If your argument can’t be explained in the form of a children’s book, you’ll never win. So it is that a Victoria based writer and programmer, MCM, has published a short children’s book warning about the dangers of DRM. The Pig and the Box is well worth a read. With the subtleties of proprietary formats and copyright removed, its hard not to agree with an adorable cast of farm animals and a message advocating trust and sharing.

Have a read. Print a copy. Read it to your children. Read it to your Member of Parliament. MCM has licensed the work under a Creative Commons Canada Attribution-Noncommercial-Sharealike 2.5 licence: Sharing that even lawyers can understand.

A pdf of the book is available for download here.

Please join us at the very first meeting of CC Canada’s Montreal contingent. Stop by and say hi: Café l’Étranger, 680 Sainte-Catherine Ouest (at Alymer). Thursday July 20th at 19h30. We will be joined by our friends from FACIL at 20h00.

CC Canada co-directors Tina Piper (Montreal) and Marcus Bornfreund (Toronto) will be in attendance.

San Francisco, California — July 11, 2006

Creative Commons is proud to announce today that it has been named as one of twelve non-profit organizations that will participate in the innovative subscription strategy — the CHOOSE GOOD campaign — that accompanies the launch of GOOD magazine.

Launching nationwide this Fall, GOOD magazine strives to elevate the level of debate among its target demographic of intelligent, ambitious, youthful people aged 21 through 35. Founded by Ben Goldhirsh, GOOD is focused on the people, ideas, and institutions affecting change in the world. The magazine intends to examine the intersection of idealism and capitalism, and living well by doing “good”. GOOD will serve as a platform for talented contributors and writers to bring to the forefront issues and ideas that matter.

As part of the CHOOSE GOOD campaign, GOOD has chosen 12 charity organizations that represent issues and ideals that accord with GOOD’s mission. In addition to Creative Commons, CHOOSE GOOD partners also include Teach For America, Ashoka, Donors Choose, Witness, OCEANA, World Wildlife Fund, Millennium Promise, UNICEF, Room to Read, Generation Engage, and City Year.

A new subscriber to GOOD can elect to participate in the CHOOSE GOOD campaign by choosing one of the 12 charities as the recipient of a donation from GOOD for the entire amount of their $20 subscription fee. In the case of Creative Commons, GOOD’s aims to raise $60,000 in order to provide more than 20 international legal jurisdictions with the legal tools and technologies that allow them to more easily and efficiently distribute their creative works on the Internet.

GOOD magazine is also offering magazine contributors the option to CC license their contributions under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.

“We’re honored to have been selected as a CHOOSE GOOD partner and to be in the company of so many other great organizations,” said Francesca Rodriquez of Creative Commons. “Creative Commons hopes that our participation in the CHOOSE GOOD campaign will confirm our role as a key enabler of and contributor to topical debates.”

“Creative Commons is a perfect example of the nature of programs and policies GOOD aims to highlight,” said Max Schorr, GOOD’s editor and publisher. “Their particular initiative encourages creativity and more valuable content, which are vital aspects of our editorial and overall mission.”

San Francisco, USA — July 10, 2006

Scoopt, the citizen journalism agency that serves as a broker for selling user-created content to commercial media, has announced that it is offering Creative Commons licenses through its newly launched ScooptWords service (http://www.scoopt.com/words/).

ScooptWords was designed to create a market between bloggers and commercial publishers. Once bloggers have registered for a free Scoopt membership, they can add a ScooptWords button to their site that flags their written content as available for sale. Newspaper and magazine editors can then click the ScooptWords button to license blog content for commercial use. The blogger receives 75% of the sales revenue (50% for the first transaction).

Within the ScooptWords interface, bloggers can add a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license to their blog alongside the Scoopt commercial badge. The Creative Commons license lets authors easily and efficiently signal to the public that their work may be freely shared, reused, and remixed by people for noncommercial purposes.

“There’s a lot of great blog content out there — some of it is every bit as good as content produced by professional journalists,” said Graham Holliday, ScooptWords’ managing editor. “However, there’s no obvious route to market for the blogger or way to buy content for the editor. So we launched ScooptWords to make this connection.”

“ScooptWords offers bloggers a great way to monetize their work, while still engaging in the participatory culture of the Web,” said Eric Steuer, creative director of Creative Commons. “Scoopt has come up with an innovative and workable way for bloggers to interact with print media, and be rewarded for it. We’re glad that Scoopt has chosen Creative Commons licensing to encourage bloggers to make their work part of a growing resource of shared and freely-available information.”

About Scoopt

Scoopt is a media agency that brokers commercial deals between content creators and content users. The privately owned company was founded in July 2005 by Kyle MacRae, a freelance journalist. For general information, visit http://scoopt.com and http://scoopt.com/words