Part of the intention in this blog is to shine light on creators who chose to use the Creative Commons Canada license. Do you know any Canadian Commoners who deserve our attention ? Please let us know as we’d love to promote artists who dare to share. In particular CreativeCommons.ca would like to announce 2 new initiatives to promote CC-ca creators:

The CC web of Public Interest
CreativeCommons.ca is compiling a best-of collection of Creative Commons Canada web pages. But not just any pages. Because CC-ca is working in the public interest, we’d also like to bring attention to those web pages which are working for similar ends. Some examples of public interest initiatives: home pages of community groups (particularly those with a focus on issues like fair copyright, open access to information, human rights, social/economic justice, human/environmental health, etc.) educational resources, and even personal blogs that have a focus on “the common good”.

The best of Canadian Flickr content
Flickr.com is a web page that has allowed thousands of users to share photos in a convienient manner, allowing even the technically challenged to create a “photoblog”. Flickr has support for Creative Commons licenses, but unfortunately it does not yet support the selection of a jurisdiction. However, we’d still like to bring attention to Canadian users of Flickr. Creative Commons Canada will work to encourage Yahoo, the makers of Flickr, to include support for jurisdiction as archive.org has.

We are currently accepting nominations for “The Best of CC-ca Web” project. Please send your nominations to webmaster@creativecommons.ca.

Ottawa’s first ever Copynight will be held at 6pm Tuesday May 23rd at The Royal Oak Pub (161 Laurier Avenue Eas, which is located on the north edge of the Ottawa University campus).

CopyNight is a monthly social gathering of people interested in restoring balance in copyright law. We meet over drinks once a month in many cities to discuss new developments and build social ties between artists, engineers, filmmakers, academics, lawyers, and many others. Everyone is welcome.

In future, Copynight’s will be held on the 4th Tuesday of every month. To learn more or get on the mailing list, please email ottawa (at) copynight.org.

As the creativecommons.org blog has just mentioned, jamendo.com, a host for CC music, has just reached the 1000 albums mark. Congratulations ! Currently there are only two Canadian artists on this site, Hollywood & Deadbeat and Alek et les Mauvaises Raisons. But that will change really soon, right ? Please, prove us right ! Upload your CANCON to Jamendo today.

Most young Canadians spend far too much time dwelling on US politics. Perhaps its because of the whole war thing. Perhaps growing-up in a one party Big-L system bred envy of the fourishing 2-party democracy next door. Perhaps the Daily Show is just more accessible than Mercer Report. Whatever the reasons, political distaste has been misplaced for long-enough.

Jeremy and Alex provide a weekly podcast of the relevant and irreverant world of Canadian politics. And don’t worry, their observations tend to stretch beyond “5 Priorities”. The podcast is licensed under a brand-spanking-new Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada licence. The way the Hill is going, it doesn’t look like they’ll be running out of material any time soon.

CRTC please take note. CANCON is alive and well.

In loose synchronization with the Mesh Conference, but open to everyone, the first CC Salon in Toronto will be happening Tuesday night May 16th at 7PM at the Elephant and Castle Pub at 378 Yonge Street (upper level). Bloggers, artists, writers, musicians, wikitistas, and general Creative Commons hangers-on are all welcome to come mingle, chat and share ideas.

Schedule, directions, and future salon planning on the Toronto Salon page of the Creative Commons wiki. Hope to see you there!

Magnatune is a record label with a slogan “We are not evil”. That is because they publish their music under Creative Commons licenses. Magnatune has a handful of Canadian artists under Creative Commons licenses. They include AntiGuru, Gerard Satamian, MRDC, Norine Braun, Brad Sucks, Five Star Fall, and Jade Leary. Magnatune is a label based in the United States, and so these artists don’t fall under the Canadian jursidiction of Creative Commons, but as featured earlier, Fading Ways Music is a Toronto-based label that sell music under Creative Commons Canada licenses. You can sample some of the “Share” compilations they have put together on the website of the UK’s contingent of Fading Ways Music here.

Hey Creative Commons Canada community:

Creative Commons Canada has a new web master. That’s me, Justin. You can see the brief bio that was written for me on our people page. I’m excited to be aboard, particularly because it will help me to promote the commons amongst creators.

I now will feature the group I’m working to start up at Carleton University, Free Culture Carleton a chapter of the student movement Free Culture, which has it’s strongest presence in the U.S. I encourage you students out there to start your own Free Culture chapter, as the Free Culture movement needs to get rolling in Canada. I just attended the U.S. National Free Culture Summit, and saw Lawrence Lessig, who presented there and chatted amongst us, along with many other great speakers. It was quite inspiring!

I look forward to reporting to you folk on new happenings and content in Canada. I have a feeling this is going to be a great summer for Creative Commons Canada. So, now I will step back from the first person and assume a more professional, journalistic approach to this blog.

In common,

Justin