A museum exhibit called “Illegal Art” might sound like a history of naughty pictures. Turns out that the exhibit (through July 25 at SF MOMA Artist’s Gallery) is more innocuous than most primetime TV: A Mickey Mouse gasmask. Pez candy dispensers honoring fallen hip-hop stars. A litigious Little Mermaid. Not kids’ stuff, exactly—but illegal? Creative…

On July 25th the Electronic Frontier Foundation will host a night of music, art, and conversation to celebrate digital culture. Hosted at the Black Box in downtown Oakland, this all-ages event will bring up-and-coming artists of electronica, digital film, and illegal art together with leaders from the cyber-rights movement. Among the event’s speakers, Creative Commons’…

Creative Commons has signed on in support of Aaron Swartz‘s call for “forward motion” on blog protocols. We will be participating in helping define licensing extensions to the new specification. (I’ve worked with Aaron, our metadata advisor, for over a year now, and this isn’t the first time I’ve followed his lead. You should try…

The keen eye of Professor Karl-Friedrich Lenz found what appears to be a discrepancy between the warranty provision of Creative Commons’ licenses and our own policies page, which reads in part: This website provides general information about legal topics but it does not provide individual legal advice. Creative Commons Corporation is not a law firm…

In response to the ongoing discussion of our licences’ warranty provision, I’ve decided to raise the issue at our upcoming board meeting. Meantime, please keep fleshing out what you think our approach to warranties should be. The how is as important as the why. Is there any disadvantage to making a quitclaim-style warranty optional (as…

Our very own Executive Director, Glenn Otis Brown, penned an article introducing the Creative Commons to the readers of Syllabus Magazine, which covers technology issues in higher education.

Creative Commons licenses are designed so that creators can share their works with others easily. You might ask “What can I create if I am not an artist, writer, or musican?” but there many options when it comes to personal publishing online. The first such example is a weblog. Many weblog authors have applied licenses…

An interesting piece in the New York Times today discusses “Illegal Art: Freedom of Expression in the Corporate Age,” an exhibition dedicated to works built in part from other copyrighted works — without permission. By sign-of-the-times coincidence, I participated in a panel yesterday entitled “The Illegal Imagination,” at the Future of Music Coalition’s superb summit…

“Net Gains,” by Carly Berwick.

“The Races at Longchamp” by Édouard Manet. Public Domain.

As part of CC’s renewed commitment to investing in the core open infrastructure it stewards, we are excited to announce several updates to our legal team.  Sarah Hinchliff Pearson is returning to Creative Commons as General Counsel. She will manage in-house legal work and play a leading role in shaping CC’s stewardship program and its…