Monthly Archives: October 2006

Creative Commons has launched its second (now officially) annual fundraising campaign.

Within a year of launching the licensing project in December 2002, there were more than 1, 000, 000 link-backs to our licenses (meaning at least a million places on the web where people were linking to our licenses, and presumably licensing content under those licenses). In June this year we reported about 140, 000, 000 link-backs to our licenses.

The success of Creative Commons has been primarily built by thousands of volunteers across the world who have worked to launch CC projects locally, and worked to spread our movement to artists and educators internationally.

But it is supported by the contributions of many more.

To view the “Lessig Letters” from last years fundraising campaign, which explain a bit about where Creative Commons came from, and where it is going [click here](http://creativecommons.org/support/letters)

And if you’d like to just get it over, and donate, [click here](http://creativecommons.org/support/donate)
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Cooking pancakes and mixing sounds as part of Radio National’s Night Air program, performed live during Electrofringe. Photo by Nick Moraitis.

Elliott Bledsoe recently represented CC Australia at This is not Art festival. Held annually in Newcastle, TINA is comprised of five festivals including Electrofringe, National Young Writers’ Festival, National Student and Emerging Media Conference, Sound Summit, Critical Animals and Earthling.

CC was asked to speak on three panels exploring CC licensing as a tool for artists and creators. The first panel was Online Investigations, which focused on online content production, online audiences and the opportunities for independent media. Elliott spoke about CC as a way of promoting and distributing content.

On the DIY Publishing: the future panel about the future of independent and self-publishing Elliott spoke about CC as a promotion and distribution model and CC as a way of getting low-cost, and low-hassle content for use in independently produced content.

The final panel was Copyright, Copywrong, Copyleft Jam!. It aimed to explore the bounds of existing copyright laws and its affect on creativity. Elliott spoke about CC in Australia, its potential and some of the setbacks.

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As you may be aware, the Attorney-General’s Department (AGD) recently released an [exposure draft](http://www.ag.gov.au/agd/WWW/agdHome.nsf/Page/RWP04FC63D41045DEA5CA2571DF0021BCA3) of proposed amendments to the Australian Copyright Act provisions dealing with technological protection measures (TPM). These amendments are designed to implement Australia’s final commitments under the United States Free Trade Agreement, which require Australia to significantly tighten its legal protection of TPMs. The new laws have to be in place by 1 January 2007.

As part of the release, the AGD called for public submissions to be provided by 22 September. We here at Creative Commons Australia got together with a number of other open access advocates (including representatives of the [OAK Law project](http://www.oaklaw.qut.edu.au)) to comment on the proposed amendments. You can find our [submission](http://creativecommons.org.au/materials/QUT-TPM-review-final.pdf) here.

All in all, the draft legislation isn’t as bad as it could have been, and certainly isn’t as strong as the US probably wanted – but it still includes few safeguards to prevent copyright owners from using TPMs to extend their control in the digital environment. All we can do now is wait and see whether the Government takes the public comments on board, or if the deal with the US has already been cemented behind the scenes.

Interestingly, at the same time as they released the exposure draft, the Government also called for submissions as part of a separate review of additional exceptions to the TPM provisions that are to be included in the regulations. They’ve published the initial submissions for the exceptions review (but not the broader TPM provisions) online, and are currently [inviting reply comments](http://www.ag.gov.au/agd/WWW/agdHome.nsf/AllDocs/89490437BC30DBC5CA2571F6001908B4?OpenDocument) on these submissions.

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