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  • From: Lawrence Lessig <lessig AT pobox.com>
  • To: cc-lessigletter AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Community_studios] [cc-lessigletter] CC as a Global Movement
  • Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2006 16:00:07 -0800

In my last letter, I described some of the ways CC technologies get
integrated into Web 2.0 applications. Many of you wrote that you were
surprised by the examples, and were especially excited that the
applications reached so broadly internationally.

That response has led me to tell a bit more about CC as a global
movement. For certainly the most exciting work in spreading CC is
going on in cultures far from our headquarters in San Francisco.

So, this week, consider just three examples drawn from a pool of many
more. In each, our tools for encouraging sharing are encouraging a
much wider range of creativity.

Brazil

The first example comes from Brazil, at the site "Overmundo."
[http://www.overmundo.com.br]

Overmundo is a collaborative website designed to spread Brazilian
culture. Its distinction is that both its content and design are
generated by its users. Users choose what should or should not be
published on the website. They choose what goes on the front page.
And everything made available on the site is licensed under a CC
license.

The Overmundo tools give users the capacity to rate the quality of
contributed content. This invitation to the site's users has in turn
inspired a community that has built a "cultural database," with
thousands of people sharing and making content available broadly. In
less than 7 months, there have been more than 7,000 contributors from
all over Brazil. The site has hosted a few million visitors, and is
now, according to Technorati, among the top 7,000 websites in the
world. The site's traffic is growing by 20 percent per month, and
there are more than 400,000 references to it recorded by Google.

The Netherlands

My second example focuses more on archives. From the Netherlands, the
"Images for the Future" project is building a large-scale
conservation and digitization project to make available 285,000 hours
of film, television, and radio recordings, as well as more than 2.9
million photos from the Netherlands' film and television archives. A
basic collection drawn from the archive will be made available on the
Internet either under CC licenses, or in some cases, in the public
domain. The Government of the Netherlands, a long time supporter of
the local Dutch CC project, will invest a total of 173 million Euros
over a seven-year period. Their aim is to spur innovative
applications with new media, while providing valuable services to the
public.

The idea of an archive like this is not new. But the scale and values
of this project are extraordinary. The Netherlands may be a small
country, but if it is successful, the "Images for the Future" project
may well be the largest archive of free culture available anywhere in
the world.

South Africa

Finally, consider some magic from South Africa. ccMixter South Africa
[http://www.ccmixter.co.za] is leading a unique cultural remixing
competition, drawing upon the work of creators from both Brazil and
South Africa. The competition is part of the "culturelivre" project,
which is a joint effort of Creative Commons in Brazil and South Africa.

To find samples for the competition, ccSA invited some of the most
important custodians of musical heritage in South Africa – including
the International Library of African Music (ILAM) – to produce short
riffs using traditional African instruments. Among these instruments
are the "Mutumba drums," which are generally inaccessible on the
Internet today. These drums were originally from Zimbabwe and were
used to accompany spiritual ceremonies that include dancing, singing,
clapping, and playing the mbira thumb piano. Young musicians entering
the competition will remix these traditional sounds, and in the
process, develop an understanding of the roots of music in both
cultures. Ultimately, the team hopes that the competition will
develop new sounds that young start-up musicians can use to advance
their own musical careers.

In all of these cases, CC tools provide a legal platform to spread
and build culture. That much we expected when we launched CC four
years ago. The part I never expected, however, is the extraordinary
community that this platform is inspiring internationally. CC has
come to be about much more than just licenses, and certainly much
more than any of us dreamed.


----------------------------------

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  • [Community_studios] [cc-lessigletter] CC as a Global Movement, Lawrence Lessig, 11/16/2006

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