Icommons.org

Within the blogosphere one of the grand topics is the emerging open commons. A wonderful example of this theme by blog writers is Jon Lebkowsky’s post here on WorldChanging. Titled ‘Complexity, Megacommunity, and Adaptation,’ the post discusses another excellent read called ‘The Megacommunity Manifesto’ from strategy and business.

The ideas discussed in these two articles are constructive food for thought as we work to build the iCommons. As Lebkowsky says in the introduction of his essay:

“The concept of ‘megacommunity’ is another way to perceive ‘power to the edges’ thinking about emergent organization and leadership. that are oriented to multilateral action. The megacommunity approach acknowledges that no single organization or entity (more…)

Remix. Sample. Mash up. Reconstruct. Reformulate. Remake. Reproduce. Reshuffle. Transform. Recreate. Modify. Reassemble. Revamp. Rejuvenate.

These are the words that make corporate copyright protectors shudder and free culture creators grin with glee.

The ‘remix’ has become one of the most powerful tools of the digital age. But the legal barriers to taking an established image or concept and mixing it up for a fresh take have become a hurdle for creativity - leaving those with the most power and wealth the only ones who are able to take the legal risk. Enter Creative Commons, which provides a set of legal licenses that allows creators to willing to share their works for remixing use by creative communities around the world.

‘Remix Nation’ is the title of the first ccSalon in Johannesburg. It’s about celebrating cultural pioneers in (more…)

On 25 April, Creative Commons Netherlands launched the ‘CC NL DVD’ project in order to promote Creative Commons and the values which it enshrines, to creative communities in the Netherlands. The concept is to get at least a dozen songs by different musicians and combine these songs with the visuals of another dozen visual artists. The end result is a DVD filled with audio and video material, all licensed under Creative Commons licenses.

A call for music was sent out to numerous websites, people, magazines and communities. The response was quite successful with over 130 songs from more than fifty different artists. A professional jury consisting of Sander Kerkhof, a music journalist working with the Dutch public broadcaster ‘VPRO’ and Guno Oosterling, organizer of the ‘Grote Prijs van Nederland’, one of the most well-known music competitions in the Netherlands, (more…)

An alternative explanation to the success of file-sharing networks and the radical reconfiguration of cultural markets in the online environment

There have been several studies on how illegal downloading affects the market of cultural goods. Although the results sometimes contradict each other, there is a consensus that in fact illegal downloaders become purchasers. There are several explanations offered: downloaders pay for items they were not exposed to before (the publicity value argument); downloaders are not evil, they are willing to pay for music made by artists they value (community support argument); downloaders are buying because there is a market they are happy to use or they are threatened by lawsuits (industry argument); or downloads are not substitutes for the value of owning a DVD or a CD.

In this article I would like to offer a different approach to explain the coexistence of illegal downloading and legal purchases by explaining a shift that affects the status of cultural goods. This shift explains the way that cultural goods become ’search’ goods instead of ‘experience’ goods, (more…)

Brazil may be named ‘the heart of the free culture movement’, but in November it will also be the place to be if you’re interested in how mobile technology is changing the way we communicate and relate to each other; it’ll be hosting an event to phone home about, quite literally.

The country, which is inhabited by 185.1 million people, has a mobile density of 44.5%, which also makes it the fifth largest mobile market in the world, after China, the USA, Japan and Russia.

It is appropriate then that that the International Festival of Mobile Art and Creativity will be hosted in Sao Paulo later this year. Mobilefest, as it is better known, (more…)

The launch of the Creative Commons Colombia (ccColombia) project has been a process full of small successes and hard work. We are a special team consisting of initially three and now four co-leaders: Carolina Botero, Jaime Rojas, Andres Umaña and Alfredo Vargas; and we interestingly, have never all met in the same place at once! We have certainly built the project with a plurality of voices, thanks to the power of technology.

On the 22nd of August we are closing the first stage of the process that was supported by Universidad del Rosario, by officially launching ccColombia.

During the first stage, we focused our energies on the translation and porting of the licenses into the local juridical environment, by following the processes of the neighbouring jurisdictions and by giving talks about the Creative Commons approach. The discussion on our list, which now consists of more than 80 registered participants; and the translation work we have undertaken, has been complemented with presentations to different (more…)

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