In 2007, the artist Chad Crouch began releasing three instrumental songs per week under the pseudonym Podington Bear. Crouch revealed his identity in July 2008 upon the release of a box set of his work, ending a speculative mystery covered in NPR, KEXP, Wired, and the Globe and Mail. According to his bio on Free…

In honor of Khartabil’s influence on the free culture and open source movement, the Free Bassel campaign is encouraging five actions in public support of the movement to #freebassel in protest of his five years of unjust imprisonment.

Glasstree is a new platform built on “healing academic publishing” to provide a range of Open Access options that allow academics to quickly and inexpensively self-publish their monographs, returning 70% of the royalties to the author. The company was launched in November by a number of publishing veterans with the goal of directly addressing the…

If you’ve ever attended a demonstration in North America, chances are you’ve seen the work of the 30 person artist collective Just Seeds

What does open access look like for the law? Through free access to primary legal sources, the Free Law Project provides an important service to advocates, journalists, researchers, and the public. Joining with an international movement for Free Access to Law, the US-based organization helps people know their rights in an increasingly uncertain and rapidly…

Test what you’ve learned by explaining CC to your friends. Exercise You’ve had some time to explore Creative Commons licensing and see what it’s all about. Now for the real test: pick one lucky friend, family member or colleague and try explaining CC licenses to them. Think about how that particular person might relate as…

Learn to recognize factors that may affect the choice of license. Overview Choosing the right CC license for a work can be a deliberative and thought-provoking process, but it doesn’t have to be. We describe license-choosing in more detail below, but if you want to pick one quickly, Creative Commons has a simple tool for…

Distinguish between the different parts of a CC license and what they mean. Overview Creative Commons licenses are made up of four conditions that can be mixed and matched to create six different license combinations. The licenses also come in three formats: human-readable, lawyer-readable, and machine-readable. The following video from CC New Zealand is a…

Today we’re announcing our last two keynotes and accepted sessions and speakers for this year’s CC Global Summit in Toronto, just two months away.

Understand the connection between CC and copyright law. Overview Copyright law gives creators certain kinds of control over their creative work. If people want to use copyrighted work, they often have to ask for permission from the creator. Creative Commons works within copyright law. It allows creators to grant permission to everyone in the world…