Be creative, be open, and give it your best shot. “Let your imagination run wild and get creative,” is the slogan from Magnatune and Creative Commons on their latest venture. Online record label Magnatune and non-profit creative licensing organization Creative Commons announce that they will co-host a digital music remix contest beginning in May of 2005 and will begin accepting entries on June 15, 2005. The contest will be hosted at ccMixter and features the music of Magnatune rock artist Lisa DeBenedictis, who will voluntarily have her work sliced, diced and mixed by contestants. Music samples and contest rules are currently posted at ccMixter, which will begin accepting remix submissions as of May 13, 2005. Among the prizes for the remix contest is the opportunity for the winner to appear on the Lisa DeBenedictis Remix Compilation album and be eligible for an assortment of cash prizes.

“Remixed music is an exciting new kind of musical art form emerging in the open environment of internet file sharing,” said Magnatune founder and CEO, John Buckman. “Anyone with a creative urge can take existing music tracks and change them into something completely new and different. “This kind of event helps artists to stretch their limits and gain access to a wider variety of great music” explained Magnatune founder and CEO, John Buckman “ and we expect some really fantastic remix arrangements to come out of the contest.”

Contest entrants will have the opportunity to use Magnatune music to create their own remix compositions and submit their best works. Music samples will be posted on the CCMixter Web site beginning in mid-May. The contest will officially open on May 16 and will begin accepting entries, through July 31, 2005. More details regarding contest rules are available at ccMixter.

Lisa DeBenedictis is one of Magnatune’s more than 175 artists who enjoys 50-50 profit splitting and full rights to her music. A “one-woman operation,” she plays a variety of instruments including piano, guitar, keyboard, violin, oboe and mandolin. DeBenedictis is the sole writer, performer and producer of all her music. Her songs have been described as ethereal, fresh and original, earning her the comparisons other well-known female soloists including Tori Amos and Sarah McLachlan. Prior to going solo, DeBenedictis performed in a rock duo called “Ring of Nine” and California Avant Rock duo “DirtyDirtyRockStar.” In addition to writing songs, Lisa composes instrumental music for film.

The concept of “open source” file-sharing originated in the computer software world, and has moved into music. Individual tracks, a drum or bass line within a recording, can be taken and remixed with other tracks to create a completely new composition. Other musicians can then modify, improve or add to the “source” without worrying about obtaining permission from the original artists. Unlike other illegal music remix contests where an artist’s work has been taken and sold without the artist’s permission, Magnatune and Creative Commons have partnered with Lisa DeBenedictis for this effort. Contest participants will be allowed to freely copy selected Magnatune music to produce their works.

Fellow Magnatune recording artist and CC Mixter contest manager Victor Stone, of the group “Four Stones,” has been remixing music for several years. “It is incredibly fun and inspiring to be able to use the best music and make it your own,” said Stone. “It makes remixing a natural extension of what composers have been doing for thousands of years.”

Producers often work for months to build their multi-layered remix compositions. Remix tracks can be highly sophisticated with limitless musical sound samples and layers.

Magnatune music is available for sharing through use of Creative Commons licensing. The Creative Commons license allows for free sharing and building upon existing works, be it musical, written, or images. “We have been using the Creative Commons copyright licensing very successfully,” reports Magnatune’s founder and CEO,said John Buckman. “Through open-source licensing we are able to offer a fair deal to our customers and musicians.” Unusual in the music industry, Magnatune splits profits from album sales with the artists and allows them to keep the rights to their music.

About Creative Commons
A nonprofit founded in early 2002, 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, and the Hewlett Foundation. For more information, visit Creative Commons’ website or contact Neeru Paharia at neeru@creativecommons.org.

About Magnatune
Founded in 2003, Magnatune is an independent, online record label that hand selects its own artists, sells its catalog of music through online downloads and print-on-demand CDs and licenses music for commercial and non-commercial use. Based on the principle that “we are not evil,” the company offers fair-trade music to consumers by equally sharing all revenue from the sale of albums with artists and allowing artists to retain full rights to their music. All music can be previewed free of charge with a “try before you buy” philosophy. Customers can also choose how much they want to pay for the music with pricing ranging from $5-18 for a downloadable album or print-on-demand CD. Magnatune is a music business where everybody wins. For further information, please visit the Magnatune website or contact Teresa Malango at tmalango@magnatune.com or 510.289.3781.

