Nine Inch Nails released Ghosts I-IV, a collection of 36 new instrumental tracks that are available to the world under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license.
The end result is a wildly varied body of music that we’re able to present to the world in ways the confines of a major record label would never have allowed – from a 100% DRM-free, high-quality download, to the most luxurious physical package we’ve ever created.
On Feb. 22 in San Juan, the University of Puerto Rico Cyberlaw Clinic will host the launch of Puerto Rico’s localized Creative Commons licenses, marking the forty-fourth jurisdiction worldwide to port the Creative Commons licensing suite.
Congratulations and Welcome Puerto Rico!
The European Green Parties have begun a counter-attack on media propaganda. Most media companies claim that if you download a film you are just as likely to steal a handbag, break into a car or shoplift. These are ridiculous claims but somebody needed to say this out loud.
So enter the Greens! With their short film and their website they are making the fundamental and important point that making a copy is fundamentally different from stealing.
The media industry has failed to offer viable legal alternatives and they will fail to convince consumers that sharing equals stealing. Unfortunately, they have succeeded in another area – lobbying to adapt laws to criminalize sharing, turning consumers into criminals. They argue that their laws are necessary to [support artists], but in reality all they’re protecting is their own profits.
The Greens in Europe and worldwide has been opposing these laws. We believe that consumers are willing to pay if offered good quality at a fair price. We also believe that sharing is expanding culture – not killing it.
To protest against the faulty propaganda from the industry, we made our own film. The difference is – you can choose whether you want to watch this one.
Check out the I wouldn’t steal website and watch the film on YouTube or download it as a torrent. Oh and the movie is licensed under Creative Commons (by-nc) so you can even make your own remix version – try doing that legally with the industry propaganda.
Right now I am listening to Small Arm of Sea which is Tone’s cool debut album. This Danish artist has really got things right and not only musically. She has released her album under a Creative Commons (by-nc-nd) license. So it’s free to download and enjoy from her website.
If you prefer to read about your music first then here is a short description from the blurb off her web:
With her abstract break beats, delicate voice and mesmerizing lyrics, female singer, performer and producer Tone is known for her powerful experimental electronica sounds ranging from energetic uplifting moods to bleak shades of melancholy. Musically, she creates a remarkable, audiovisual realm, in which her light and spellbinding voice adds to a bedrock of crunchy break beats, abstract compositional structures and catchy melodies.
Congratulations to the Philippines Creative Commons to their upcoming launch on the 14th January. From the Creative Commons press release:
Following the unveiling of the Philippine localized Creative Commons licenses in December, citizens of the archipelago will gather today in Manila to celebrate in full the public launch of its completed licenses and the country’s strides towards fostering the global commons movement.
Attorney Jaime N. Soriano, Creative Commons Philippines Project Lead and Executive Director of the e-Law Center, announces that the launch activities are scheduled to take place on January 14, 2008 from 1:00pm to 9:00pm at the Arellano University School of Law.
The event will consist of three parts: 1) an orientation to projects by stakeholders in the Philippine Commons, with the aim of developing a local collaboration promoting alternative licensing, free and open source software, open education, and free culture; 2) the public presentation of the CC Philippine Licensing Suite Version 3.0, which has been available online since its soft launch December 15, 2007; and 3) the CC Philippines Concert featuring more than six local rock bands.
Copyright licenses seem like an area most people would prefer not to read about. It seems to have the same appeal as reading the fine print in home insurance papers. Despite this there is a great interest in the topic and it is nice to see that people are attempting to bridge the cognitive gap by producing information in an interesting and readable format.
Axel Roberts, Rebecca Rojer and Jon Phillips have created an illustrated primer called Sharing Creative Works. It is a nice little powerpoint based cartoon which explains how Creative Commons licensing works.
Creative Commons have announced the launch of the CC+ (aka CC Plus) and CC0 (aka CC Zero) programs. These are major additions to the Creative Commons array of legal tools.
In a nutshell, CC+ is a protocol to enable a simple way for users to get rights beyond those granted by a CC license. Meanwhile, CC0 is a protocol that enables people to either assert that a work has no legal restrictions attached to it or waive any rights associated with a work so it has no legal restrictions attached to it. The program also provides an easy way to sign these assertions or waivers.
Since its establishment Wikipedia has been using the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). The problem with this licence is that it causes incompatibility problems with the content also being released under Creative Commons licenses.
Jimmy Wales announced on Friday that the Wikimedia Foundation, the organisation behind Wikipedia, supports a solution the new version of the GFDL that will allow for integration with the CC-BY-SA licence.
Video and transcript of announcement here.
Wikimedia resolution on updating the licence here
Steven Poole’s book Trigger Happy is a pioneering work in the history and aesthetics of computer games. As an experiment (triggered by Amazon Kindle & DRM discussions) Steven is giving away his book for free, with no DRM attached under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license.
Trigger Happy is a book about the aesthetics of videogames — what they share with cinema, the history of painting, or literature; and what makes them different, in terms of form, psychology and semiotics. It was first published in 2000; this is the revised edition with the Afterword written in
20042001. (Update: as requested in comments, the 2004 Afterword can now be read here.)
The book will be available online for “a limited period only” and therefore his (and my) advice is to grab it while its hot!
Hopefully we shall also be able to find out more about the results of the experiment. Whether or not it increases or decreases sales, generates interest or has any interesting unexpected consequences. Stay tuned to Steven’s blog.
Creative Commons released an Add-in for OpenOffice.org which allows users to select and embed a Creative Commons license in documents. Based on work completed as part of the Google Summer of Code by Cassio Melo, the add-in supports Writer (word processing documents), Calc (spreadsheets) and Impress (presentations).
The Add-in is available without charge, and is licensed under the GNU General Public License. Download information and links to source code.