Comments Period Drawing to a close for Draft License Version 2.5

Mia Garlick, May 29th, 2005

The comments period announced here for the minor tweak to the attribution language across all of our core licenses proposed for version 2.5 is drawing to a close. As befits a minor tweak, there has not been a tremendous amount of criticism or issues raised with the revised suggested language. Some important comments, however, raised some complex issues and require some discussion.

Firstly, concern was expressed that the attribution language would interfere with copyright notices; that because the attribution could now be, not to the author, but to a wiki or a university or funding entity, that this would cause a removal of copyright notices. This tweaked attribution language, however, does not to impact a copyright notice. The tweaked attribution language does not require attribution to follow copyright ownership or copyright notices. Who owns copyright in a work is a separate matter (a behind-the-scenes matter, if you like) between the parties involved in the process of creating the work. So, for example, an author may own copyright in an article they prepare but the agreement between the author and the institute that funded the work requires some form of attribution that acknowledges that the work was produced with funds from the institute. Similarly, an author may wish to be credited as the author of the work for reputational purposes but their university actually owns the copyright to their work, pursuant to their employment agreement. In the case of wikis, attribution can be to the wiki but each author may still own copyright to their contribution to the wiki (unless there is a separate agreement transferring ownership to the wiki). Finally, journals, particularly open access journals, may wish to be acknowledged as the source of first publication of the work even though they publish the article under only an exclusive or non-exclusive license (and do not take an assignment of title). It should also be noted that the status of copyright notices and the issue of correctly identifying the copyright owner(s) of a work are no more complex under the tweaked attribution language than under the existing attribution language. Under the existing attribution language, credit had to be given to the author; however, as noted above, due to employment relationships or other contractual relationships, the author may have transfered title to the work to some other party and retained only the right of accreditation.

Secondly, there was concern that the tweaked attribution language was somehow proscriptive – that it now dictated to wikis how they had to structure attribution. This is not the case. The tweaked attribution language contains “and/or” language – thus, it allows a variety of different attribution posssibilities – to the author, to a wiki, to an author and a publisher, to an author and a wiki – as many parties as the author or licensor see fit.

This minor tweak is important to enable flexibility in attribution and thereby facilitate a larger number of adopters, including those who have more complex requirements regarding attribution – such as wikis and academic journals. Consequently, Creative Commons is working to give effect this change as soon as possible. If anyone has any additional concerns, please feel free to contribute them to the discussion taking place here. We are looking to close the comments period on Tuesday May 31, 2005.

CC in Yahoo! Advanced Search

Mike Linksvayer, May 27th, 2005

Yahoo! Search for Creative Commons is now part of the Yahoo! advanced search page:

Way to go Yahoo!

(Now close to 16 million pages linking to a CC license.)

Register for the ILAW Conference at Harvard University/Berkman Law Center, June 22-24, 2005

Raul, May 27th, 2005

Cambridge, Mass. will be the site for this year’s Internet Law Program. Our very own Lawrence Lessig, CC Chairman and CEO, will be one of several notable professors and scholars of the Internet who will be lecturing on the ever-developing landscape of Internet law. No prior background in the subject of Internet Law is required; however, American lawyers may be eligible for Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credit. To register and/or download a program brochure please visit the Berkman Center website here

Ready, Steady, Remix!

Raul, May 26th, 2005

Creative Commons and online record label Magnatune will co-host a digital music remix contest beginning in May of 2005 and will begin accepting entries on June 15, 2005. The contest will be hosted at ccmixter and features the music of Magnatune rock artist Lisa Benedictis, who will voluntarily have her work sliced, diced, and mixed by contestants. Music samples and contest rules are currently posted at ccmixter. Among the prizes for the remix contest is the opportunity for the winner to appear on the Lisa DeBenedictis Remix Compilation album and be eligible for an assortment of prizes.

Tweaking CC’s Standard Attribution Language – An Invitation to Comment

Mia Garlick, May 21st, 2005

So a new license draft has been posted here. The changes relate to our standard attribution language and the plan is that they take effect across all of our core licenses. The new version will be 2.5 because it is a minor change. We are in the process of working through other revisions to the licenses that will form the basis for version 3.0 but this change is needed now to take account of the demands of wikis & the open access journal community.

Many of you have given comments on the beta wiki license which have been very useful. The difference between this license draft and the beta wiki is that attribution in this draft can be to the author and/or one or more other parties. The beta wiki license only permitted attribution to the author *or* another party or parties. Also, we have included an additional example in the brackets to make it clear that one of the attributed parties may be a journal.

For a more detailed explanation of the changes, check out this posting to our licenses discussion list. You can join the discussion here.

‘Let’s Get Digital’ – NY Public Radio Takes a Musical Look at Online Issues

Mia Garlick, May 19th, 2005

For those in the New York area tonight, tune in to WFUV (90.7), which is broadcast from Fordham University, at 9:30pm (Eastern Time) for an an hour-long program examining how the race to get online affects not only musicians, but music fans and the music business in general.

The program will feature interviews with Creative Commons own former Executive Director – Glenn Otis Brown – as well as The New Yorker Pop Music Critic Sasha Frere-Jones, CDBaby.com Founder Derek Sivers, Berklee School of Music Vice President David Kusek among others.

Those of us not in the New York area can, of course, still catch the show online on the WFUV website.

Minus Kelvin Discovered on ccMixter

Neeru Paharia, May 17th, 2005

Minus Kelvin, a physics and calculus teacher by day and composer by night, has been making regular contributions to ccMixter since February.

Friday we learned that Runoff Records, Inc. has signed MinusKelvin, after discovering his music through a podcast of ccMixter (enabled by the licenses). Together with another ccMixter contributor, Pat Chilla, they will now be doing music for the next three seasons of America’s Next Top Model.

Help Spread CC

Mike Linksvayer, May 5th, 2005

Thanks to constructive criticism from the community we’ve
decided to drop the marketing partnership with BzzAgent (thanks for the offer).

Many suggested that we actively engage the community in promoting CC, following the lead of Spread Firefox. To collect ideas we’ve created a SpreadCC wiki page. Please jump in. Note that “SpreadCC” is not an official project name.

Yahoo! Search for CC forum

Mike Linksvayer, May 5th, 2005

Yahoo! has added a forum to support Yahoo! Search for Creative Commons. If you have questions or feedback for Yahoo! concerning this service, now you have a place to ask.

See this post introducing Yahoo! Search for Creative Commons.

Today Yahoo! also took their video search out of beta. You can’t (yet — hint, hint!) explicitly search for CC licensed videos, though you will find some — Yahoo! Video Search has indexed the Internet Archive’s Moving Images Archive and other respositories with CC-licensed content. You can license and upload your videos for free using ccPublisher.

Time Management for Anyone

Mike Linksvayer, May 2nd, 2005

Jim Munroe has released a CC-licensed flash movie called Time Management for Anarchists and he wants you to remix it (the .fla source for Flash creators).

The movie gives pretty standard “getting things done” advice, as told by famous anarchists “Mike” (Mikhail Bukinin) and “Emma” (Goldman). It could use male and female voices for Mike and Emma’s text and some background music.

Remix away! Write down the tasks involved in a notebook first. :-)