So a new license draft has been posted here. The changes relate to our standard attribution language and the plan is that they take effect across all of our core licenses. The new version will be 2.5 because it is a minor change. We are in the process of working through other revisions to the licenses that will form the basis for version 3.0 but this change is needed now to take account of the demands of wikis & the open access journal community.

Many of you have given comments on the beta wiki license which have been very useful. The difference between this license draft and the beta wiki is that attribution in this draft can be to the author and/or one or more other parties. The beta wiki license only permitted attribution to the author *or* another party or parties. Also, we have included an additional example in the brackets to make it clear that one of the attributed parties may be a journal.

For a more detailed explanation of the changes, check out this posting to our licenses discussion list. You can join the discussion here.

For those in the New York area tonight, tune in to WFUV (90.7), which is broadcast from Fordham University, at 9:30pm (Eastern Time) for an an hour-long program examining how the race to get online affects not only musicians, but music fans and the music business in general.

The program will feature interviews with Creative Commons own former Executive Director – Glenn Otis Brown – as well as The New Yorker Pop Music Critic Sasha Frere-Jones, CDBaby.com Founder Derek Sivers, Berklee School of Music Vice President David Kusek among others.

Those of us not in the New York area can, of course, still catch the show online on the WFUV website.

Creative Commons and the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) introduce innovative copyright licenses to Australia

San Francisco, USA and Brisbane, AUSTRALIA  Jan. 19, 2005  Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that offers a flexible copyright for creative work, today unveiled a localized version of its innovative licensing system in Australia. The Creative Commons licenses afford authors and publishers an intermediate degree of protection over their photos, music, text, films, and educational materials under a “some rights reserved” copyright, in contrast to the traditional “all rights reserved.”

With the announcement, Creative Commons now offers free legal tools in a total of fifteen country-specific versions. The organization already provides copyright licenses specific to Austrian, Belgian, Brazilian, Croatian, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, U.S., Taiwanese, Canadian, and Spanish law, thanks to a global network of artists, lawyers, and technologists.

Staff at Creative Commons’s offices in San Francisco and Berlin worked with project lead Professor Brian Fitzgerald of the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia, to adapt the standardized licenses for use under Australian law.

Professor Fitzgerald, an internationally recognized expert in intellectual property and technology law, said, “Normally to use other people’s copyright you have to go through a time-consuming process to negotiate your legal rights. What we aim to do with Creative Commons is to be able to license or negotiate those rights through a website with the click of a mouse.”

Creative Commons released the new legal tools, which are available free of charge from the Creative Commons website, at a conference at the QUT today. Lawrence Lessig, professor of law at Stanford University and chairman of Creative Commons, delivered a public lecture on open content licencing at the conference.

“It’s wonderful to see this organization become truly global,” said Neeru Paharia, Assistant Director of Creative Commons, who is visiting Brisbane for the launch. “We hope to localize the Creative Commons licences to other countries of the Asia-Pacific region very soon.”

The worldwide expansion of the Creative Commons is one of the main priorities of the San Francisco-based organization for 2005.

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 the Creative Commons website

Contact

Christiane Asschenfeldt(Berlin)
iCommons Director
Creative Commons
christiane@creativecommons.org

Neeru Pahari(San Francisco)
Executive Director
Creative Commons
neeru@creativecommons.org

Press Kit

Creative Commons introduces its innovative copyright licenses at the Free Culture Festival in Zagreb

San Francisco, USA and Zagreb, CROATIA  Jan. 19, 2005  Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that provides a flexible copyright for authors and artists, this week unveiled a localized version of its innovative licensing system in Croatia. The Creative Commons licenses afford authors and publishers an intermediate degree of protection over their photos, music, text, films, and educational materials under a “some rights reserved” copyright, in contrast to the traditional “all rights reserved.”

With the announcement, Creative Commons now offers free legal tools in a total of fourteen country-specific versions. The organization already provides copyright licenses specific to Austrian, Belgian, Brazilian, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, U.S., Taiwanese, Canadian and Spanish law, thanks to a global network of artists, lawyers, and technologists.

Staff at Creative Commons’s offices in San Francisco and Berlin worked with project leads Tomislav Medak and Diane Kovaeeviae Remenariae of the Multimedia Institute (mi2), Zagreb, to adapt the standardized licenses for use under Croatian law.

