Monthly Archives: September 2008

I can’t quite rate the national television appeal of Elliott, but as those who can decipher the flyer to the left can see, I have managed to break the international internet radio market.

And for those having as much difficulty with the Spanish as I am – I’ll be interviewed by Colombian-based Radio Fantasmas tomorrow night at 4pm Colombian time, 10pm European.

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Last night Elliott Bledsoe, Creative Commons Australia Project Officer, was a guest on the new ABC2 television program The Hack Half Hour. Loosely modeled on Triple J‘s Hack radio program, it’s a current affairs program which gets a group of young Australians together to talk about different issues. The first episode, on which I was a guest, was called MyFace, and explored the issues of privacy facing social networks, their owners and their users.

Check here to see the program.

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A presentation by Elliott Bledsoe from Creative Commons Australia detailing 7 case studies of CC use within the Creative Industries. In particular it focuses on new business models emerging which utilise CC for noncommercial licensing while still finding a way to make a buck.

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Congratulations Amy!

Project Leader of Remix My Lit (and erstwhile CCau staffer) Amy Vought Barker has been awarded the Emerging Writer award at this year’s Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards for her manuscript Omega Park.

It’s a tale of growth and change, focusing on two teenagers living on the Gold Coast. Here’s a good review from blogger Literaryminded. A few of the CCau staffers went to a reading today, and it was fabulous – I actually teared up.

Best of all, as part of the award Amy has received a publishing contract, so Omega Park will soon be on the shelves at bookshops across Australia. Watch this space for further news of Amy’s sure-to-be-m Continue reading →

Finally, a Remix My Lit event here in Brisbane! Join Remix My Lit, collapsicon and Simulcast at the Brisbane Writers’ Fringe.

As part of the inaugural Brisbane Writers’ fringe event, Writing – The Fringe Festival 2008, Remix My Lit will be hosting a live literary remix session this Saturday from 8:00pm at Sling Bar in West End.

We want you. This is an interactive experience; we’re giving you the chance to be part of the performance. Get familiar with our esteemed authors and their short stories, then tear them to bits! Proof paras, snip sentences, tuck the text or cull characters. We want to see what you make out of these stories. They are all under a Creative Commons licence, so you’re allowed to play with the. Roll back your sleeves, this could get messy!
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Following up the news that the National Innovation Review has recommended that Australian Government should be releasing material under Creative Commons licences – in a speech at the Committee for Melbourne yesterday, Senator Carr gave what sounds like a fairly strong endorsement of this recommendation, saying:

“We are and will remain a net importer of knowledge, so it is in our interest to promote the freest possible flow of information domestically and globally.

The arguments for stepping out first on open access are the same as the arguments for stepping out first on emissions trading – the more willing we are to show leadership on this, we more chance we have of persuading other countries to reciprocate.

And if we want the rest of the world to act, we have to do our bit at home.”

You can read the full speech here.
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Those interested in open access to public sector information will be excited to see the results of the Australian Federal Government’s Review of the National Innovation System, which was just released today.

The report, titled VenturousAustralia was prepared for Senator Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, by consultants Culter and Co, headed up by industry consultant and strategy adviser Dr Terry Cutler.

It places a strong emphasis on open innovation, stating in the introduction:

“Today innovation is understood to involve much more than the transmission of knowledge down the pipeline of production from research to development to application. In the age of the internet, with the opportunities for collaboration which it opens up, open innovation is increasingly important.”

Most importantly from an open access point of view is Recommendation 7.8, which is most exciting:

“Australian governments should adopt international standards of open publishing as far as possible. Material released for public information by Australian governments should be released under a creative commons licence.”
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CCau is very proud to wish our free culture brothers across at GNU a very happy 25th birthday.

25 years ago today (ok, so it was yesterday – but it’s still 2 September in most parts of the world) Richard Stallman and his collaborators began a project to develop an operating system that could be legally used, improved on and tinkered with by programmers everywhere. In doing so, they pretty much invented the free software movement. Which in turn led to open content licensing, the free culture movement, and Creative Commons.

Software from GNU (“Gnu is Not Unix”) now powers everything from Apple OS X to the Firefox web browser to the software behind internet itself. Their social influence has, perhaps, been even greater, encouraging us all to rethink what ‘ownership’ means, and what rights we should have over our own culture.

So we join British comedian Stephen Fry and the rest of the CC community in wishing GNU 25 more years of setting the standards for freedom everywhere. And another 25 after that. And another.

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The Melbourne Fringe Festival’s fabulous Digital Fringe program has issued a call out for material and screens for its 2008 program (24 September to 12 October).

Run out of the experimental media bar, Horse Bazaar (one of my favourite places in Melbourne – check out the men’s toilets!), Digital Fringe showcases the work of emerging and established new media artists on hundreds of screens across Victoria. Contributions can be from anywhere in the world and can be in any form, from works by professional artists to kindergarten multimedia projects and everything in between. You provide the material, they provide the novel environment – whether it be a bar, a gallery, a wall or even a mobile phone. They even have a Mobile Projection Unit, which moves around Melbourne from dusk, projecting onto buildings and structures and interacting with the citylife and local goings on.
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