The fourth season of the animated series Odd Job Jack (featuring stars like Jason Alexander, John Goodman, Christian Slater, Molly Parker, and Jerry Stiller) began airing recently on Canada’s Comedy Network. The show is a riot – each episode follows a temp worker through a different employment misadventure (i.e. mortuary worker, security guard, “rodent wrangler”).…

MOD Films produces “remixable” film content and technology aimed at new cinema platforms. Through documentation and packaging of the film production, MOD helps to support future use of the films as digital video releases, in games, and as source material for online communities to play with. Michela Ledwidge founded MOD Films in 2004 with a…

Ron Goldman and Richard P. Gabriel have published Innovation Happens Elsewhere, their 2005 book on open source software, online under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. The book covers the ins and outs of open source software development for business without using much jargon. Here’s the authors’ summary of who the book is for: We wrote…

Since last Septmeber Chinesepod has podcast a daily lesson in Mandarin Chinese under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Here’s a recent lesson on ordering vegetarian in China. The site has attracted a large following, with dozens of questions and helpful comments from fellow learners and Mandarin speakers on every post. Silicon.com recently posted an interview…

Lulu offers a publishing service for “digital do-it-yourselfers” to publish all manner of media including books, music, comics, photographs, and movies. Lulu lets creators set the license terms, including Creative Commons licenses, for their works as part of the publishing process. Authors can also set the price at which they wish to sell their content.…

John Buckman from Magnatune drew our attention to recent press coverage about the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra’s decision to eschew traditional music distribution methods and release their performance of Handel’s 1736 opera “Atalanta” exclusively through Magnatune. Apparently, the Orchestra’s decision was prompted by disappointing CD sales. Now the music can be enjoyed either by streaming at…

Gonzo SF novelist John Sundman was an early adopter of Creative Commons and of publishing books on the web before Creative Commons existed. About three years ago I read his first two books, Acts of the Apostles and Cheap Complex Devices (both highly recommended) and intended to interview him shortly after. The interview didn’t happen…

If imitation is the best form of flattery, London-based record label BeatPick is handing it to Berkeley and London-based label Magnatune in spades. Similarities include CC license used (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike), a 50/50 artist/label revenue split, a menu of commercial licensing options and availability of wav, mp3 and ogg downloads. Of course it’s about the music and…

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[This email is part of a weekly series written by Lawrence Lessig and others about the history and future of Creative Commons. If you would like to be removed from this list, please click here: https://creativecommons.org/about/lessigletter#unsubscribe Alternatively, if you know others who might find these interesting, please recommend they sign up at https://creativecommons.org/about/lessigletter ] From…