Creative Commons

Copyright in the Hands of Creators: Australasia's Growing Creative Commons

by Carol Mohrbacher

Chiptuning Intellectual Property: Digital Culture Between Creative Commons and Moral Economy

by Martin Zeilinger

forthcoming in the Journal of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (2012)

Through a multitude of restrictions imposed on how creative expressions bound in digital media can be produced,... more Through a multitude of restrictions imposed on how creative expressions bound in digital media can be produced, accessed and disseminated, contemporary intellectual property regimes strongly impact how musicians are able (or unable) to practice their craft. This essay considers how chipmusic, a fairly recent form of electronic music to emerge from the underground into popular awareness, deals with this impact. I survey the chiptune scene’s creative approach of reusing outdated technology and content from the era of 8-bit video games as well as the community’s dissemination strategies, and highlight points of contention between the critical perspectives embodied in this art form and contemporary intellectual property policy. In exploring chipmusic’s close ties to appropriation-based production techniques that are frequently seen as interfering with narrow concepts of intellectual property rights, I describe this music scene as an active site for implicit critiques of restrictive copyright regimes. In doing so, I draw, in part, on the art form’s important, if idle, links to the ‘demoscene’ amateur hacking culture of the 1980s. This will be contrasted with the chiptune community’s current reliance on Creative Commons licenses in regulating use of and access to its creations. I question whether discussing this alternative dissemination and licensing scheme can adequately describe the shared cultural norms and values that motivate chiptune practices. Responding to this question, I conclude this essay by offering the concept of a moral economy of appropriation-based creative techniques as a new framework for understanding digital creative practices which – like chiptune music – resist conventional intellectual property policy both in form and in content.

Music and Fashion: The Balancing Act Between Creativity and Control

by Aram Sinnreich

Book chapter written for the Norman Lear Center, 2006.

Music and fashion, two creative communities that share much in common, have evolved over time to produce drastically... more Music and fashion, two creative communities that share much in common, have evolved over time to produce drastically different industries. Both communities thrive on innovation and change, spurred by the mechanisms of reconfiguration, reinterpretation and reappropriation. Both are sustained by an ever growing commons, a living archive of all that has come before. Yet music suffers from a fundamental schism separating many of the needs of the creative community and consumers from the needs of the industry that enables and exploits it. Fashion, by contrast, has succeeded in brokering a working balance between aesthetic and financial mandates.

O impacto da sociedade civil (des) organizada: Cultura digital, os articuladores e software livre no projeto dos pontos de cultura do minc

by Felipe Fonseca

Brazil and the FLOSS process

by Felipe Fonseca

A PRACTICAL APPROACH TO HEARSAY EVIDENCE THE COMMON LAW DEFINITION OF HEARSAY By Alistair MacDonald QC

by Historically Digitized

A PRACTICAL APPROACH TO HEARSAY EVIDENCE
THE COMMON LAW DEFINITION OF HEARSAY
By Alistair MacDonald QC more A PRACTICAL APPROACH TO HEARSAY EVIDENCE
THE COMMON LAW DEFINITION OF HEARSAY
By Alistair MacDonald QC
An assertion other than one made by a person while giving oral evidence
in the proceedings is inadmissible as evidence of any fact asserted.

Where Does the Anti-SOPA Movement Go Next?

by Alex Sayf Cummings

This piece suggests that the remarkable surge of activism against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) represents a major... more This piece suggests that the remarkable surge of activism against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) represents a major shift in the longer term debate about copyright in the US. An anti-copyright movement that began among a small group of academics and activists in the 1990s now commands a broad, if shallow, base of public support for the first time. The piece draws on the work of pioneering copyright skeptics such as Lawrence Lessig and James Boyle, who drew an analogy between anti-copyright politics and the environmentalist movement to urge a reframing of the public domain as an issue of broad public concern. It shows how such ideas have increasingly resonated with a wider audience in the struggle over property rights and sharing on the Internet.

Cultura mediática, autoría y derechos de autor

by Felip Vidal Auladell

Medialaby jako instytucje kultury i ścieżki awansu w XXI w.? (Medialabs as cultural institutions and career paths in the XXI century?)

by Andrzej Klimczuk

A. Klimczuk, Medialaby jako instytucje kultury i ścieżki awansu w XXI w.? (Medialabs as cultural institutions and career paths in the XXI century?), [in:] V Kongres Obywatelski. Głosy pokongresowe, Instytut Badań nad Gospodarką Rynkową, Gdańsk 2010, electronic publication: www.pfo.net.pl/v-kongres-obywatelski/glosy-pokongresowe/353-andrzej-klimczuk.

Distribuição musical gratuita como dádiva no ciberespaço

by Mônica Paz

Co-authored with Melina Aparecida dos Santos Silva; Published in “Jogos, Mundos Virtuais e Ambientes Colaborativos (P2P)”, do
IV Simpósio Nacional da ABCiber (2010).

This article discusses the dynamic reconfiguration of social practices derived from the use of information technology... more This article discusses the dynamic reconfiguration of social practices derived from the use of information technology and communication with community character. The hypothesis presented is that the intense technological creation decentralized circulating the internet through peer to peer exchange, shows that the economy gift-exchange is part of everyday life in contemporary societies. The overall objective of the study is to understand using the concept of gift originally investigated by the anthropologist Marcel Mauss (1950), “Essai sur le don”, as the position of users of cyberspace has similarities to the understanding of the political donation studied by author. Thus, the object of analysis is the action of independent musicians who offer their songs free in cyberspace.

