Case Studies/The Pun
"The Pun is designed to give young people their first shot at being published, in an open field with little barriers. At the same time we aim to help publicise smaller, local comedians who don't traditionally get a chance. By licensing The Pun under Creative Commons, we can ensure our writers regain their creative rights." — — Lefa Singleton Norton, Editor, A New Leaf Media
Overview
The Pun is a free weekly publication which is released each Wednesday of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. It aims to offer a comprehensive guide to the festival for everyday punters, publishing reviews, news and interviews from the festival.
The aims for The Pun are threefold:
- To offer punters attending the Melbourne International Comedy Festival unbiased and comprehensive free coverage of the whole event - not just the headliners.
- To celebrate and publicise one of the most successful arts festival in the Southern Hemisphere.
- To offer young and emerging arts writers the opportunity to review life performance and publish their work.
The magazine is distributed by hand in the MICF ‘hub’ out front of the Melbourne Town Hall, as well as being left at festival venues not in the immediate CDB (such as Trades Hall).
License Usage
A New Leaf Media decided to license the print magazine, pdf digital and online versions of The Pun under a Creative Commons licence that allows content published in the magazine to be republished so long as the articles are not changed and the republication is for non-commercial purposes: i.e. under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia licence. This licensing facilitated the republishing of much of the magazine’s content on blogs during the festival, giving the writers far more exposure than A New Leaf Media on their own could provide.
Motivations
Tim Norton from A New Leaf Media spoke at the 2006 Creative Commons Australia Industry Forum, in the session for Creative Industries. Tim’s own blog, Stop the world Mummy, I want to get off… is also licensed under Creative Commons.
Media
The Pun 2007 - [1] The Pun 2006 Edition 1 - [2] Edition 2 - [3] Edition 3 - [4] Website - [5] The Pun on Twitter - [6]
