Icommons.org

Imagine showcasing a feature film, not only on a cinema screen, but simultaneously on a computer screen too. Imagine that on the première day of Troy or Titanic, or any boxoffice hit, the movie was also released on online peer-to-peer networks too. A Utopian idea yes, and while you may be pondering if this could ever happen, we can stop you in your tracks and say - it already did! This scenario became a reality when Brazilian director, Bruno Vianna released his first full-length feature film, Cafuné.

Vianna chose to use several innovative distribution strategies for (more…)

I am often bothered when people confuse the social meaning of ’sharing’ with the individual meaning of it. Some say that sharing is daring because it is a social virtue. They may be true, but may fail to pay attention to the personal aspect of ’sharing’. Why do people share things? Some might share because it is more fun, some might share because they believe it is for social goodness, and some might share because they want more people to see what they have done. No matter what motivation individuals might have for sharing, it seems obvious that ’sharing’ is related to the issue of how people are motivated and eventually how they are rewarded. As we all know, sometimes it involves economic issues, and can get (more…)

Magnatune is an online record label, launched in 2004. With the motto ‘We are not evil’, Magnatune distributes music albums online under Creative Commons licence, and even allows people to listen to the full album before the purchase. Pricing ranges from $5 to $18 per album, and music buyers are encouraged to give away 3 music copies to anyone they know. The amount received from each track is split 50/50 with the musician. And two and half year later, Magnatune is going strong. But what are Magnatune’s challenges and how will it develop in the future?

In my quest to find out the answer to this question, I met with John Buckman, CEO and founder of Magnatune for dinner at a Zen-styled restaurant in the Akasaka area, in the heart of Tokyo. He was visiting Tokyo for the New Context conference organised by (more…)

Soccer, referred to as ‘The Beautiful Game’, is an ideological phenomenon. Fans lose themselves in its euphoric dimensions, which span every intellectual configuration from superstition to virtual bookmaking. Rivalry is fierce, both on and off the field. Soccer’s canonical status as the most popular sport in the world is reaffirmed every four years on the occasion of the FIFA World Cup’¢. Nationalism is staked at fever pitch during the month it takes to determine a winner. In 2010, the honour of hosting this event will pass to South Africa.

The question beckons: at what price? New stadiums, for example, will topple a figure of (more…)

Applying a Creative Commons licence to works has become second nature to thousands of creators around the world. But for many writers, musicians, artists and researchers, proving authorship and when the work was licensed, is less easy ‘ especially if they are first time or inexperienced CC users. In the wild frontiers of the internet, it’s still relatively easy to claim a piece of work as your own. And while a return to restrictive, hands-up-or-I’ll-shoot copyright is not something anyone wants, there is still the question of regulation.

Enter the new kid in town, RegisteredCommons. Based at the University of Applied Sciences in Vorarlberg in Austria, RegisteredCommons offers creators the opportunity to attach a stamp specifying the date and time of licensing to their work. Essentially, this adds another layer of legal protections to works licensed under CC, and in the case of (more…)

During day two of the Wizards of OS 4 conference (read about the first day in part 1), a panel titled ‘Business and the Commons’ initiated a discussion on how to “make money with free bits”. During the iSummit in Rio de Janeiro Joi Ito, chairman of the board of iCommons, named this as one of the key questions that the free culture movement is facing.

Ronaldo Lemos from ccBrazil started the session by presenting a developing countries perspective on commons-based business. According to him, open business can take two forms. One is what he calls the “legal commons” - a business model based on an idea of sharing and using open licenses. Netlabels like Magnatune, open access journals like PLoS or the Brasilian press agency Agencia Brasil are all examples of this approach. The other form he calls “social commons”, which are more typical of developing countries and contexts in which intellectual property is a foreign idea to most. Social commons thrives in situations where technology arrived before the law, allowing autonomous creative industries to appear. These often take for granted free sharing and dissemination outside of a legal (more…)