Today marks the last weekly winner for the first ever CC Swag Photo Contest. We have been encouraged and excited by everyone’s participation.

This weeks winner is yamabobobo, with the photo titled “CC on Light”. We at CC think this photo is visually and conceptually captivating.

This photo ends the weekly winners series and now we are faced with choosing the two overall contest winners. Due to the holidays and the weight of the decision at hand, we will be postponing the announcement till January 2, 2007. We will start the new year fresh with new imagery to help us promote both CC and the greater mission of a participatory culture – so stay tuned!

Last week, culminating Friday night, in parties around the world, Creative Commons celebrated its fourth birthday. Hundreds of people helped mark this event. My 3 year old son, Willem, and I cut the first cake at the party in Portugal.

Five hours later, in the Creative Commons party in the virtual world of Second Life, I made for me an announcement. As I removed the CC torch from my bag of objects, I told those in world, and in San Francisco, that Joi Ito, a venture capitalist from Japan and a key driver in the “sharing economy,” would be replacing me as Chairman of Creative Commons. I will remain on the board, and as CEO. But from the moment I handed him the torch, he is CC’s new Chairman.

This is a very happy moment for CC. I’m not going anywhere — CC will continue to get everything I can give. But we are a movement, not a cult. And it is important that movements have leaders. I have had enormous respect for Joi since first meeting him in Japan in early 2000. It was a real coup when I was able to convince him to join our Board. Joi’s whole ethic has been to build the sharing economy. That ethic of building is precisely where CC is going right now.

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Time magazine’s person of the year is You. The article doesn’t mention Creative Commons but it’s all about what Creative Commons is all about:

But look at 2006 through a different lens and you’ll see another story, one that isn’t about conflict or great men. It’s a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before.
…
America loves its solitary geniuses—its Einsteins, its Edisons, its Jobses—but those lonely dreamers may have to learn to play with others. Car companies are running open design contests. Reuters is carrying blog postings alongside its regular news feed. Microsoft is working overtime to fend off user-created Linux. We’re looking at an explosion of productivity and innovation, and it’s just getting started, as millions of minds that would otherwise have drowned in obscurity get backhauled into the global intellectual economy.

Who are these people? Seriously, who actually sits down after a long day at work and says, I’m not going to watch Lost tonight. I’m going to turn on my computer and make a movie starring my pet iguana? I’m going to mash up 50 Cent’s vocals with Queen’s instrumentals? I’m going to blog about my state of mind or the state of the nation or the steak-frites at the new bistro down the street? Who has that time and that energy and that passion?

The answer is, you do. And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME’s Person of the Year for 2006 is you.

If you’re reading this you’re probably among the yous that made You the person of the year. Congratulations.

Tonight we’re celebrating the 4 phenomenal years of Creative Commons! Over the past 4 years our licenses have grown to number over 140,000,000 and have been ported to over 30 countries. We have experienced exponential growth because of our community’s support and for that we thank you.

In order to thank you and celebrate CC with you there are CC celebratory parties all over the world tonight, including the digital one in Second Life, as posted on BoingBoing today.

Tonight in San Francisco the good people at Songbird are hosting our CC Birthday Party from 8pm – 2am. There has been an overwhelming response so come check out the party, DJ Oonce Oonce and Rafa, and raise a glass to our work of helping enable a participatory culture and to all other commoners who have embraced and progressed this movement.

At the “same” time there will be parties hosted Warsaw, Beijing, Amsterdam, Turin, Copenhagen, Lisbon (they are launching their ported licenses today!), and New York City. We encourage everyone in these areas to attend as we want to celebrate CC with as many supporters as possible.

If you are not near any of these places, don’t fret because there is a CC Celebration in Second Life. Larry Lessig, Joi Ito, and Jimmy Wales will be there to announce some Creative Commons news and to mingle with the other in-world supporters. They will be presenting at 10pm PST.

If you cannot attend any of the parties, then gather with friends, family members, other supporters and let us know how you spent your CC Day.

We ask that everyone take photos and videos and upload them with the tag “ccbday” and their city tag (i.e. “berlin”) and any other appropriate tags so that we can experience everyone’s party.

Thank you again for supporting CC these past four years and we are looking forward to our future with you! Have fun, be safe and document your parties!

Rebecca Kahn from iCommons.org is asking for people to send her images directly wishing a happy birthday to Creative Commons for its 4th birthday celebration tomorrow, December 15 – 16, depending on which timezone you are in. Along witht he photo, she wants people to send a nice message to CC. You could also save time and post them to your flickr.com account, pick a Creative Commons license for the image, and tag it with “creativecommons” and “bday” to speed up the process. Oh, and don’t forget to send her the URL if you go that route 🙂

UPDATE: The email link is fixed above.

As Andres from our CC Scotland team has already blogged, there has been another court case in Spain involving the use of CC licensed music. For those keeping track, there has already been a similar case decided earlier this year.

