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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