Support Creative Commons

Friends of Creative Commons,

As 2004 draws to a close, Creative Commons is strong. In the past two years since Creative Commons licenses have been available, we've taken our first large first steps with you--building some of the essential tools, adding critical pieces of infrastructure and assembling a vibrant community.

In 2004, Glenn, Larry, and the legal team made huge improvements and released version 2.0 of the main Creative Commons licenses. These new versions added many needed features while at the same time they reduced the complexity of the licenses for our users. Christine, Roland and all of the iCommons volunteers worldwide took that work, and have ported Creative Commons licenses to 12 countries. We expect to add another dozen countries early next year, and we're in conversation with more than 70.

We've found more than 5,000,000 pages with content and links back to our licenses. But the commons is about more than simply putting the work out there. So, Mike, Neeru, Matt, and Nutch.org have collaborated to develop and debut a metadata search engine that makes it easy to find content marked with Creative Commons licenses. As if that were not enough, that search functionality now ships with the amazing Firefox browser from mozilla.org.

Neeru and the tech team have also worked with other software developers to make it easy to integrate Creative Commons licenses. The list is long, and includes Flickr, Moveable Type, Squarespace, Manila, Archive.org, WinkSite, plus DMusic, Soundclick, Garageband.com, and others I'm sure I've forgotten.

We're nearer to making worry-free sampling and re-creativity mainstream. What better place to start than the cover of WIRED magazine? The WIRED CD contains sixteen sampling-friendly tunes -- and includes the Beastie Boys, David Byrne, Gilberto Gil, Chuck D and more.

In 2005 we will continue to build our worldwide community of contributors to free culture. We will continue to enable more images, music, films and text, and we'll start to work on the Science Commons. We'll have much more to tell you about it at the start of the year.

ou can help make Creative Commons and "some rights reserved" household phrases. Visit http://creativecommons.org/support/ and you'll find out how you can make your contribution via PayPal, Amazon's Honor System, or by sending a check to Creative Commons at 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105.

Thank you for your support. It's not the commons without you.

Mark Resch, CEO
Creative Commons

Creative Commons a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Contributions are tax-deductible in the U.S. to the extent allowed by law.