Discussion of all things related to Public Domain

[Lawrence Lessig <lessig AT pobox.com>]

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 From last week's email:

And stay tuned next week when I'll turn to some of the particular  
projects we're working on right now — as well as ask again for your  
support.
http://creativecommons.org/support/

The story continued:

Creative Commons gives away code to offer creators a simple ability –  
to mark their creative work with the freedoms they want that work to  
carry. Code – both legal code (licenses) and technical code  
(software). I've spent a long time in these emails talking about the  
legal code. But most don't know much about the technical code that  
we've created, even though, imho, it is some of the best stuff we've  
done.

But first, let's be clear about our objectives here. We're a small  
nonprofit. We can't afford to be in the business of building and  
maintaining code. So all of our coding projects build code in the  
best way possible — we seed projects licensed under free software  
licenses (the GPL, in particular), support them, and hope that  
ultimately the projects take on a life of their own. We pick projects  
based on the functionality that we want to be available. Nothing  
would make us happier than to see the seeds we've planted become  
million dollar businesses for someone else.

The code that we've been building — tools, for example, to enable  
sites like Flickr to integrate our licensing engine into their own  
platform or the fantastic plug-in for Mozilla-based browsers that  
enables you to easily view license information about a page including  
tiny icons that appear on the bottom bar of the browser window.
[ http://www.yergler.net/projects/mozcc/ ]

Instead, the code that is less known is the stuff we've built for  
making the remix Internet easier.

The simplest, and perhaps most obvious, example is ccPublisher.  
[ http://creativecommons.org/tools/ccpublisher ] ccPublisher is a  
desktop application that makes it easy for people to put their  
creative work — marked with a CC license — on the Internet. Once you  
install the application, you can simply drag a file to ccPublisher.  
It will launch a procedure to first ask you to specify a CC license  
to apply to the content and then upload it to a server.

The server currently specified is the Internet Archive. Internet hero  
Brewster Kahle has committed to giving anyone who licenses content  
under a CC license free storage and free bandwidth, forever. So  
through the Archive you're given a permanent home for your content as  
well as a URL that you can give to others. In three simple steps,  
your work — however large, however difficult to carry — is available  
to everyone, forever.

http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/emails/slides.png

We've also built a simple validator that one can use for MP3s that  
are marked with CC-licenses. A license embedded in a file is only  
valid if there's a validating link-back to a website. This tool  
enables you to validate that linkback, to give you more confidence  
that the license is what it says it is.
[ http://creativecommons.org/tools/cclookup ]

But by far, the coolest code we've built was inspired by a bunch of  
MIT undergraduates and made real by the extraordinary musician and  
coder Victor Stone. We've called it ccMixter.

ccMixter is a kind of a "Friendster" for music (though without the  
commercial side of the real Friendster). You put your tracks in, and  
as others remix them, the system tracks the remix. So for any song  
within ccMixter, you can see what songs were mixed to make that song  
(if any), and what songs have remixed that song (if any). Users can  
rate songs, download them or stream them or podcast the work they  
select.

The idea was to build a technical platform for collaboration, built  
on top of a legal platform for collaboration (the CC licenses). The  
original content populating ccMixter was the 16 tracks from the Wired  
CD, including music from Gilberto Gil, the Beastie Boys, David Byrne,  
Chuck D, and others.
[ http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/emails/wiredcd.png ]
There are now more than 1600 tracks on the site.

My favorite story from ccMixter is about one musician who goes by the  
name "Minus Kelvin." "Minus Kelvin" is a high school physics teacher.  
He joined ccMixter in February, 2005. On his profile page, he said he  
was looking for "A Record Label." In June, "Minus Kelvin" was signed  
by a label, who had discovered him on ccMixter. And while there is  
only one "Minus Kelvin" in the world, there are many stories like his  
growing out of ccMixter.

We intend to host ccMixter for a while. We'll be porting it  
internationally to support iCommons, and in educational contexts as  
well. But our dream is that someone will simply take the code and  
turn it into a site with tens of thousands of creators legally re- 
creating each others' work. In the mean time, check out http:// 
ccMixter.org. And help support our work to spread it more broadly.
http://creativecommons.org/support/

Next week: More new projects. And in the week after that, the last of  
these emails.

-------

Before I end this email, I want to add a couple corrections to two  
earlier emails. The reactions I received made it evident that my  
meaning was not clear.

First, in last week's email [ http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/ 
5719 ], in describing the battle that broke out between the "free"  
software and "open source" software movement, I said, "[t]o some,  
those were battles between a movement that believed in values and a  
movement  that believed in pragmatism." The qualification "to some"  
was not clear enough. In my experience, those pushing the open source  
software movement are among the most principled souls I know. However  
"some" perceived the battle, in my view the real battle was between  
two visions of value.

Second, in week two [ http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5668 ],  
I said "[l]ike the Free Software Movement, we believed [Creative  
Commons licenses] would help open a space for creativity freed of  
much of the burden of copyright law. But unlike the Free Software  
Movement, our aim was not to eliminate "proprietary culture" as at  
least some in the Free Software Movement would like to eliminate  
proprietary software." Some read this to mean that I believed the  
Free Software Movement wanted to eliminate "proprietary culture." I  
don't mean that. I mean simply that while many of the leaders of the  
Free Software Movement would like a world where there is no  
proprietary software, leaders of the Free Culture Movement don't seek  
a world where there is no proprietary culture.

News from the fundraising front:

Finally, a bit about the fundraising. We are closing in on our goal,  
but with only three weeks left, there is lots to be done. We are  
especially grateful to RedHat and Six Apart for their challenge  
grants. [ http://creativecommons.org/support/#challenge ]. A couple  
more partners like these two and we'll be certain to reach our goal.

-------

To link to or comment on this message, go to:
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5726

Week 10 - Lawrence Lessig on Important Freedoms
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5719

Week 10 - Lawrence Lessig on Important Freedoms - Spanish Version
http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/translations/lessig-letter-10-es.pdf

Thanks to Maria Cristinia Alvite for translation.

Archive of Lessig Letters
http://creativecommons.org/support/letters

Support the Commons
http://creativecommons.org/support

Learn More
http://creativecommons.org/learnmore

For comics and movies: http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/how1,
http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/



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