Is that how the world, how business works? In this opinion peace I propose that copyright owners too often and too easily get tangled in the prospects of easy legal protection, spending time, money and energy on something that is most probably less efficient than any attempt at selling the stuff themselves.

Due to be out in 2010.

Ardour is a full-featured, free and open-source hard disk recorder and digital audio workstation program suitable for professional use. It features unlimited audio tracks and buses, non-destructive, non-linear editing with unlimited undo, and anything-to-anywhere signal routing. It supports standard file formats, such as BWF, WAV, WAV64, AIFF and CAF, and it can use LADSPA, LV2, VST and AudioUnit plugin formats.

This FLOSS Manual can be read online at: http://en.flossmanuals.net/ardour/

Non-profit, print-on-demand paper copies can be ordered from Lulu.com soon. Please check back with the main FLOSS Manuals page in several days for ordering information: http://en.flossmanuals.net/

The manual is free to use, distribute and remix according to the GNU General Public License. FLOSS Manuals volunteers are currently working on French and Portuguese translations, and anyone is free to add contributions and edits for future versions of the manual at http://en.flossmanuals.net/bin/view/Ardour/WebHome

Thanks to Adam Hyde, Walter Langelaar, the workshop participants in Rotterdam as well as those who helped online from the FLOSS Manuals, Ardour and Linux Audio communities, and to all the folks at the moddr_lab and WORM!

The clips database is searchable by musical key, tempo, tonality, time signature, license type and source.

From the liner notes:

(…) Denn die Vision einer freien digitalen Kultur rüttelt am Wertesystem, das sich auf den Buchdruck gründet und aus geistigen Werken besteht, die oft nur Einzelne besitzen. Sie verweist auf eine überlieferte Metapher: Die jeweils lebende Generation steht auf den “Schultern von Riesen”. Das heißt, alle Menschen schöpfen unentwegt aus dem kulturellen Erbe und arbeiten mit ihren Ideen und Werken daran weiter.

The feature (in German) is available here as an MP3 file (no streaming), and SWR 2 also lets you have the script (by Sebastian M. Krämer). However, the feature itself is not free.

Draadijesketting by Aafke Kauffman

As the World of Open is expanding beyond the borders of pure content designers in the Netherlands have gathered for the (Un)limited Design Contest. Numerous designs have been developed and published under a Creative Commons license*. On Friday, 23 October 2009, the lucky winners of the contest were announced at the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven. There is also an exhibition of the best designs. A World of Open reports from the show. [in Dutch]

Details over the (Un)Limited Design Contest can be found on its website http://unlimiteddesigncontest.nl/

De winnende designs zijn:

• in de categorie Food: Ellen Bokkinga met ‘Amuse vijf’
• in de categorie Form’: Alexander Rulkens met ‘Magic Box’
• in de categorie Fashion: Goof van Beek met ‘Hexagonale papieren jurk’

Binnenkort zijn deze designs bij 0900-Design te koop.

Interviews with the winners Ellen Bokkinga, Alexander Ruklens and Goof van Beek, with Bas van Abel van Waag Society, initiator of the (Un)Limited Design Contest, and designer Jos Oberdorf (npk design) en Gino van Roeyen (Banning Advocaten).

The music used in this edition is Slap Open by Chriss, avaliable under a Creative Commons BY-Share Alike licence.

* The license is the attribution-non commercial-share alike license.

Upcoming Podcast, scheduled for 2010

The license allows anybody to reuse the material in almost any way they want — probably excluding blunt misrepresentation — and requires only that the material is attributed to Al Jazeera.

Full Press Release below:

Al Jazeera Announces Launch of Free Footage Under Creative Commons License

Doha, Qatar – January 13, 2009

Al Jazeera Network today announced the world’s first repository of
broadcast-quality video footage released under the Creative Commons
3.0 Attribution license. Select Al Jazeera video footage – at this
time, footage of the War in Gaza – will be available for free to be
downloaded, shared, remixed, subtitled and eventually rebroadcasted by
users and TV stations across the world with acknowledgement to Al
Jazeera.

Al Jazeera will release its exclusive Arabic and English coverage
produced by the Network’s correspondents and crews in the Gaza Strip
online at http://cc.aljazeera.net. The ongoing war and crisis in Gaza,
together with the scarcity of news footage available, make the
repository a key resource for anyone producing content about the
current situation.

This is the first time that video footage produced by a news
broadcaster is released under the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution
license, which allows for both commercial and non-commercial use.