In the earlier case, the main Spanish collecting society — Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (“SGAE”) — sued Ricardo Andrés Utrera Fernández, the owner of Metropol, a disco bar located in Badajoz alleging that he had failed to pay SGAE’s license fee for the public performance of music managed by the collecting society. On February 17th, 2006, the Lower Court number six of Badajoz, a city in Extremadura, Spain, rejected the collecting society’s claims because the owner of the bar questioned the validity of the assertion by the SGAE that it represented the music played in his bar. The decision (in Spanish) is available here. An English translation of this earlier decision is available here.
In this latest case, a similar argument by a different bar owner was not successful. The case was brought in Poentevedra, Galicia. The judge ruled that the SGAE proved that music from its repertoire was performed in the bar. A copy of the decision (in Spanish) is available here. For those whose Spanish is not up to the task, we will post an English translation shortly.
One comment by the judge in this latest case is intriguing and warrants further investigation; the judge said (loosely translated) of the defendant’s attempt to prove he was playing CC-licensed music:

“…it is worth noting that the document alleged by the defendant-appellant in concept of free-music end user license represent only an informative piece of paper without any kind of signature, thus not representing any legally valuable act.”

We are working to determine what kind of documentation the defendant introduced, whether it was just a Commons Deed or the actual Legal Code, in order to properly assess the implications of this decision.

San Francisco, CA, USA; Berlin, GERMANY; and Lisbon, Portugal — December 13, 2006 — Creative Commons, a nonprofit dedicated to building a body of creative work free to share and build upon, is proud to announce the celebration of the launch of its licenses in Portugal on December 15, 2006.

Creative Commons copyright licenses are available free of charge from the group’s website. The licenses allow authors and artists to mark their works as free to copy or transform under certain conditions—to declare “some rights reserved,” in contrast to the traditional “all rights reserved”—thereby enabling others to access a growing pool of raw materials without legal friction.

Staff at Creative Commons’ offices in San Francisco and Berlin worked with the project leads Pedro Oliveira, José Rui Felizardo and Pedro Ferreira in Portugal to adapt the standardized licenses to Portuguese law. The team has also been supported by Filipa Salazar Leite from the law firm Simmons & Simmons in Lisbon. Creative Commons Portugal was hosted by FCEE-Universidade Católica, INTELI – Intelligence in Innovation and UMIC – Knowledge Society Agency.

With the availability of the Creative Commons licenses in Portugal, one of the largest and most prestigious daily newspapers in Portugal, Público, released articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 2.5 license, both online and in the paper edition.

The launch of the licenses will be celebrated by a series of events including a conference on ‘The Future of Intellectual Property’ to be held on Dec 15th 2006 at FCEE-Católica in Lisbon. Professor Lawrence Lessig, CEO & Chairman of Creative Commons, will be the keynote speaker.

About FCEE-Católica – School of Economics and Management, Universidade Católica Portuguesa

The School of Economics and Management of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa (FCEE-Católica) is a leading Management and Economics school in Portugal. The school offers undergraduate, graduate and executive programs in business and economics. FCEE-Católica faculty members are also deeply involved in research activities. For more information, visit their website.

About INTELI – Intelligence in Innovation

INTELI is a private non-profit think tank that promotes intelligence in innovation in areas such as technology and innovation management for the automotive, aerospatiale, energy, biotechnology, regional development and “creative industries”. The Innovation Centre has been supporting public policies and developing strategic consultancy to Ministries, public institutes, R&D institutions and companies. INTELI is actively involved in several national and EU projects aimed at developing “creative cities” or “intelligent cities” across European countries in co-operation with an international network of innovation organisations. For more information, please visit their website.

About UMIC – Knowledge Society Agency, Ministry for Science, Technology and Higher Education

UMIC, Knowledge Society Agency, acts under the tutelage of the Ministry for Science, Technology and Higher Education and oversees all aspects related to the development of the information and knowledge society in Portugal. Major projects related to the inclusive dissemination of information and knowledge include connecting all schools with broadband, managing online repositories of information and knowledge for education and research, deploying wireless networks in all the campus of higher education institutions in Portugal and the installation of hundreds of free-of-charge public-accessible hotspots countrywide for the dissemination of ICTs and training. For more information, visit their website.

About Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a not-for-profit organization, founded in 2001, that promotes the creative re-use of intellectual and artistic works—whether owned or in the public domain. Creative Commons licenses provide a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors, artists, and educators that build upon the “all rights reserved” concept of traditional copyright to offer a voluntary “some rights reserved” approach. It is sustained by the generous support of various organizations including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Omidyar Network, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation as well as members of the public. For general information, visit the group’s website.

