Monthly Archives: December 2008

A quick reminder that there’s just one more day (ok, two, cause we’re talking US time) for you to contribute to the annual CC fundraising campaign.

The CC CEO, Joi Ito, has just sent out his final message for the campaign. We’re currently about $12,000 short of the goal of $500,000 – which is pretty impressive considering the economic crisis, but still not so good for next year’s budget.

Your money will be supporting the liberation of the internet. Just read this year’s great Commoner Letters to see some of the great work CC does. Plus you get some really cool swag for donating – exclusive albums, T-shirts, laptop covers, stickers (oh yeah).

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As a fabulous seasonal gesture of good will to all, and leadership in information management in the digital era, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) are giving Australian’s their statistics back.

On 18 December, the ABS released it’s website content for re-use under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia licence. As Australia’s official statistical body and conductor of the annual census, the ABS is the single largest repository of data on the Australian population, economy and lifestyle. All of this information is now available for you to re-use for any purpose – including commercial – as long as you attribute the ABS.

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On Friday the Australia Council for the Arts, the Australian Government’s arts funding and advisory body, released The Writer’s Guide to Making a Digital Living: Choose Your own Adventure. Don’t let the long title fool you, it is a relevant, detailed and valuable resource developed by Therese Fingleton, Christy Dena, Jennifer Wilson to help Australian writers explore and understand the craft and business of writing in the digital era.

Undertaken by the Australia Council’s Story of the Future funding program (The same program that funded Remix My Lit), The Writer’s Guide includes information about the new media industry, what opportunities and possibilities that creates for writers and how to take advantage of them (business and planning skills). It also includes guides to promotion, distribution and copyright. Then all this is complimented by a set of case studies, audio and video resources and a great ‘new media myth busters’ section which every writer should read!

Oh and most exciting (to us anyway), the entire The Writer’s Guide is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia Licence. There’s even an interview with ccAustralia staffer Elliott Bledsoe and Remix My Lit Project Manager Amy Barker talking about Creative Commons and writers in the Web 2.0 environment.

So get stuck into The Writer’s Guide. There’s a video about the guide, or check it out on the Australia Council website as interactive media, as HTML and as a PDF.
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In the last few months two more Australian institutions joined Flickr: The Commons, Flickr‘s Public Domain photo archive. Creative Commons Australia is proud to inform you that the Australian War Memorial and the State Library of New South Wales join Powerhouse Museum, Sydney on the repository.

The State Library of New South Wales launched on The Commons in late September this year. The War Memorial, along with the Imperial War Museum in the United Kingdom, were added to The Commons on 11 November 2008, the 90th anniversary of Armistice Day, the day the First World War came to an end.

We could direct you to the War Memorial’s copyright statement on their website for insight into their decision to release out of copyright images on Flickr, but Melbourne teacher librarian and blogger, Rhondda Powling does a superb job of outlining the War Memorial’s sentiments on Rhondda’s Reflections.

Talking about the photo above, of a group of an unidentified members of the Australian Headquarter’s staff taken by Captain James Francis Hurley, she says:

Wouldn’t it be great if these men could be identified and their story told. What about the young people sharing this with older members of their families. Who knows where it could lead? Doesn’t it make for some interesting ideas for research assignments for students, or creative writing, telling a story that might have been. It could combine historical research and creative writing for English. The books of Anthony Hills or Ken Catran, or the My story series could be used as examples.

This is exactly what Flickr: The Commons exists to do. The archive aims to both increase access to publicly-held photography collections and to foster and inspire the general public to contribute information and knowledge.
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All those who have been meaning to do the Creative Commons Non-commercial survey, but just haven’t got around to it yet – you’d better get your skates on, cause it closes Sunday.

For those who haven’t heard, the survey is being conducted by CC to try to improve the understanding of what people think is a ‘non-commercial’ use.

The non-commercial clause of the CC licence is both very popular and very controversial – some people criticise it as ‘uncertain’, while others feel that material restricted to non-commercial use only isn’t ‘free’. So we’re trying to clarify the situation.

Takes about 15-25 minutes to answer, and has some complicated questions, so it isn’t easy. But it is your chance to have your say in the of CC, and the internet as a whole. Sounds worthwhile to me. Continue reading →