Home » creative commons (Page 7)
Category Archives: creative commons
Annotated Links of Interest: October 12th 2008
Links of interest for October 9th 2008 through October 12th 2008:
- VloggerHeads – An 18+ onlys videoblogging site where comments are – in theory – taken seriously and meaningful conversations are encouraged between videobloggers. Yes, they’ve left YouTube for good reason. There’s a good rundown on the rationale behind the site in this Wired article: “Sick of Griefers, YouTube Vloggers Start Members-Only Site“.
- A Decade of Internet Superstars: Where Are They Now? [PC World] – A puff piece looking at the trajectories of internet meme folk after their meme’s energy has run out. Would you believe Chris “leave Britney alone!” Crocker has released his own single? Jennifer “Jennicam” Ringley has completely dropped off the web after being the most visible person on it for a while. And the Ask a Ninja guys are still answering questions … like ninjas.
- Tweethearts: blogger proposes to nerd girlfriend over Twitter, she tweets back acceptance. – Boing Boing – “seanbonner: @tarabrown so, um, you wanna get hitched?” Proposal by Twitter! (She says yes!)
- Video Vortex Reader: Responses to YouTube [Institute of Network Cultures] – A fantastic collection of scholarly essays looking at YouTube as a cultural phenomenon. The entire collection is released under a Creative Commons (CC BY NC SA) license and features work by: Tilman Baumgärtel, Jean Burgess, Dominick Chen, Sarah Cook, Sean Cubitt, Stefaan Decostere, Thomas Elsaesser, David Garcia, Alexandra Juhasz, Nelli Kambouri and Pavlos Hatzopoulos, Minke Kampman, Seth Keen, Sarah Késenne, Marsha Kinder, Patricia Lange, Elizabeth Losh, Geert Lovink, Andrew Lowenthal, Lev Manovich, Adrian Miles, Matthew Mitchem, Sabine Niederer, Ana Peraica, Birgit Richard, Keith Sanborn, Florian Schneider, Tom Sherman, Jan Simons, Thomas Thiel, Vera Tollmann, Andreas Treske, Peter Westenberg.
- YouTube Links to Online Music Stores [Google OS] – “YouTube started to add links to iTunes and Amazon MP3 for music videos from EMI Music and Universal Music. “Click-to-buy links are non-obtrusive retail links, placed on the watch page beneath the video with the other community features. Just as YouTube users can share, favorite, comment on, and respond to videos quickly and easily, now users can click-to-buy products — like songs and video games — related to the content they’re watching on the site,” announces Google Blog. … For now, the links are only available in the US, but they will be added internationally if this experiment turns out to be a success.”
Building Open Education Resources from the Botton Up
Hello to everyone at the Open Education Resources Free Seminar today in Brisbane. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there in person today, but for those who were there – and anyone else interested – my short presentation ‘Building Open Education Resources From the Bottom Up: How Student-Created Open Educational Resources Can Challenge Institutional Indifference‘ is embedded here:
My apologies for the few glaring typos in the slides – it’s a good argument against recording a presentation at 1am in the morning! Any comments, questions or thoughts either from folks at the seminar, or from anyone else, are most welcome!
Update: If you’re just after the powerpoint slides, you can now view or download them on Slideshare.
Remarkable Remixes
The winners of Total Recut’s ‘What is Remix Challenge 2008’ competition are in, with many outstanding examples each showing strengths technical, political or just plain entertaining. For me, though, those that most directly engaged with the politics and practice of remix were the most inspirational; from the top ten, my favourite three were …
In second place in the competition, right on the boundary between the still and moving image, is “Composition” by Jata Haan:
Two things stood out for me with this video: firstly, that all the images, and music, Haan used were licensed under Creative Commons (more that 100 images); and secondly, that, quite literally, this remix showed that digital tools and creativity can bring previously static material to life! Also, as odd as it is, I quite like the Sydney Opera House.