Mohamed Nanabhay, who headed New Media at Al Jazeera and launched the
project, stated: “As one of the only international broadcasters in
Gaza, our coverage of the war has been unsurpassed. The launch of Al
Jazeera’s Creative Commons Repository means that our Gaza footage will
be made available under the most permissive Creative Commons license
(CC-BY). With the flexibility of the license, we expect to introduce
our outstanding coverage to an even wider audience across the world.
This means that news outlets, filmmakers and bloggers will be able to
easily share, remix, and reuse our footage.”

Lawrence Lessig – founder of the Creative Commons organization and
Professor of Law at Stanford University – stated: “Al Jazeera is
teaching an important lesson about how free speech gets built and
supported. By providing a free resource for the world, the network is
encouraging wider debate, and a richer understanding.”

Joichi Ito – CEO of Creative Commons and a world-renowned technology
entrepreneur – added: “Video news footage is an essential part of
modern journalism. Providing material under a Creative Commons license
to allow commercial and amateur use is an enormous contribution to the
global dialogue around important events. Al Jazeera has set the
example and the standard that we hope others will follow.”

As a pioneer in news and media, Al Jazeera is always looking for ways
to make its unique content accessible to audiences across the world
and the launch of Al Jazeera’s Creative Commons Repository is another
concrete step in this direction.

For details on downloading and accessing content from Al Jazeera’s
Creative Commons Repository please go to http://cc.aljazeera.net or
contact creativecommons@aljazeera.net.

About Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera started out over twelve years ago as the first independent
Arabic news channel in the world dedicated to providing comprehensive
television news and live debate for the Arab world. In 2006, Al
Jazeera was ranked by brandchannel.com as the most impactful
television broadcast news brand globally. As a result of its
expansion and the creation of new channels and services, Al Jazeera
was formally named the Al Jazeera Network in March 2006, transforming
its operation into an international media corporation. The Al Jazeera
Network now consists of the flagship Al Jazeera Arabic channel, Al
Jazeera English, Al Jazeera Documentary, Al Jazeera Sport, Al
Jazeera.net (the English and Arabic web sites), the Al Jazeera Media
Training and Development Center, the Al Jazeera Center for Studies, Al
Jazeera Mubasher (Live), and Al Jazeera Mobile.

About Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a not-for-profit organization, founded in 2001,
that promotes the creative re-use of intellectual and artistic works,
whether owned or in the public domain. Through its free copyright
licenses, Creative Commons offers authors, artists, scientists, and
educators the choice of a flexible range of protections and freedoms
that build upon the “all rights reserved” concept of traditional
copyright to enable a voluntary “some rights reserved” approach.
Creative Commons was built with and is sustained by the generous
support of organizations including the Center for the Public Domain,
the Omidyar Network, The Rockefeller Foundation, The John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and The William and Flora Hewlett
Foundation, as well as members of the public. The Creative Commons
licensing suite has been ported to 50 jurisdictions around the world.
For more information about Creative Commons, visit
http://creativecommons.org.

Contact

Lauren McCollough
Media Relations, Al Jazeera Network
press.int@aljazeera.net
+974 489 6046

Eric Steuer
Creative Director, Creative Commons
eric@creativecommons.org

Donatella Della Ratta
Arab World Media and Development Manager, Creative Commons
donatella@creativecommons.org
++39 339 2248940
++963 949095651

• Jamendo – of course. You can simply chose a license and search with that.
• The Internet Archive 
• Musopen – Classical music, all public domain though.
• ccMixter – Samples and music, search mainly on title
• opsound – Gift economy
• Royalty Free Music – All CC-By licenses
• SoundClick – Genre-dropdown ….
• Simuze – Dutch site, so if you don’t understand it you probably won’t get far.
• TribeOfNoise – similarly Dutch, everything licensed under cc-by-sa

Leo Bassi at oXcars, photo by David Domingo aka sml

Los OXCARS, held on 28 october 2008 in Barcelona, is the major international event of free culture of all times — a not-for-profit gala open to everybody. Over 100 artists … a total of 16 activities … 7 hours non-stop of free culture.

With:

• Simona Levi of Exgae (exgae.net)
• Guillermo Zapata (www.ytodovabien.com)
• Wu Ming One (www.wumingfoundation.com) and Francesco Cusa (www.francescocusa.it)
• Platoniq (www.platoniq.net)
• Jamendo (www.jamendo.com)
• Orxata sound system (www.orxatasoundsystem.net)
• Leo Bassi (www.leobassi.com)
• Brent Simon (www.nerdpunk.com)
• Maquina de Touring (www.maquinadeturing.tk)
• Filastine (www.filastine.com)