Help develop a course on Creative Business in the Digital Era

Mike Linksvayer, October 24th, 2007

Announcement:

The Open Rights Group, in collaboration with 01zero-one and funded by the London Development Agency, is beginning an exciting new research project, examining how the internet enables creative entrepreneurs to develop innovative business practices by being more open with their intellectual property. Creative Business in the Digital Era will examine new business models and the wider context in which they sit, culminating in one day-long and two evening courses at which we will share our findings.

In the fine tradition of eating our own dogfood, we are developing the course out in the open, and under a Creative Commons licence, using a wiki. But we need your help. We have only a couple of months to do our research, so we need you to help us shape of the course, figure out the format of the case studies, and carry out research. Time is genuinely tight - we must complete all the course materials by the beginning of February, ready for delivery in March.

Right now, this week, we need your ideas. What open-IP business models have you come across? And who is experimenting with opening up their IP?

This is a fantastic project with a mandate to deliver results quickly. You can participate in the research phase immediately just by tagging relevant resources on del.icio.us with org-cbde, or dive into the course development wiki. Follow the project’s blog and twitter.

Here are some recent and possibly relevant links from this blog, culled from the bi-monthly CC Newsletter’s “CC in Business” links:

• CC, UGC platform integration and customer acquisition
• Sony uses CC in Blu-ray marketing campaign
• Wiki to books: Wikitravel Press launches
• Amarok developer hired by Magnatune
• PodTech Pays Lan Bui for CC Licensed Photograph
• Community content and money
• Jamendo attracts VC funding
• Blast Magazine Chooses CC
• Sun CEO: free media = free software, innovation != litigation
• Sony launches CC-enabled video site
• Creative Commons in Newspapers, Scientists, Film Students, and Wikipedia SEOers (!?)
• O’Reilly on free downloads vs sales
• CopyCamp conversations

RIP.MIX.BURN.BAM.PFA

Cameron Parkins, October 23rd, 2007

RIP.MIX.BURN.BAM.PFA, an art exhibit that celebrates “the cultural and artistic practice of remix”, opens this Friday at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA). From BAM/PFA:

RIP.MIX.BURN.BAM.PFA […] invit[es] guest artists to “rip, mix, and burn” elements from two digital-media works in the museum’s collection—Ken Goldberg’s Ouija 2000 and Valéry Grancher’s 24h00 (both 1999)—resulting in new artistic creations. Drawing from the open-source software tradition, with the permission of artists Goldberg and Grancher, the remix artists may alter or revise original code or media files from the source works, or they may choose to take a more conceptual route, remixing some of the methods or behaviors of the originals into their own new works.

We are co-hosting the opening of RIP.MIX.BURN.BAM.PFA, and as such there will be plenty of CC schwag and “free beer” come this Friday. The exhibit looks to be quite the happening, so make sure to check it out if you are interested!

Head to the upcoming page for more info.

Opportunies to work at Creative Commons’ San Francisco office

Jennifer Yip, October 23rd, 2007

ccLearn, the education division of Creative Commons, is looking to fill a new internship position. This position will focus on the interface of digital educational resources and search technology. We are collaborating with Google, among other organizations, to build a functional search engine that will find and highlight open educational resources, as well as any other high-quality educational resources that are available online. The position requires a comfort with technology, knowledge of basic web research skills, and ability to stay on task and get the work done, and the capacity to understand and evaluate diverse types of educational materials. Ideally, the intern will be based at the San Francisco office, but outstanding applicants in the greater Bay Area or beyond who want to work remotely will be considered.

CC is also searching for a full time accountant!

If you are interested in applying, please follow the instructions below these job descriptions on our Opportunities page. Also, feel free to forward these opportunities to anyone who may fit either of the description.

BloodSpell: first full length machinima feature released

Mike Linksvayer, October 23rd, 2007

Bloodspell, the machinima film project we mentioned last November, has been released as an 84 minute feature. This is a first feature length machinima production, and it’s released under a CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license:

We`re fairly sure BloodSpell is the largest Machinima film ever created. It`s an independent film that, because it is using Machinima technology, isn`t subject to the usual limitations of smaller films. But, at the same time, we don`t have the politics, money and producers of a Hollywood production involved, so we can experiment with ideas, styles and attitudes that wouldn`t be possible in a more top-heavy Hollywood production.

Of course, we still have some limitations, and BloodSpell won`t be beating out `Lord of the Rings` for visual effects. But we hope that what we lack in slick polish, we can make up for in originality and passion.

The other unique thing about BloodSpell is the way it`s being released. We will be releasing BloodSpell under a Creative Commons license, meaning that it will be free both to download and to modify: in other words, where even many indie filmmakers might get upset if you put their work up on Bittorrent or translate it into a new language, we`ll be encouraging work like that, and supporting it as much as possible.

Via Boing Boing, which calls BloodSpell “a pioneering and important start for a new industry.”

Artabase

Cameron Parkins, October 22nd, 2007

Artabase is a beta social networking site for the arts community that “aims to become the world’s best online database of art history” by turning contemporary event listings into a growing database of artistic happenings. Artabase’s concept is based around a collective definition of history, and as such, they recently adopted CC-licences in their uploading process for images - keeping their imagery as open as their text. Artabase joins Rhizome.org, amongst others in the online art world, in embracing CC-licensing.