NINJAM is a free software product that lets you jam (make music) with other NINJAM users across the net. It’s weirder and cooler than just that. All tracks, remote and local, can be saved individually for offline remixing, and all NINJAMmers agree to use a Creative Commons license in order to participate. The weirder part … you’ll have to try for yourself.

Check out a directory of jams created by NINJAM users, all CC licensed of course.

Free computer art software visual artist activist programmer (mix and match, also CC mailing list discussant) Rob Myers has a lecture (July 29) and exhibition (running July 27 – August 8) at o3one gallery in Belgrade, Serbia, supported by the British Council.

From 1969 by Rob Myers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.

Addendum: Pictures of the show.

The Magnatune Lisa DeBenedictis Remix Contest on ccMixter is soon coming to a close. The deadline for entries is July 31st. Send your remixes in soon!

I’m always amazed at how far the power of invention mixed with a determination to realize your idea on a large scale can take you. That’s why the new PBS one hour television series about the people who are shaping technology and the Silicon Valley landscape seems so interesting. PBS will be launching NerdTV, the first downloadable, web-exclusive series, beginning Sept. 6th. You can check it out here. NerdTV viewers are encouraged to download and copy the shows, share them with friends and even post them on their own Web sites – all legally.

wpLicense 0.5 is out. wpLicense is a project I whipped up a while back to experiment with the Creative Commons web services and AJAX. I also needed CC licensing for WordPress and wasn’t satisfied with the existing solutions. This is the third release I’ve made, and the first I actually think should be usable by the world at large.

The relatively large increase in version number (up 3/10ths as opposed to my usual 1/10th of a version) reflects the large number of changes as well as the amount of testing that went into this version.

In the bug-fix category:

• Unbeknownst to me, my web host uses PHP 5 by default, so I happily used PHP 5-specific features such as SimpleXML without knowing it. Unfortunately, lots of people still use PHP 4, so some refactoring was in order. This release supports PHP 4 (> 4.3 for sure, possibly older although I won’t guarantee it).
• I had also used libcurl in the previous version, which while it existed in PHP 4 wasn’t always turned on. We’re using a little more braindead way of calling the webservice now that should work with non-libcurl-enabled installations of PHP.
• Finally, we fixed a rather annoying bug that caused the generic jurisdiction Attribution licenses to be issued as 2.0, even though 2.5 is the current version. Feh.

This release also adds a new configuration option: “Include license badge in default footer”. If you use the default WordPress theme (or probably 90% of the other themes out there that call wpfooter(); ), checking this saves you the hassle of manually editting your template. The template functions are still available for manipulating and displaying the license information in other ways, this just seemed like a logical addition to make life easier.

All this combined with some (but not lots, mind you) UI-lovin’ means that anyone using an old version (yes, both of you) should go ahead and upgrade. Go on, check it out.

We’re happy to announce that we have revamped our online store and donations page to highlight new t-shirts and products available with a Creative Commons logo. We’ve got new Science Commons shirts, a new shirt for 2005 donations, and a variety of products from Cafepress as well.

All proceeds aid our non-profit and help us maintain our charitable non-profit status. If you’d like to show your support for the Creative Commons, the best way is to become a Commoner today. We offer several different gift packages in exchange for your tax-deductible donations.

One of our new interns Fred cooked up a pretty cool flash movie for the announcement.

Every now and then you realize that something stupid has gotten in the way of perfectly good software, and as a result made things difficult for users. Today I ran into two of those situations with CC software.

First, the installation packages for ccPublisher for Windows were corrupted on the server. The result is that when you tried to install, Windows complains that the file “is not a valid installer.” Luckily that was an easy problem to fix. I’ve updated the file on the server, so if you’ve tried to install ccPublisher for Windows recently, try again. You can download the installer here.

Around the same time people were reporting problems with ccPublisher for Windows, others were reporting problems with ccLookup for Mac OS X. In particular, using ccLookup under Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. So there’s a new build available here. ccLookup 1.1 fixes problems with the application under Tiger, and also supports OS X 10.3 (Panther). Note that OS X 10.2 is not supported. Finally, make sure you copy the application off the disk image before attempting to run the application.

Thanks again to all our users and everyone who reported these problems. If you run into other problems, feel free to email our software support email address: software@creativecommons.org.

Silicon-Valley-based NGO reinforces its activities around the globe

San Francisco, CA, USA and Berlin, GERMANY — July 1, 2005 — Creative
Commons, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a body of creative
work free to share and build upon, announced today the launch of the Creative
Commons project in Chile.

Creative Commons copyright licenses are available free of charge from the
group’s website (https://creativecommons.org). 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.

In a collaborative effort between the University of Chile and the Chilean NGO
Corporacion Derechos Digitales (CDD), Creative Commons Chile adapted the
licenses for use under Chilean law—a process headed by project leads Professor
Alberto Cerda Silva, Gabriela Oruzar and Claudio Ruiz.

“We hope to encourage discussion about the relevance and convenience of a
balanced copyright for the artistic creations,“ says Claudio Ruiz. “In our
developing countries, the discussion about copyright and its limitations and
exemptions must be part of the public agenda. “

About the University of Chile and the Corporacion Derechos Digitales (CDD)

The University of Chile is, with its 162 years of existence, the oldest national
university in Chile. It consists of 14 Schools and 4 Interdisciplinary Institutes.
Research and creation of new knowledge is a main focus of this leading
institution.

For more information, visit University of Chile and University of Chile Library and Information Services

CDD is a Chilean NGO founded in 2003. It is an independent, non-profit
organization, located in Santiago de Chile, whose mission is to promote the respect and protection of human rights in the digital environment. Its volunteer members, from a wide range of professions related to information technologies, focus on subjects like protection of privacy or legal aspects on the use and development of free software.

For more information about Corporación Derechos Digitales, visit
CDD

About Creative Commons

A nonprofit corporation founded in 2001, Creative Commons promotes the
creative re-use of intellectual and artistic works—whether owned or in the
public domain—by empowering authors and audiences. It is sustained by the
generous support of the Center for the Public Domain, the John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Omidyar Network Fund, and the
Hewlett Foundation.

For general information, visit Creative Commons

Contact

• Claudio Ruiz (Santiago)
• Director International Affairs, Derechos Digitales
• claudio@derechosdigitales.org

• Neeru Paharia (San Francisco)
• Assistant Director, Creative Commons
• neeru@creativecommons.org

• Christiane Asschenfeldt (Berlin)
• iCommons Executive Director, iCommons
• christiane@creativecommons.org

Press Kit here

For all aspiring authors out there, a new self-publishing service ‘Publish & be Damned’ now includes the option for authors to publish their books under a Creative Commons license. At the site, writers can design, publish and sell their own hard copy books – either at their own personal selling page on the site or through more traditional book trade arrangements with wholesale distributors and Amazon. The online ‘Publish & be Damned’ bookstore is currently featuring the author James Morris and his new book ‘The Escapist’ – which has been published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license. Adapt away!!

Free software hacker and entrepreneur Nat Friedman staged a reenactment of the famous Scopes “Monkey” Trial and published the script under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

Stage your own reenactment/BBQ, make it into a film, make a cartoon based on the script with Darrow and Bryan as monkeys debating whether it is ok to teach that monkeys descended from mostly hairless apes…