Por qué las licencias Creative commons son legales en España

by Javier de la Cueva

Texto leido en la conferencia de los 100 días de las licencias Creative Commons España (Madrid, 24 de enero de 2005).
Autor y conferenciante: Javier de la Cueva
Texto bajo licencia CC-By.

Introducción al copyleft. Una perspectiva de su recepción en España

by Javier de la Cueva

Además de explicar el concepto Copyleft, se traza la historia de la recepción en España tanto en los congresos... more Además de explicar el concepto Copyleft, se traza la historia de la recepción en España tanto en los congresos universitarios como en la jurisprudencia.

Validité des Creative Commons face au droit français

by Willy DUHEN

réflexion sur la validité des licences Creatives Commons face au droit de la propriété intellectuelle française. réflexion sur la validité des licences Creatives Commons face au droit de la propriété intellectuelle française.

Ramp Suppers, Biodiversity, and the Integrity of the Mountains

by Mary Hufford

Published in Cornbread Nation III: The Best of Writing About Foods of the Mountain South. Ed. Ronni Lundy. Chapel Hill: University of  North Carolina Press. 2006.

Knowing Ginseng: The Social Life of an Appalachian Root.”

by Mary Hufford

Published in Caheirs de Litterature Orales, 2004, vol. 53-54, pp. 265-92.

Ginseng, prized on the world market as both tonic and stimulant, is most valuable when harvested in the wild. In the... more Ginseng, prized on the world market as both tonic and stimulant, is most valuable when harvested in the wild. In the U.S, a culture of harvesting wild ginseng contributes to Central Appalachia's position as a leading global producer of wild ginseng.The interactions of ginseng with its harvesters give rise to "region" I take a critical regionalist approach to bring America's "wild ginseng region" into dialogue with America's "coalfield region" and find them to be antithetical regions vying for position within the same geographic space. Ginseng narratives form strategies
for cultural and ecological renewal.

Towards a Global Learning Commons: CcLearn.

by Ahrash Bissell

Also archived on OER Commons (http://www.oercommons.org/community/towards-a-global-learning-commons-cclearn), IssueLab (http://oer.issuelab.org/research/listing/towards_a_global_learning_commons_cclearn), and elsewhere.

Though open educational resources (OER) promise to transform the conditions for teaching and learning worldwide, there... more Though open educational resources (OER) promise to transform the conditions for teaching and learning worldwide, there are many barriers to the full realization of this vision. Among other things, much of what is currently considered "free and open" is legally, technically, and/or culturally incompatible. Herein, the authors give a brief history of open education, outline some key problems, and offer some possible solutions

OER and open licenses: the dual-pub solution

by Ahrash Bissell

Also published to Connexions: http://cnx.org/content/m38641/latest/

OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an... more OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use or re-purposing by others. The global standard for open licenses is the suite of Creative Commons (CC) licenses; however, there are several different types of CC licenses, and deciding which licenses are appropriate for different circumstances remains a significant point of contention for the OER community. Herein, we recommend that the debate shift focus, from “Which license?” to “Which assets (and when)?” It is widely understood that only the CC BY license (and, in certain circumstances, the CC BY-SA license) provides users with all of the necessary permissions to build on a global learning commons3. Thus, we recommend that OER be licensed CC BY plus in an open format, but we accept that resource publishers may only want to publish a subset of their assets as OER, thereby retaining additional rights on key assets for technical and business reasons. We believe that this approach substantially simplifies the OER landscape, gives clear opportunities to build sustainability and value-add models around OER publishing, and will ultimately increase the impact of OER in transforming educational access and practice.

Permission granted: open licensing for educational resources

by Ahrash Bissell

Viewable for free online.

Open licences are critical for defining Open Educational Resources. The goal of this article is to explain the logic... more Open licences are critical for defining Open Educational Resources. The goal of this article is to explain the logic of open licensing to teachers, funders, and educational policy‐makers – to explain the relatively simple but vital considerations that are necessary to build this global educational commons of free learning material. In particular, we will stress the importance of ensuring that supposedly ‘free’ materials are not restricted by seemingly reasonable licensing decisions.

The Perspective of the Common

by Bruno Gulli

Première décision Creative Commons: contrats de licence et modèles économiques du libre accès - Note sous Nivelles (11e ch.), 26/10/2010

by Maxime Lambrecht

Publié dans la Revue du Droit des Technologies de l'Information, n°42, mars 2011, p. 70.

This is a legal commentary on the first judicial enforcement of a Creative Commons license before a belgian judge (in... more This is a legal commentary on the first judicial enforcement of a Creative Commons license before a belgian judge (in French).

Dans sa décision du 26 octobre 2010, le tribunal de première instance de Nivelles a reconnu une pleine force juridique aux clauses de la licence CC by-nc-nd, mettant fin aux doutes que certains ont longtemps entretenus sur la validité de ces licences dans notre ordre juridique, notamment en ce qui concerne la fameuse clause « non-commercial ». Après une brève introduction aux licences Creative Commons suivie d’un résumé des faits de la décision commentée, nous envisagerons la question de l’applicabilité de ces licences en droit belge et de la portée reconnue à certaines de ses conditions. Cette décision nous donnera également l’occasion de nous intéresser à la question de l’option entre responsabilité contractuelle et responsabilité pour atteinte au droit d’auteur, ainsi qu’au rôle de la clause « non commercial » dans le modèle économique des œuvres sous Creative Commons.