Saturday December 6th 2008 the same event at three different locations. More exciting even in three different countries illustrates the significance of the topic it focuses on.  All three event locations try get connected via skype even there will be a huge time differnce because I am talk about three cities on three different continents as well HongKong (China), Berlin (Germany) , Madison (WI, USA)

„Open Everything is a global conversation about the art, science and spirit of ‚open‘. It gathers people using openness to create and improve software, education, media, philanthropy, architecture, neighbourhoods, workplaces and the society we live in: everything. It’s about thinking, doing and being open.

Regarding the last blog entry and the drawn distinction between Copyright, Creative Commons and the Public domain, I would like to introduce and arise awareness on a German bunch of people who work hard under the name of „zeitgeisty“ on spreading the message about Creative Commons Licenses and explaining their intention not only to the web affine nerdy kind of people also to „off-liner“ – creative people express creativity in paintings, sculptures or photographs.

“zeitgeisty” is used as an adjective in the English language and stands for „the spirit of the age“. Zeitgeisty as defined in the German Wiktionary describes the idea of an entire generation or era – the attitude of majority of a society.

Well, it is obvious that the pure restrict copyright isn’t appropriate to the digital age anymore – where copying and changing e.g. pictures and articles is made to quickly and easily. See above the zeitgeisty logo and what I did within 20 seconds to make it clear what i am talking about. The Creative Commons Licenses (CCL) loosen the restrictive boundaries of the copyright by making it directly visibly for the users (just those who already know about CC) what he is allowed to do with the certain ‚creative‘ work and what not. It must not necessarily be a art or creative work also applies to diploma theses, blogs and books. The new division od the CC-Organization is called ccLearn.

The „zeitgeisty“ crew is planning an event similar to the open music contest (unfortunately a German website). The open music contest was held in Marburg organized by a student organization, only for band which publish their songs under a CCL. Zeitgeisty focuses on activities, events and exhibitions where people are interacting in creativity. For example one person takes a photo which will be developed and another person develops it further while using a spay can. Not only photos also paintings and etc. lots of ideas are already popping up in their minds. One thing is important, because they try to reach the off-liner all activities we be detached from computer.

They are still seeking for exhibition premises and also people who share their philosophy of free content and open source lifestyle. It is again the matter of PARTICIPATION.

How the single copyright C can be converted into the more or less open CC license can be found here or here in German.

I already started using CCL for this blog, for my diploma thesis – I decided to go for a By- Noncommercial-Share Alike attribution. And wait, I also publish my flickr picture under a CCL.

… I just got a ‚for:tohuwabohu‘ hint on deli.cio.us where to find free audio books which are recorded by volunteers. The platform is called LibriVox. The goal of the LibriVox community is to make all books which are available under the public domain available as free audio books. (So no lord of the rings or Harry potter) Therefore volunteers read and record chapters of books and upload them afterwards. The audio book recorded by LibriVox volunteers are also directly going into the public domain. They provide RSS feeds to stay tuned on New Releases and Latest News a inconvenient usability.

Their motto is: „We are a totally volunteer, open source, free content, public domain project.“ Regarding this statement the blog is under a creative commons license.

To give a short introduction I try to explain briefly copyright, public domain and creative commons. The copyright are a couple of „exclusive rights“ held by people for their own creative „work“ which can be a form of intellectual or artistic „work“, e. g. text, poems, theses, movies, paintings, music, lyrics, etc. … . Mostly it is limited for a certain period of time which depends on the different laws in the particular country. When the copyright expires after the certain time frame (can be between 70-95 years after the creators death) the „creative Works“ moves into the public domain“. The symbol for copyright is „©“ – i think well known. The copyright is supposed to protect the creator and its „intellectuell property“. So only the copyright holder has the right to copy, reproduce, built derivatives, import, export, display, perform and transmit the work. Also the opportunity to sell or assign the rights itself to other people or institutions is included into the set of exclusive rights.

If a creative work goes into a public domain that means it is free. Who ever wants to can do everything mentioned in the last paragraph above like copy, … . Public domain comprises the „creative works“ in relation to that NO person or other legal entity can establish or maintain proprietary interests. Information and creative works are considered to be part of a common cultural and intellectual heritage, which, in general, anyone may use or exploit, whether for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

Creative commons are something in between.  First they try to make people aware of the copyright and the restricted opportunities with creative works. Second they try to build a balance between the restrict copyright and the border less public domain.

I don’t know yet about the quality but according to a statement of a BBC person: „The list of titles is not as long as I would like, but it is growing all the time and the quality of the recordings is generally very good.“

Well, who is a great reader with a nice voice? Go ahead and participate, you might become famous voice. I’ll go and check out which books are available.