A lot shorter, and in fifth place in the competition, is “Remix Culture” by Sylvia Koopman:
Koopman’s remix is short, pithy and directly to the point. It also highlights the joys and perils of fair use, when the the ratio of remix to credits is about 3:1! It’s worth noting that Koopman is still in high school and posts a lot her other remix work on YouTube. I think she must be one of those digital natives we keep hearing about! 😉
The last clip I want to mention is Ricardo Carrion’s ‘Remix Culture II’:
Carrion’s piece is probably the most useful in really “explaining” remix culture and certainly has some fun with older science footage and science fiction. As with many in the competition, though, I would have preferred more detailed credits on Coopman’s work. One of the missed opportunities with these remixes was the chance to have ready-to-click credits so that others could easily take a look at the source material and take a whirl at creatively remixing it themselves. I should add that DJ Le Clown’s ‘Xmas in New York City’ which won overall was certainly showed a lot of talent and is technically impressive; it’s just not in my favourites because the actual content remixed is largely unexciting to me (no, not a Sinatra fan, I’m afraid)! If you’re inspired to make your own remixes, take a look at the resources that Total Cut highlighted for entrants to this competition. Everything you need to get inspired, and started, is either above or right there! 🙂
Student Digital Media Project Showcase
After getting off to a decent start with my blogging about student creativity this year, I seem to have fallen a little behind. I’ve had this post in draft form for ages, waiting for some insightful commentary to spring forth from my uncooperative brain, but alas, none has emerged so I thought I’d just showcase a few outstanding examples from my Digital Media (Comm2203) unit last semester and let them speak for themselves! While the first Student News assignment in this unit asked students to make a relatively traditional television news-style story (the best of which were screened on local tv), the final project was rather different as it was designed to provoke some hard thinking about digital media more broadly both in form and content. The outline for the final projects stated:
The Digital Media Project is designed to explore the affordances of digital video and media in an online context. Working in teams (the same as your Student News Project team), students will produce a 3-minute short digital video piece which critically explores an idea, concept or area which was discussed in or, or directly provoked by, the ‘Convergence & Transmedia Storytelling’ or ‘Citizen Journalism and Participatory Culture’ lectures, readings and seminars.
This project emphasizes (a) research in the area of digital media, (b) clarity in communicating and sharing a research-informed perspective or argument about part of the digital media landscape; (c) taking an innovative approach to creating digital media; and (d) technical proficiency in creating digital media.
Given that the first half of the unit was largely practical – many were first-time users of digital video cameras, sound equipment and non-linear editing software – I wondered if introducing conceptual material from the likes of Henry Jenkins and Axel Bruns might overwhelm students; on the contrary, I found almost everyone excelled at combining their newfound practical skills with wider issues and concepts. All 28 projects submitted were of a high quality, and everyone who took this unit should be proud of their work, but a few really did stand out amongst the rest and are well worth highlighting here.
The first project I want to mention is ‘Citizen Journ vs Traditional Journ‘ which mimics the style of the Mac Vs PC advertisements, with a stop-motion twist, to explore the changing relationship between traditional journalists and citizen journalists:
In a similar vein but using a really different technique, ‘Something Old, Something New‘ mixes excerpts from a 1940s documentary on being a journalist with contemporary footage to examine exactly how far journalism has changed in the face of participatory culture:
Looking at web 2.0 culture more broadly, ‘A Blog’s Life’ is a comical look at the evolution of blogging, in the style of a nature documentary:
And in a slightly more academic tone, ‘Transmedia Storytelling and Convergence’ gives a pretty good rundown of some core features of Henry Jenkins’ arguments about transmedia in the digital media landscape:
Finally, ‘Joe Bloggs Presents Web 2.0’ is a laugh out loud satire looking at the average blogger (A LANGUAGE WARNING, though: Joe Bloggs swears like an angry trooper!):
And, yes, I did have what can best be described as an awkward cameo appearance in that the adventures of Web 2.0 there – but it was worth if, if nothing else, for that outstanding end credits song! If you’re inspired to see more, 27 of the digital media projects can be found here. Also, it’s worth mentioning that the majority of students chose to post their work under a Creative Commons license (not all, I should add, but I’m pleased enough that by the end of the course everyone knew enough to make an informed choice one way or another).