Medak said, “In Croatia there was a powerful grass-roots free culture movement even before we started transposing the licenses into Croatian law. We hope to be able to build on the festival’s momentum to promote rapid license uptake.”

Creative Commons released the new legal tools, which are available free of charge from the Creative Commons website, at the Free Culture Festival in Zagreb, which featured an exhibition, various lectures, and a two-day concert that brought together representatives of the burgeoning local music scene and British artists from Loca Records. Lawrence Lessig, professor of law at Stanford University and chairman of Creative Commons, delivered a keynote speech at the festival.

“Many thanks to Diane and Tomislav for their terrific work,” says Glenn Otis Brown, Executive Director of Creative Commons. “The organization’s tremendous international growth is due entirely to our network of top-notch experts and volunteers worldwide. ”

The continued global expansion of Creative Commons is one of the main priorities of the San Francisco-based organization for 2005.

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 the Creative Commons website

Contact

Christiane Asschenfeldt (Berlin)
iCommons Coordinator
Creative Commons

Glenn Otis Brown (San Francisco)
Executive Director
Creative Commons

Press Kit

The Silicon Valley nonprofit releases South Korean versions of its innovative copyright licenses at the High Court in Seoul.

San Francisco, USA and Seoul, SOUTH KOREA, March 21, 2005 – Creative Commons, a non-profit organization that offers free, flexible copyright tools to the general public, today unveiled a localized version of its innovative licensing system in South Korea. The Creative Commons licenses are available (free of charge) from the group’s website http://www.creativecommons.org. – affording authors and publishers an intermediate degree of protection over their photos, music, text, films, and educational materials under a “some rights reserved” copyright, in contrast to the traditional “all rights reserved.”

With South Korea being the latest country to join its international effort, Creative Commons now offers free legal tools in a total of 15 country-specific versions. The organization already provides copyright licenses specific to Australian, Austrian, Brazilian, Belgian, Croatian, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, U.S., Taiwanese, Canadian, and Spanish law, thanks to a global network of artists, lawyers, and technologists.

Staff at Creative Common’s offices in San Francisco and Berlin worked with Professor Suk-Ho Bang of Hongik University, Seoul and project lead Professor Dae-Hee Lee of the Inha Law School and the Korea Association for Info-Media Law (KAFIL) as Affiliate Institution to adapt the standardized licenses for use under Korean law.

“We are very happy to make Creative Commons a reality for artists, lawyers and Internet users here in South Korea”, says Professor Suk-Ho Bang. Professor Suk-Ho Bang and his team worked together with Judge Jongsoo Yoon to release the Creative Commons licenses in South Korea.

The Creative Commons South Korean licenses were launched at an official function at the South Korean High Court in Seoul. Chairman of the Creative Commons Board, Professor Lawrence Lessig, presented at the function and also discussed Creative Commons with judges from the South Korean High Court.

The ongoing global expansion of the Creative Commons project is one of the main priorities of the San Francisco-based organization this year.

About Korea Association for Info-Media Law (KAFIL)

KAFIL was found in 1996 by distinguished leadership of Judge Chan-Hyun Hwang. KAFIL focuses on information law issues. KAFIL is a unique organization in part because of its member composition. The majority of regular members are judges and public prosecutors and thus, it is situated as the leading law association in Korea, bridging academicians and legal professionals. KAFIL holds an annual symposium around June and three academic seminars at other times during the year. In addition, KAFIL hosts bimonthly case study workshops that enable debates among legal professionals on topical issues. KAFIL also published its own law journal on biannual basis.

For general information, visit KAFIL’s website

For information about iCommons Korea, visit Creative Commons Korea Project site

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 the Creative Commons website

Contacts

Professor Suk-Ho Bang (Seoul)
Inha Law School
bang5555@hotmail.com

Neeru Paharia (San Francisco)
Creative Commons
neeru@creativecommons.org

Christiane Asschenfeldt (Berlin)
iCommons
christiane@creativecommons.org

Press Kit

San Francisco, USA, and London, United Kingdom – May 17, 2005 – Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a body of creative works free to share and build upon, today announced the launch of Creative Commons International. Incorporated in the UK as a nonprofit organization, Creative Commons International will provide support to the global network of collaboration partners of Creative Commons who have taken on the responsibility of translating the Creative Commons licenses.

