Weblog
2007 November
Indaba Music Adds CC-Licensing
Indaba Music, “an international community of musicians, music professionals, and fans exploring the creative possibilities of making music with people in different places”, has recently added the ability to CC-license tracks to its user interface.
This is great news, especially for a community that is firmly based around of the concept of new and interesting forms of collaboration. Incorporating CC-licenses on work posted to Indaba helps bring clarity to the community in terms of what can be shared and reused and what can’t. Now, artists and musicians can clearly dictate which works they wish others to build upon, and similarly, see which works allow themselves to be reused. Up until this point, Indaba’s community has certainly embodied the ethos behind CC-licenses – that of a flexible and user-defined approach to content creation. Now, it is able to do so more explicitly.
Comments OffRemix J.R. Writer and Tigarah at Jamglue
The good people over at Jamglue are at it again, this time giving you the opportunity to remix American hip-hop artist J.R. Writer’s “Where You At” and Japanese Baile Funk emcee Tigarah’s “Color, Culture, Money, Beauty”, with some very nice prizes for the respective winners.
Both remix contests use CC BY-NC-SA licenses on instrumental tracks, meaning you have access to cut up and modify each individual sound for your remix. While Jamglue has gotten a hold of some amazingly diverse and talented groups previously (see here and here), it is just as important to recognize the quality and variety of the community remixes. By using CC-licensing, Jamglue allows artists to open up their content to fans in a way that not only allows for positive interaction and creation, but also maintains the commercial interests of the artists at hand.
CC Talks With: OnClassical
In continuing our Featured Commoner series, we caught up with Alessandro Simonetto, founder of OnClassical, an audio label for classical music that uses CC licensing integrally in its business plan.
What’s OnClassical all about?
OnClassical is an online label for refined music. The name means both ON(line)CLASSICAL(music) and ON[about]CLASSICAL[music]. I define “classical” in the same way that Wiktionary does, “of or relating to the first class, especially in literature or art” or, “that which designates a kind and forms a base.”. Of course we concern ourselves only with music, not with the other arts. Our aim is to publish music that is deeply rooted in the culture of music at its truest level, including music that is innovative or the fruit of improvisation.
The philosophy of OnClassical brings together not only quality compositions and performances, but also quality recordings that we either produce ourselves or carefully select from the submissions we receive. We recently chose to define onclassical.com as the “online label for audiophiles,” in large part due to a review by premier piano manufacturer Boesendorfer, in which a recording of ours was defined as “very excellent” (PDF available here).
The label proposes “a new way to think about music.” This means music with no packaging that is distributed via the Internet. OnClassical shares profits 50/50 with artists, and requests no fees or exclusive agreements to join. Besides this, the level of quality in its published performances and recordings is very high and for this reason it is not easy to become one of OnClassical’s featured artists.
1 Comment »IHEARTCOMIX adds CC Licenses to Remix Contests
IHEARTCOMIX, a record label and events promotion group based out of LA, have recently added CC BY-NC licenses to their remix contests for both HEARTSREVOLUTION’s “C.Y.O.A” and Ocelot’s “Lo Sforzo”. Both songs are seriously cool and the winning remixes will land up sharing respective vinyl space with their source tracks.
It is great to see this type of license adoption from a label like IHEARTCOMIX, who exist in a musical environment where remixes can be as important (and sometimes more) in popularizing the original track. Unofficial remixes have become an essential part of the musical climate IHEARTCOMIX inhabits, and as bedroom producers and their remixes continue to rise in popularity and number, having the kind of fluidity allowed by CC licenses means these remixes are able to exist in a legally sound environment, without impacting commercial concerns. That IHEARTCOMIX is adding promotional opportunity (via shared space on vinyl) for this kind of reuse affirms its importance.
Creative Commons Voluntarily Dismissed from Lawsuit
We are happy to report that Creative Commons has been voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiffs from a lawsuit against Virgin Mobile.
Please see our press release and a blog entry with more information, including a copy of the dismissal, from our CEO, Lawrence Lessig.
We would like to especially thank our many legal friends for pro-bono counsel.
Comments OffHelp Translate CC Software
As one of the staff members who helps answer general inquiries, I see quite a few messages that go something like, “Hey, I want to translate the license engine and deeds into my language! How do I do that?” Up until recently, we haven’t had a very good answer. Translations were handled by our international affiliates, who are already plenty busy porting the licenses to their respective jurisdictions. Unfortunately, the software we were using didn’t have a very strong community component — you were either a trusted translator or nothing at all.