Contacts

Pedro Oliveira
FCEE-Católica
Email

Pedro Ferreira
UMIC
Email

José Rui Felizardo
INTELI
Email

Christiane Henckel von Donnersmarck
Executive Director Creative Commons International
Creative Commons
Email

Mia Garlick
General Counsel
Creative Commons
Email

Press Kit

PUMP AUDIO AND CREATIVE COMMONS COLLABORATE ON COMMERCIAL LICENSING FOR INDEPENDENT MUSICIANS

Hudson Valley, NY and San Francisco, CA – December 12, 2006 – Pump Audio, the leading provider of quality independent music to content creators globally, today announced that it has teamed up with Creative Commons to expand and promote fair commercial licensing options for artists worldwide. Pump Audio is offering a variety of Creative Commons copyright licenses to its independent musicians who want to allow various forms of non-commercial use of their music.

“Creative Commons and Pump Audio share a common goal of giving artists the freedom to license their creative works as they see fit,” said Steve Ellis, founder and CEO of Pump Audio. “Pump Audio is all about giving independent musicians a
fair deal by connecting them with the producers in TV, advertising, and the Web who are clamoring for original and legal music to accompany their creations. By working with Creative Commons, we can provide even more independent musicians with greater commercial licensing options for their music.”

As part of the collaboration, Pump Audio has introduced an online badge for artists, allowing them to designate on any Web page, artist blog, or MySpace profile that their music is available for commercial licensing through Pump Audio. Artists can pair their new Pump Audio badges with similar badges for their Creative Commons copyright licenses, enabling them to promote both their commercial and non-commercial licensing preferences. (Examples can be found at lovetheory.com/listenbuy.html and myspace.com/garynewvision).

“The goal of Creative Commons is to provide authors and artists with easy ways to mark their creative work with the freedom they intend it to carry,” said Lawrence Lessig, Creative Commons’ CEO. “We’re incredibly excited to work with Pump Audio to offer independent musicians a fair and innovative licensing option for the commercial use of their music in both traditional and online media.”

Under Pump Audio’s artist-friendly system, licensing revenues are split equally with musicians, and the artists retain complete ownership over their music. Pump Audio helps independent musicians license their music to traditional producers in TV, advertising and interactive media through the PumpBox, its advanced search software and delivery system, as well as to content creators of all types through Pump Audio’s Soundtrack service on the Web. Pump Audio’s production customers include MTV Networks, NBC Studios, HBO, New Line Cinema and advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi.

Creative Commons copyright licenses allow authors and artists to mark their works as free to copy or transform under certain conditions — to declare “some rights reserved,” in contrast to the traditional “all rights reserved” — thereby enabling others to access a growing pool of raw materials without legal friction.

About Pump Audio

Pump Audio licenses the world’s best independent music to content creators worldwide. Founded in 2001, Pump Audio has established itself as a leading provider of digital music for TV and advertising producers. Now Pump Audio is becoming the soundtrack of the Internet, opening Web access to its catalog of tens of thousands of songs so creators of all types can build music into their video and interactive productions. With Pump Audio, artists can license their music into productions without giving up any ownership, while content creators can discover new music ready for use. Based in the Hudson Valley, Pump Audio can be found at pumpaudio.com.

About Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a not-for-profit organization, founded in 2001, that promotes the creative re-use of intellectual and artistic works—whether owned or in the public domain. Creative Commons licences provide a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors, artists, and educators that build upon the “all rights reserved” concept of traditional copyright to offer a voluntary “some rights reserved” approach. It is sustained by the generous support of various organizations including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Omidyar Network, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation as well as members of the public. For general information, visit creativecommons.org.

Contact

Matt Hicks
SutherlandGold Group for Pump Audio
415-722-3603
Email

Eric Steuer
Creative Director, Creative Commons
Email

Press Kit

You know that CC licensing is reaching far into the music scene when you have a genre-specific region based podcast like the NY-NE Regional EDM Showcase. In yet another example of what is enabled by CC licenses this show features “original EDM tracks from independent musicians within upstate New York And Western New England” all CC licensed.” (mission statement). The show itself is licensed under a Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivs and each song in each song in the “Commute-Size” mixes are under various CC licenses.

The latest is Commute – Size Mixes Vol. IV – Breakbeat with previous volumes specializing in Trance, Progressive and DnB.

If you live in the right part of the world, make the right kind of music and of course, license your music under CC, you can even submit files directly (terms and instructions here).

This weeks’ winner of the Creative Commons first ever CC Swag Photo Contest is “andyket”. The fifth winning photograph titled “The CC Glow” shows an innovative use of our informational disk flyers.

We are again amazed by the entries and participation and thank all of you very much. There is one week left so we ask that you keep up the good work and keep shooting and supporting CC. Next weeks’ winner will be the last before we decide on the 2 overall winners. So if you want your image and name to be used as CC promotional material for the next year have your image uploaded to CC’s Flickr group CCswagcontest by Monday Dec. 18th. Good Luck!