Category Archives: creative commons

The Science Commons needs a lawyer. Continue reading →

This is still not the first Microsoft site licensed under a CC license, but it was very cool to read this from Ray Ozzie in his blog entry announcing Microsoft’s latest CC-licensed spec, Simple Sharing Extension: Writes Ray: “I’m very pleased that Microsoft is supporting the Creative Commons approach ….”

Me2. Continue reading →

At an event for potential donors to Creative Commons last night, a representative from Google announced that Google’s “advanced search” would now allow results to be filtered by Creative Commons licenses.

This is of course very exciting news. It confirms a decision Yahoo! made months ago when it revealed a (much more explicitly Creative Commons) search portal. Ever since I had the chance to meet with the top Yahoo! executives over a year ago, I’ve known that Yahoo!’s future depends upon building creator-approved freedoms. Their joining with Flickr! is just part of this overall, creator-driven strategy. That meeting convinced me that Yahoo! understood more than most the growth and innovation that can be built through these creativity communities. And that’s of course what Creative Commons believes as well.

Google’s move here is therefore reassuring. I’m hopeful it signals a much broader recognition. I’ve been a staunch defender of Google’s fair use of creative content. That’s the subject of this month’s column in Wired. But as well as fair use rights, which we all should defend, there will be important growth enabled by making it easier for creators and authors to exercise their freedom to enable others to build up or share their work. This is the thing Yahoo! seems to get, imho. That the rest of the world gets it is my strongest hope. Continue reading →

Here’s week 3 in my letters about Creative Commons. Continue reading →

So I’m having some fun writing up this history and future of Creative Commons, which I’m doing as penance for the fund raising campaign. If you’d like to read week 2, it’s here. If you’d like to give something to support Creative Commons, you can do so here. And if you read what I’ve written without supporting Creative Commons, well, we’ll just see how things turn out for you (and us, I guess). Continue reading →

Michael Geist, professor of law at University of Ottawa, and editor of the BNA’s daily Internet Law News, has again done the extraordinary. After pulling together and editing an amazing collection of authors to write about the future of copyright reform in Canada, he convinced the publisher to release the book, In the Public Interest, under a Creative Commons license, and has gifted the royalties to Creative Commons. Buy the book, download the book, read the book: each will do some good. Thanks, Michael, again. Continue reading →

Saturday Night Live welcomes three CCommoners to the show tonight. As described in Wired News, Andy Samberg joins as a performer, and Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer join as writers. The three have been inviting remixes of their work for sometime now. When a pilot for Fox, Awesometown, was rejected, they released it for remix under a CC license. Awesome, indeed. Continue reading →

Here’s a site with music by Anthony Raijekov, a fantastic Bulgarian musician, licensed under the ShareMusic (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives) CC-license. This is part of the Bulgarian Open-Content.Net project. Continue reading →

From the PBS website:

Beginning Sept. 6, PBS will make available – exclusively over the Internet – broadcast television’s first entirely downloadable series, featuring PBS technology columnist and industry insider Robert X. Cringely’s interviews with personalities from the ever-changing world of technology.

…

“This ground-breaking series will be distributed under a Creative Commons license, so if viewers like what they see, they can redistribute the shows or even edit their own non-commercial version,” Cindy Johanson, Senior Vice President, PBS Interactive Learning, said.

Continue reading →

We’re moblogging the Creative Commons iCommons-Summit. Continue reading →