Creative Commons

Creative Commons, as a licensing program, has been around a while. Woody Gutherie used a version of it back in the 1930s (and he used the word "ourn" in a sentence, in print, which makes him one of my top favorite people, ever.)

Newer, though, is LiveContent 2.0 . According to the website: "the Creative Commons tech team has been working on an interesting content “autocuration” process for LiveContent 2.0, which automatically pulls down CC-licensed media for inclusion on the LiveDVD."

Licenses that allow people to reuse and remix digital content are vital for the expansion of new media (however one defines it). I am not, unfortunately, an artist. I wish I were. I have some small skill with PhotoShop, but not enough to get all excited about. Without open source materials available, I am limited in what I can produce. I cannot physically go and get pictures of everything I might want to use, and even if I could, I don't have the photographic equipment (or, to be honest, the skill) to create the same quality photos.

And I am less a musician than an artist.

So the creative commons project, pulling together material offered freely by people and pulling together older material that is is in public domain is one that I believe in. (So now to figure out how to make a LiveContent DVD...)