pages (and growing) carry Creative Commons licenses is always an inspiring thought, but getting together with musicians and writers…

If you’re at South by Southwest in Austin, come by our panels at 10am (music and copyright) and 11:30am (film and copyright) Monday morning. Special guests include two Austinites: tech-media renaissance man Wiley Wiggins and GET CREATIVE! contest winner Justin Cone, whose 2-minute short “Building on the Past” perfectly exemplifies the CC mission. (How many…

A large part of the Creative Commons team is excited to be in Austin at South By Southwest. On Monday, we’ll be speaking on panels discussing Creative Commons for music and film. We’ll also be announcing a few related project at the conference. See you there!

Music journalist Devon Powers has a great piece on copyright terms, sampling, and the Beatles at PopMatters. In it, she looks at the Grey Album and comes to the conclusion that overly long copyright terms harm our culture by limiting the use of music as social force. Akin to “Free the Mouse” she arrives at…

Matt’s post earlier today about Hit Song Science, a piece of software that uses algorithms to analyze songs to predict their likelihood of success in the market, reminded me of a favorite imaginative bit in Jonathan Franzen’s novel The Corrections, which was a big hit a couple years ago: . . . Brian spent his…