Today we’re able to ask you to help the affiliates by suggesting translations. With some greatly appreciated assistance from the folks at translate.org.za we’ve moved our translation infrastructure to Pootle.
translate.creativecommons.org is now the home for all our internationalization efforts. See a language you can help with? See a missing translation or something not quite right? Create an account and suggest the correction. Pootle also provides a clear overview of the translation status for the site (hint: no language is 100% translated). So jump in, help CC communicate in your language!
Comments OffRoo’d on the iPhone
Roo’d, a CC BY-NC-SA licensed novel about “the future that’s closer than we think” recently got added to the iPhone eBook reader repository, iphoneebooks, making it the first modern novel therein.
By using a CC license, Joshua Klein, the author of Roo’d, opened the door for the free digital re-distribution of his novel, making it a legally sound choice for those who develop free and open applications that rely on creative content. As a result, Roo’d, Klein’s first novel, is experiencing a broad level of exposure that would be difficult to attain for a first-time novelist (including some Boing Boing love). For a relatively unknown author, this level of flexibility in exposure is huge – in talking about this unexpected publicity, Klein said this:
Comments Off“If you’ve ever poured your heart and soul into writing a novel this is pretty much what your dream should be, and is a better endorsement for Creative Commons than anything I could have dreamed up.”
CC on Air Mozilla Live
Tune in this Wednesday, November 28, from 14:00:00 – 15:30:00 PST (UTC -8.) to listen to the relaunch of Air Mozilla Live, the “Internet multimedia presence of Mozilla”. The broadcast will feature CC’s Development Coordinator Melissa Reeder, who will be talking about CC as an organization, what we do, and the significance of our upcoming 5th anniversary. Air Mozilla is a community call-in show, so prepare for questions and a lively discussion. Here is the info (from Mozilla):
Who: The Mozilla community, host Asa Dotzler, and guests Melissa Reeder, Mark Finkle, Dave Townsend, and Christian Sejersen.
When: Wednesday, November 28, from 14:00:00 – 15:30:00 PST (UTC -8.)
Where: View the webcast at air.mozilla.com and participate on IRC, IM, or email.* IRC: join the discussion on irc.mozilla.org #airmozilla
* IM: instant message your questions to the AIM/YIM/GTalk screenname airmozilla.
* email: send in your questions before and during the show to airmozilla@mozilla.com.Air Mozilla is now streaming 24/7 with a new live show every month (or as close to that as makes sense.) If you’ve got ideas for shows, please email us and let us know. Even better, if you’re a part of the Mozilla community and you’d like to be interviewed or present on our live broadcast, let us know.
For anyone looking to get a better picture of what we have been up to lately and what we are hoping to accomplish in the future, this is a must listen!
Comments OffCreative Commons is turning 5!
CC is turning 5 and to celebrate we’re throwing a community-wide party. If you’ll be in the San Francisco Bay Area on December 15, join us for a night of celebrating the commons at a party generously sponsored by Mozilla and Last.fm. The evening will feature announcements by Joi Ito and Lawrence Lessig, a live acoustic performance by Gilberto Gil, video remixing by Phi Phenomenon, and music provided by DJ Spooky. Space is limited so please RSVP to party@creativecommons.org as soon as possible to let us know if you will be joining us (seriously, please do this!). Details are listed on our birthday flyer.
If you’re not in the Bay Area, don’t worry. There will also be parties in Berlin and New York City. For more details about these events, or if you want to register a party in your own part of the world, check out our wiki page for more information. Air Mozilla will be streaming Gilberto Gil’s performance for those who won’t be able to attend any of the parties. And of course, please feel free to celebrate CC in Second Life as well.
No matter where you are in the world, we invite you to celebrate CC’s five years of helping to keep culture free and celebrate the future of participatory culture.
Comments OffCC in Thailand: license draft in public discussion
We are pleased to announce that the CC project in Thailand has entered the public discussion for their localized license draft. At this time, we would like to invite members of the community to join the Thai team in discussing and reviewing their license draft, which includes a re-translation of the license into English and an English explanation of substantial legal changes.
For their progress thusfar, we would like to congratulate the CC Team in Thailand, lead by Phichai Phuechmongkol and Worasete Phueksakon of Dharmniti Law Office (DLO); Sunit Shrestha from TRN Institute; and Arthit Suriyawongkul, Sirindhorn International Institute of Technology, Thammasat University.
We look forward to a lively discussion!
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