September 26th, 2006 by Nelson Pavlosky
Ever wanted to make a wiki for your school? Perhaps you wanted to keep up-to-date pages for the various clubs and organizations on campus (which are notoriously bad at keeping their websites up to date), or you wanted a list of the best places to get takeout food late at night.
At any rate, you no longer have any excuse for delaying, because Jimbo Wales of Wikipedia fame wants to help you start a wiki community for your university! This seems to me like a fundamentally good idea. Here’s part of the press release:
Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia and Wikia, today called upon all free culture enthusiasts to establish a collaborative community for their university on Students Wikia (http://students.wikia.com). The free, fully editable, worldwide, go-to guide to universities is looking for the people who know universities best – students like you – to become the leaders of each university wiki worldwide. Wikia has launched an exclusive students-only wiki tool as part of university wiki that allows only students from your university to edit. Request your own and become the founder for your school!
“Conventional resources, like university Web sites and brochures, are great for information gathering at the surface level, but for students looking for current, under-the-radar tips and tricks that only other students would know, wikis are the way to go,†said Tristan Harris, founder of http://Stanford.wikia.com. “The beauty of creating a wiki for your university on Wikia is that anyone can check out information on your school, but only those students who’ve experienced the school, programs and ‘extracurricular’ activities can edit the content — meaning, you don’t have to worry about spammers.â€
Only time will tell if this will catch on or not, but if you want it to catch on, you should sign up to found a wiki at your college! Perhaps with the help of your peers, you can make this as good a resource for your college as Wikipedia is for everything else ;-) For more information, see the main Students Wiki website.
technorati tags:wikis
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September 26th, 2006 by Elizabeth Stark
This Friday, 9/29, Creative Commons will be holding a benefit concert featuring Peeping Tom, Diplo, and Girl Talk at Irving Plaza in NYC. Anyone who will be in town should definitely check it out, and come say hi to us at the CC table. Here’s the info for the show:
If you’ll be around New York City on September 29, please join us at Irving Plaza for a Creative Commons concert presented by WIRED and Flavorpill. The show will feature Mike Patton’s experimental pop supergroup Peeping Tom, DJ/producer Diplo, and mash-up/remix artist Girl Talk. Creative Commons’ CEO Lawrence Lessig will be on hand to introduce the artists.
This concert is a great way to show your support for our work, as proceeds from all ticket sales will go directly to Creative Commons (please note that ticket price is *not* tax-deductible). Tickets are $25 each (plus service charge) and are available online at Ticketmaster.
The event is a part of Next Music, which kicks off WIRED NextFest, a four-day festival featuring more than 130 interactive exhibits from scientists and researchers
from around the world.
Details:
WIRED + Flavorpill present:
Next Music
Featuring Peeping Tom (with Mike Patton, DJ Rob Swift, and Rahzel), Diplo, and Girl Talk
All proceeds go to support Creative Commons
Friday, September 29 | 9:00 PM, doors open 8:00 PM
Irving Plaza
17 Irving Place, NYC
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September 15th, 2006 by Elizabeth Stark
Enter the Down with DRM video contest for a chance to win a Neuros OSD - a portable digital VCR! (Thanks jborn.)
Joining in Oct 3rd - Day Against DRM, Free Culture will select the 5 best anti-DRM video entries and award a Neuros OSD to each creator. DefectiveByDesign.org is also looking to air selected anti-DRM videos on their website during the week of October 3rd, and we want to give them a hand.
Here are the official rules to enter Free Culture’s Down with DRM Video Contest:
- Deadline for submissions: Sunday, October 1 at 11:59pm EDT
- Criteria for video:
- Anti-DRM themed
- Short
- Video, animation, or remix
- Make it catchy — we want these videos to be viral
- Please submit your video to the online video sharing network(s) that you prefer. Here are some examples:
- Please tag your video with “downwithdrm” and “dbdoct3″so that people can search for it.
- Preference will be given to submissions under free content licenses such as Creative Commons BY-SA, BY, PD, or the Free Art license.
- E-mail downwithdrm@freeculture.org with a link to your video by October 1 at 11:59pm EDT.
- Free Culture will select the top 5 entries and award the winners with a Neuros OSD (one per video).
UPDATE: We have announced the winners of the contest!
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September 11th, 2006 by Sophia Magnone
Creative Commons is teaming up with PopSci.com to host a concert in the virtual world of Second Life. The event takes place at 5 pm on Thursday, September 14, and features real-world musician Jonathan Coulton plus Second Life musicians Melvin Took, Kourosh Eusebio, Etherian Kamaboko, and Slim Warrior. Relevant details can be found at the CC posting here.
Some comments on the key players:
Second Life sets itself apart from most other virtual gaming worlds in that as an SL user, you own everything you create, which gives you the choice to freely license your work or not. That makes it a potentially valuable venue for a Creative Commons event promoting information on copyright issues. Though Second Life currently relies on a lot of proprietary software, the company has begun replacing these with open standards technologies and has announced plans to eventually move everything to open standards and release both the client and server as open source.
Popular Science, despite being a mainstream magazine and owned by Time Warner, could be seen as an underground ally of free culture – not only has it historically supported its readers in DIY endeavors, but since 2004 it has been going a step further with a section called “How2.0†which instructs readers in DIY projects that often involve hacking (see “Xbox Media Monster“).
It seems like an interesting partnership between the forces of old and new media, and an intriguing example of virtual venues for real-life cultural creativity. Plus you’re free to record and share the concert, so you might want to check it out.
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September 9th, 2006 by Jacob Lefton
More evidence that good things come in threes:
(1) The FreeCulture.org chapter at the University of Southern California is holding its inaugural meeting this Monday! If you look at our nifty map, you can see how we’re spreading across the country. Although the west coast is still underrepresented, USC will be joining the University of Washington, the University of Oregon, UC Santa Cruz and the five Claremont Colleges in hosting FreeCulture chapters this year. Welcome Free Culture USC!
(2) BoingBoing covered it, which probably resulted in:
(3) FreeCulture USC’s upcoming coverage on Digital Village, a weekly public radio program on KPFK (90.7fm) of Los Angeles. The show starts at 10:00AM PDT on Saturday mornings, and Cameron Parkins, founder of the new chapter, will be interviewed around 10:15. If you’re able to, tune in and cheer him on! (Even if he can’t hear you on the other side of the radio…)
If you’re in the area, try to make it to the event:
Where: University of Southern California, Annenberg School, lobby
When: Monday, September 11, 6:30PM
Who: Students, faculty, fellows and affiliates of the University of Southern California
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