We are proud to announce that Dave Duarte will be taking over the role of Project Lead for Creative Commons South Africa.
Dave will be working with Legal Lead Andrew Rens to develop the awareness and use of Creative Commons licenses in South Africa, and nurture the growing CC community here.
A bit about Dave, from his […]

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the song you had written in your mother tongue, Zulu, could be distributed with a license written in the same language? Creative Commons South Africa and Translate.org.za recently announced the availability of licenses in Afrikaans, isiZulu and Sesotho sa Leboa.

Says, Dwayne Bailey of Translate.org.za, “For us this was a natural […]

Over the past few months we’ve seen both good and bad ways of running competitions for user-generated content in the South African Internet world.
Exhibit A: Apple South Africa’s ‘GetPodcasting‘ Competition. In March, some eagle-eyed bloggers caught sight of the draconian terms and conditions on the site which didn’t enable people to use other content (for […]

Makhago Peter is a young Ugandan who writes in his spare time and has published through lulu.com. It is possible to hear Peter’s enchantingly simple voice and others like his through the initiative artmarketonline (licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence) which was started by the Open Cafe in Potchefstroom.
Artmarketonline is a cyber-market-place […]

Creative Commons SA has recently launched their 2.5 licence.
Under this licence, the author or rightsholder can specify how they wish the work to be attributed. An author or creator can now specifiy that attribution should include not just the name of the author but also require a user to show the […]

We are proud to announce the Brazilian winner of the SAfro-Brazil Remix competition. Congratulations goes to LucioK, who produced the winning track for the Brazilian arm of the competition. LucioK will be arriving in SA on Sunday, 15 April and will be performing at the BringnBraai in Cape Town, on Friday 20 April.The competition was […]

Software Freedom Day in Pretoria was attended by a variety of characters, from geeks, to students, to government officials and non-profit organization representatives, to open content advocates like Kerryn McKay and Andrew Rens from the African Commons Project, and myself.
The event was held at the high-tech Department of Science and Technology building. The morning’s […]

The first ccSalon in South Africa proved to be less of a techno chat-fest and more of a learning experience for all involved.

You never really know what kind of people are going to turn up for a Creative Commons shindig.
It could be a collection of techno-experts (we don’t call them geeks in this community, […]

Kabissa, a non profit organisation whose aim is to assist African civil society in making information and communication technologies work for the people that they serve, has recently added a Creative Commons-licence policy to their website.
The announcement was featured in the organisation’s e-newsletter, Gong Gong inviting users and members of the Kabissa website to feel […]

Without doubt, ICEBOX is the coolest place for hot creative talent this year. ICEBOX, an open and collaborative moving-image festival, hosted by The Liquid Fridge, partnered by rustpunk and endorsed by Creative Commons SA, is putting out a call for works falling into the following categories: Narrative, Experimental/ Design, Documentary and Music Video.
The […]

Finally! A valuable and necessary cyber space for artists in South Africa (and most especially, Joburg-based) who have needed a group of journalists (loosely-termed) to spread the news about their work.
SAartsEmerging is a website that is a free alternative to the mainstream media and mainstream disseminator (here, read gallery) of art in South […]

Creative Commons SA were pleased to host their partners from Creative Commons UK and Brazil over a week-long visit, during which time there was a lot of laughter, debate, arguing and creating.
Christian Ahlert, project lead for Creative Commons UK, Hannah Upritchard, administrator on a number of the UK projects, and Carolina Rossini from Brazil, […]

“Imagine trying to piece together a wireless network with no manuals, sporadic and slow access to the Internet, inadequate tools, a shortage of supplies, and in the most inclement weather. The authors of a recently published book, “Wireless Networking in the Developing World” don’t need to imagine. They have been doing so for years.”
So begins […]

Local copyright activists, including Denise Nicholson of the ‘Africa Copyright and Access to Information Alliance’, have warned of the negative implications that the U.S. trade negotiations with the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) could have on education, libraries, public health, internet service providers, and access to digital media. She urges researchers, the educational sector, libraries […]

The Consumer Digital Rights Campaign recently announced a declaration with the following 6 ‘digital rights’:
Right to choice, knowledge and cultural diversity
Right to the principle of “technical neutrality” – defend and maintain consumer rights in the digital environment
Right to benefit from technological innovations without abusive restrictions
Right to interoperability of content and devices
Right to the protection of […]

‘Imagine a world where absolutely everything is owned - and sold to those who can afford it. Every person would be a market. There would be nothing freely available in the public domain. Knowledge and culture could only be learnt if you paid for it.’
Guy Berger has written a great article on a session at […]

No entry!
Subscribers only. Click here to subscribe.
Free (terms and conditions apply).
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
These statements are reflective of the geography of our lives, where places, things and cultural products are divided between what we are allowed to have and do and what we are not allowed to experience or share.
But how necessary is it […]

Christiaan Bester, one of our greatest volunteers, is currently studying towards a postgraduate intellectual property law degree at the University of Texas and has written two great pieces to report back on what he has observed in the US since his arrival in late August.
“I attended a panel discussion today filmed by Court TV at […]

OpenBusiness.cc was launched at the Tate Gallery, Britain on 8 October 2005. It is a platform for sharing innovative Open Business ideas - entrepreneurial ideas which are built around openness, free services and free access.
Open business is designed to help the little guys along on their journey, to spread their ideas while creating […]

I’m in Tajikistan this week helping to facilitate the FOSS Road: Central Asian camp on free software migration at the request of our friends at Tacticaltech. Read my blog for daily updates.