The first podcast for 2008 is all about the iSummit - we'll hear about the planning workshops, our host city - Sapporo, and facilitator James Cairns gives his impression of the Commons.

Also, we've got some great CC music from CCMixter - follow these links to download some killer tracks:
- So Long Gone Blues by Alex, CC-BY-NC 3.0

- Waiting by Teru, CC BY 2.5

Medicinal discovery,
It moves in mighty leaps,
It leapt straight past the common cold
And give it us for keeps.
~Pam Ayres

Towards the close of his recent documentary ‘Sicko’ (2007), Michael Moore smuggles five 9/11 rescue workers over to Cuba on a boat to see if he can get them the medical aid they need, but cannot afford in the U.S. In one stirring scene, a single-mother...

When we come together on this site to celebrate our creativity we perhaps tend to take advantage of certain other everyday necessities that are more commonplace, and yet also included in this thing we call the "Commons". One of these things is electricity. Another is our connection to the Internet. For the most part these two utilities enable much of the sharing we do online and...

With preparations for the iSummit cranking up a gear or two, we thought it would be interesting to look at some of the other community get-togethers that are out there. From high-profile events like TED and Pop!Tech to those which are more niche, and just starting out, these ten events are relevant and important to fostering the principle that ideas, knowledge and skills should...

The story of access to medicine for South Africa, and anti-retroviral treatment in particular, has played itself out on two stages. On the one is the battle against big pharma for the rights to manufacture affordable anti-retroviral drugs. In this arena, South Africa along with Brazil and India have sent a clear message to the pharmaceutical companies, and are doing all they can...

The following is my introductory article to a special issue of Educational Technology magazine on the theme of “Opening Educational Resources” (OER) published last fall. On 1 February 2008 the publisher placed a PDF of this special issue here, where you can download it.

As you will see on the page where the PDF can be downloaded, the magazine is a pillar of the pre-Commons publication...

Victoria Shannon has a well written article in the International Herald Tribune titled "Mainstream music industry realizes the value of 'free'". It brings to light the changing scenario in the music scene that's rather fascinating. I have highlighted key points points from the article for easy reading.

Ten years ago, major music companies worldwide earned a whopping $38 billion...

You are young and you have a TV network in your own hands. You also have all the equipment you need – professional cameras and editing equipment, and a production staff. Plus, there is no commercial pressure: everything you produce will be broadcasted, reaching most of the country's TVs. This is the perfect scenario for innovation, right? Wrong.

A quick look at university channels...

At this link find a description of how to build a bottom-up social movement. At this link find an article on how iCommons sees itself governed. At this link find a letter written by Mike Shaver, chief evangelist at the Mozilla Corporation.

Mike Shaver writes:"Creative Commons has produced a set of licenses that helps not only software developers, but photographers, musicians,...

A recent announcement from the Egyptian Supreme Council for Antiquities caused something of an Internet news stir, seeing active discussion on several blogs and other outlets, including high traffic sites such as BoingBoing and Slashdot.

According to a report from the BBC, the Egyptian Government is about to enact a copyright law to protect Egyptian antiquities, and this law...

This article explores contemporary debates regarding the ownership and control of creative works by examining the different values attached to the act of copying in two types of knowledge making activities. Specifically, the following will address the construction of ethics surrounding
(1) The public reaction in 2006 to Kaavya Viswanathan’s plagiarism in her fictional account,...

Brianna linked to a post on Black Star Rising titled "Why Photographers Hate Creative Commons" which raises a number of important issues and highlights a number of misconceptions about CC licenses.

At the risk of repeating much of what I posted the other day on the topic of the mainstream media and copyright, I thought I would repeat much of my comment on the Black Star Rising...

For the most part the media publishes content with all rights reserved. This is hardly surprising. The media's content is its stock in trade, its livelihood. The question I would like to explore in this article is whether there is a clear benefit to the media to explore an alternative to such a strict approach to the publication of its content. Obviously an option I would like...

In Medellin a group of young people is making use of new technologies and multimedia formats to display their creativity using Web 2.0. They want to showcase a man how lives in the street. He has managed to survive in such a hard environment with a high dose of wit, he has a history of fantasy, one of those in which "reality surpasses fiction"- This group is building a documentary...

The Open Translation Tools workshop was held in Zagreb, Croatia from 29 November to 1 December. A video of the event has recently been released, check it out here, and if you are super inspired consider translating it too!

The workshop was an event organised by Aspiration Tech and the fearless Summit '07 co-hosts, Mi2, and was a chance for open translation tool developers, and...

By this time of year, Gogo is well into the Christmas spirit (and were you to construe this as that of the alcoholic variety you mightn't be far wrong - Gogo may be wise but she isn't perfect!) Gogo has been feverishly filling stockings for some of the iCommons community. However, after a long day of filling stockings, updating her status on Facebook and eating mince-pies, Gogo...

Many “web 2.0” websites are focused on technology. They use collaboration tools to talk about technology itself. Digg and Slashdot are two very visible and successful examples. However, how about using collaboration tools, but to talk about culture instead? That is the challenge proposed by the Overmundo project in Brazil: a site not for geeks, but for anyone interested in disseminating...

The South African media has never been particularly techno-savvy. Outside of the handful of specialised, niche publications, technology generally gets short shrift when it comes to column inches. Squashed into a couple of back pages, in-between the business and the sports sections, technology stories usually focus on gadgets, environmental stories and the continuing battles between...

This week the Colombian blogosphere has been both revolutionised and united due to the misuse by El Pais (a newspaper from Cali) when they took a photo from Flickr. The photo is in Mariacecita´s Flickr gallery licensed under a Creative Commons (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 2.0 licence) and was included in one of the newspaper´s journals. The original photo was edited...

At a brunch gathering I attended recently, a guest casually mentioned that they were reading a book about Heinrich Schliemann, the German excavator at Troy, who removed archaeological treasures from Turkey in the late 19th century. There were nods and chuckles as people recalled the (probably fictitious) story of Schliemann “saving” what he named “Priam’s Treasure” by whisking the...