I delivered a talk on Creative Commons’s international efforts yesterday at the conference of European Cultural Heritage Online. The conference took place in the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Germany. ECHO is an EU-funded collaborative research endeavour that provides support for scientific and cultural institutions in Europe that enrich cultural…

A recent study of people that download music from the internet found that 21% of the participants had also downloaded a feature film before. 9% had even downloaded a film in the past month. These are some fairly high numbers and point out that while everyone has been predicting what happened to music would eventually…

The US Supreme Court is currently hearing Gitmo cases, which involve a review of post-9/11 captures and detainment of suspected al-Qaida and Taliban members. Oyez, the Supreme Court archive has begun posting audio from the hearings, including streaming and downloadable mp3s licensed under Creative Commons.

A new book entitled Theory and Practice of Online Learning, published by Athabasca University, is now available for download under an Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial license. The book is also being sold. Sir John Daniel, Assistant Director-General for Education of UNESCO, had this to say about it: “I am delighted that educators all over the world will be…

Opsound has a great Flash-based Internet radio application, highlighting an hours worth of Opsound music. Lots of mellow electronica, and low-fi tracks — a very soothing collection of tunes, all offered under Attribution-ShareAlike licenses.

I had the chance to speak about Creative Commons yesterday at the Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information Access Conference (TICFIA) at San Diego State University. With the support of the US Dept. of Education, the group is up to some innovative and interesting things on education across borders via the Net. Some great…

If you’re a musician, and you want to let your fans know they won’t get sued if they download your songs, you should check out the Music Sharing License. It lets your fans know they can download and share, but not sell or make any commercial use out of your music. The Uptones, a Bay…

Yesterday, I spoke at the Media Archeology Film Festival in Houston, Texas. The festival was put on by the Aurora Picture Show Microcinema and showcased the collections of several 16mm film collectors, including Rick Prelinger who makes many of his public domain films available online.

Here’s an interesting use of music in the public domain. 9 beet stretch is the act of using digital tools to slow down Beethoven’s 9th symphony to the point where the piece takes 24 hours to complete. Next week, a 9 beet stretch will be taking place in San Francisco, at 964 Natoma, from Friday…

Cool: David Bowie has just launched a new mashup contest. There’s a new ad campaign for Audi cars that features two of Bowie’s songs mashed up. They’ve decided to throw a mashup contest to capitalize on this, awarding a new car to the best song that uses samples from his new album and any older…