“Lottery Numbers and Books With a Voice” by Pamela LiCalzi O’Connell

“I share, you rip off, they pirate” by Bill Thompson

“Copyright for Every Occasion” by Richard Susskind

Everyone in Silico is a futurist sci-fi novel set in Vancouver, 2036. It came out a couple years ago, but this week the author decided to license it under Creative Commons and produce free downloadable ebook versions. As the author says “So if you like the book, send pals this link, e-mail it to friends, fileshare it on illegal networks — you’ll be helping me out. I know from experience that I’ll reap dividends.”

Webjay is a cool little hack. You toss in a URL, and it scans pages for mp3 files, making iTunes/winamp/realplayer playlists on the fly. As an example, Common Content’s audio page as a MP3 playlist looks something like this.

The Institute for Information Law at the University of Karlsruhe (TH) will lead the license translation and work to expand global access to Germany’s culture.

Palo Alto, USA, and Berlin, GERMANY – April 5 – Creative Commons, a nonprofit dedicated to building a body of creative works free for copying and re-use, announced today that it would expand its International Commons (iCommons) project to Germany.

The Institute for Information Law at the University of Karlsruhe (TH), Germany, will lead the effort.

First announced in March 2003, iCommons is Creative Commons’ project to disseminate its machine-readable copyright licenses worldwide and make them useful in a variety of legal systems.

As the lead institution, the Institute for Information Law at the University of Karlsruhe (TH) will coordinate a public effort to translate the Creative Commons licenses literally and legally for use in Germany.

“We are very pleased to be able to work with the excellent Institute at Karlsruhe,” said Lawrence Lessig, Chairman of Creative Commons and professor of law at Stanford University, where the organization is headquartered. “Germany will play an important role in bringing the International Commons to fruition in Europe.”

“We are tremendously excited to be involved in bringing the Creative Commons movement to Germany,” explained Professor Dr. Thomas Dreier, the iCommons Germany project lead and an acclaimed authority on German copyright law.

“There is already strong demand within the German community for a legal means for facilitating the distribution of Open Content as an innovative alternative to traditional forms of distribution based on payment of royalties. Creative Commons will be a great platform on which to build these protocols and agreements. Thanks are due to Dr. Till Jaeger, who provided the first draft of the license.”

The Institute for Information Law at the University of Karlsruhe (TH) will field comments on an archived email discussion at the Creative Commons website, http://www.creativecommons.org/discuss#germany.

Germany joins Australia, Brazil, China, Croatia, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Spain, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom in the iCommons effort.

More about Creative Commons

A nonprofit corporation, Creative Commons promotes the creative re-use of intellectual works, whether owned or in the public domain. It is sustained by the generous support of The Center for the Public Domain, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Hewlett Foundation. Creative Commons is based at Stanford Law School, where it shares staff, space, and inspiration with the school’s Center for Internet and Society.

For general information, visit https://creativecommons.org.

For more information about iCommons, see https://creativecommons.org/projects/international/.

More about the Insitute for Information Law at the University of Karlsruhe (TH), Germany

The Insitute for Information Law at the University of Karlsruhe (TH) within the Center for Applied Legal Studies (Zentrum fuer Angewandte Rechtswissenschaft, ZAR) was founded in 1999. Its task is to provide teaching and research focusing on legal issues at the intersection of law, technology, and economics. Together with the departments of computer science and economics, the Institute for Information Law supports a unique diploma course in the field. Furthermore, the Institute participates in a research project on ‘Information Management and Market Engineering’, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft (DFG). The Institute also houses the secretariat of the German Computer Law Association (Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Recht und Informatik, DGRI). Publications of the Members of the Institute concentrate on issues in intellectual property law, internet law and corporate law.

Website: http://www.z-a-r.de

Contact

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

Prof. Dr. Thomas Dreier (Karlsruhe)
Director, Institute for Information Law
dreier@ira.uka.de

Oliver Meyer (Karlsruhe)
Research Assistant, Institute for Information Law
oliver.meyer@ira.uni-karlsrue.de

Ellen Euler (Karlsruhe)
Research Assistant, Institute for Information Law
ellen.euler@ira.uni-karlsruhe.de

Glenn Otis Brown (Palo Alto)
Executive Director, Creative Commons
glenn@creativecommons.org

Joel Blain recently wrote in with an interesting observation:

“I’ve been reading a bio on Woody Guthrie. It’s pretty interesting. The book reprints one of the “Copyright Warnings” he included on his recordings in the ealry 40’s

“This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.”

It just made me think of Creative Commons. I dunno if you’ve seen or heard it before, but I thought I’d pass it along.”

Nice find, thanks Joel!

Nature is hosting a debate on open access science publishing. At the center of the debate are Public Library of Science and BioMed Central, two open access journal publishers using the Creative Commons Attribution License. The PLoS evidence paper presents a good summary of what is wrong with the current scholarly publishing model, why open access is important, and an open access business model.

Even as the much needed debate on open access journals heats up, it is just one part of a bigger picture where science, creativity, law, and society collide. Perhaps with this in mind, note the recent post on this weblog concerning the launch of the Science Commons exloratory phase.

I recently stumbled across a nice photoblog from Australia, called VIBGYOR. It’s sporting a Creative Commons license that allows for commercial use, too.

Breaking news: “In a move shocking to all, Duke University, of Durham, North Carolina, purchased the entirety of the public domain late last evening for a fee of 2.2 trillion dollars . . .” (Full story)