Oh, the irony of that after listening to Lawrence Lessig’s amazing talk on copyright this morning. He is one of the few people I’ve listened to who makes copyright fascinating – no small feat. Not only that, but he is a master with the presentation slides…

Anyhow, if you have any interest in hearing what Lessig has to say to an audience of higher ed IT/library folks about copyright and the open access movement and how he envisions things need to change in order for the world to continue to make sense, head on over and spend an hour watching and getting inspired. Then, if you are a creator or consumer of copyrightable materials, go participate in the Creative Commons movement.

Example 1: The Boston Typewriter Orchestra

Example 2: ccMixter – mashup, re-mix, and re-use all sorts of songs

Example 3: Free Sound Project – mashup, re-mix, and re-use all sorts of sounds (not songs, though)

Example 4: The Internet Archive, but in particular the moving images and audio collections.

Example 5: Flickr images – with CC licensing

Example 6: Creative Commons search

Not really sure what Creative Commons licensing is? Check out this excellent video on the history and principles behind CC.

I’m still not 100% comfortable with licensing my writing under a CC license, although many of my photos are available with one of the CC licenses. What about you (if you contribute digital works to the internet cloud)? Do you reserve all your rights, or do you share some of your rights?