Oh and quick shout out: my partner in crime in teaching Digital Media was Christina Chau who was an excellent tutor and whose own thoughts on the unit can be read here!
Links for August 15th 2008
Interesting links for August 15th 2008:
- Ancient Free Gardeners – flying the CC banner [Creative Commons Australia] – “… Ancient Free Gardeners, a Melbourne-based indie band who use CC licences to distribute their music. We’re very pleased to announce that AFG have released their new single, Innards Out, under a CC BY-NC-SA licence, which allows it to be freely distributed and even remixed. And they’re getting quite a bit of attention from it.”
- Internet becomes Iraq’s new matchmaker [The Age] – “Young Iraqis in Baghdad are surfing the internet to search for partners to tie the knot as violence and sectarian tensions take their toll on more traditional forms of socialising. Dating has fallen victim to the insecurity that has reduced the capital to a sullen network of rival neighbourhoods, leaving little space for men and women to meet other than in cyber chat rooms. “I think the Iraqis are looking for love on the internet because there are no other places for them to meet,” said Mustafa Kazem, a 20-year-old engineering student who found his soulmate on a university chat forum.”
- Brands line up for Bond sequel [Variety] – “James Bond is bringing back some familiar brands in “Quantum of Solace.” Sequel to “Casino Royale” will again be backed by Ford Motor Co., Heineken beer, Smirnoff vodka, Omega watches, Virgin Atlantic, Sony Ericsson cell phones and other Sony electronics. These brands all have products placed in the film and each will shell out tens of millions of dollars as a promotional partner of the pic. Sony Pictures, which is distribbing the movie, declined to disclose how much the brands are ponying up, but returning partners spent up to $100 million worldwide on ad efforts around “Casino Royale,” industryites estimate. The same is expected this time around.” [Via The Frodo Franchise]
- Italy blocks The Pirate Bay [The Age] – “An Italian judge has ordered the country’s internet service providers to block access to The Pirate Bay, a Swedish file-sharing website, as part of a probe into copyright law violation, officials said on Thursday. Since last week, Italy’s anti-fraud police have been informing providers they must heed the order of a judge in the northern city of Bergamo, police Col. Alessandro Nencini said.” (Apparently the impact of this ‘ban’ has been to increase Italian traffic to The Pirate Bay!
Links for August 14th 2008
Interesting links for August 13th 2008 through August 14th 2008:
- Fallout 3 ban lifted in Australia [Digital Life – The Age] – “A revised version of Fallout 3, one of the most highly anticipated games of the year and winner of the “Best in Show” award at E3 2008, has been cleared for release in Australia. Bethesda’s role playing game, which is set in a post-apocalyptic Washington DC, was refused classification last month because it featured “material promoting or encouraging proscribed drug use” and “drug use… related to incentives and rewards”. Bethesda and Australian distributor Red Ant have declined to reveal what edits have been made to the game to obtain an MA15+ rating for the upcoming PC and Xbox 360 release.”
- Facebook overtakes MySpace as social network king [ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)] – “Industry figures available today show Facebook has dethroned MySpace to become the world’s most popular social networking website. Slightly more than 132 million people visited Facebook in June as compared to the approximately 117.5 million that went to MySpace that month, according to industry tracker comScore.”
- The “IP” Court Supports Enforceability of CC Licenses [Creative Commons] – “The United States Court of Appeals held that “Open Source” or public license licensors are entitled to copyright infringement relief. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), the leading IP court in the United States, has upheld a free copyright license, while explicitly pointing to the work of Creative Commons and others.” (More in the NYTimes and at Lessig’s blog).
- Heroes Embrace, Cast Comic Book Fans [io9] – “It’s taken them three seasons, but Heroes is finally embracing its heritage with the announcement that Seth Green and Breckin Meyer are to join the cast of NBC’s superhuman drama, playing two massive comic book nerds. Does this mean that we’re going to see more of 9th Wonders, the show’s deus ex comic book plot device? According to Entertainment Weekly’s Michael Ausiello, the two fanboys are going to “cross paths with (and perhaps serve as advisors to) one of the Heroes.””
Tama Leaver dot Net by Tama Leaver is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.