To date, as a result of the efforts of our iCommons Executive Director Christiane Asschenfeldt, seventeen different countries – including Brazil, Croatia, Spain, Japan and South Korea – have translated, both literally and legally, the Creative Commons licenses for their local jurisdiction. Twelve other jurisdictions are currently in the process of porting the licenses and overall, Creative Commons is in talks with partners in 70 countries.

Creative Commons International will support Creative Commons’ international collaboration partners after they have launched their locally adapted Creative Commons licenses. This support will include porting Creative Commons’ technologies, such as ccMixter and ccPublisher, to these jurisdictions, representing Creative Commons’ interests in international fora and with significant content providers and artists associations to explain Creative Commons licensing and, thus, indirectly to increase the range of works made available under a Creative Commons license around the globe.

Creative Commons International’s new Executive Director is the former Project Director for the Creative Archive project at the BBC, Paula Le Dieu. Paula has considerable experience in broadcasting and online issues and originally worked in theatre. She is also a dual Australian-English citizen.

The Chairman of the Creative Commons International Board is Joi Ito, a citizen of Japan, and venture capitalist. Joi also serves on the Creative Commons Board of Directors.

Chairman Joi Ito said: “We expect it to be easier to develop a truly international movement if it is directed outside of the United States, and led by non-Americans. Creative Commons’ experience in Africa and Brazil demonstrates that post-launch work with artists is especially important. Organizations within these countries, dedicated to finding ways to support their own local artists, have begun to see Creative Commons as an important tool. By licensing content within the Creative Commons network, access to their creativity can be substantially increased.”

Neeru Paharia, who has served as Assistant Director of Creative Commons since 2002, has been promoted to Executive Director of Creative Commons. Neeru replaces former Creative Commons Executive Director Glenn Otis Brown who has accepted a position as inhouse counsel at Google. Creative Commons CEO and Chairman, Professor Lawrence Lessig, said: “While it is truly a loss to see Glenn go, we are fortunate that, as one of our alumni, we will still have the benefit of Glenn’s insight and experience. We are also fortunate to have Neeru as our new Executive Director because she has worked side-by-side with Glenn over the past three years to establish Creative Commons as a successful organization that speaks to the needs of creators and users of creative works. Neeru is therefore well-placed to maintain the continuity needed to continue to grow Creative Commons and flexibly licensed content.”

Creative Commons has also appointed Mia Garlick to be Creative Commons’ first General Counsel. Mia will work with Creative Commons’ domestic and international offices to oversee legal strategy and advise on the general legal issues that arise for Creative Commons in working towards its goal of encouraging the spread of flexibly licensed content. Mia joins Creative Commons after several years of working in private practice as an intellectual property lawyer.

About Creative Commons

A non-profit founded in 2001, Creative Commons promotes the creative re-use of intellectual and artistic works – whether owned or in the public domain – by empowering artists 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 the Creative Commons website

Contact

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

Paula Le Dieu (London)
Executive Director, Creative Commons International
paula@creativecommons.org

Press Kit

Minus Kelvin, a physics and calculus teacher by day and composer by night, has been making regular contributions to ccMixter since February.

Friday we learned that Runoff Records, Inc. has signed MinusKelvin, after discovering his music through a podcast of ccMixter (enabled by the licenses). Together with another ccMixter contributor, Pat Chilla, they will now be doing music for the next three seasons of America’s Next Top Model.

Thanks to constructive criticism from the community we’ve
decided to drop the marketing partnership with BzzAgent (thanks for the offer).

Many suggested that we actively engage the community in promoting CC, following the lead of Spread Firefox. To collect ideas we’ve created a SpreadCC wiki page. Please jump in. Note that “SpreadCC” is not an official project name.

Yahoo! has added a forum to support Yahoo! Search for Creative Commons. If you have questions or feedback for Yahoo! concerning this service, now you have a place to ask.

See this post introducing Yahoo! Search for Creative Commons.

Today Yahoo! also took their video search out of beta. You can’t (yet — hint, hint!) explicitly search for CC licensed videos, though you will find some — Yahoo! Video Search has indexed the Internet Archive’s Moving Images Archive and other respositories with CC-licensed content. You can license and upload your videos for free using ccPublisher.