Johannesburg Press Release
Remix. Sample. Mash up. Reconstruct. Reformulate. Remake. Reproduce. Reshuffle. Transform. Recreate. Modify. Reassemble. Revamp. Rejuvenate.
These are the words that make corporate copyright protectors shudder and free culture creators grin with glee.
The 'remix' has become one of the most powerful tools of the digital age. But the legal barriers to taking an established image or concept and mixing it up for a fresh take have become a hurdle for creativity - leaving those with the most power and wealth the only ones who are able to take the legal risk.
Enter Creative Commons: a set of legal licences developed by those who are willing to share their works and/or have them remixed by creative communities around the world. The result: a pool of some 140 million images, music tracks, samples, and movies that creators can copy and use with legal certainty.
'Remix Nation' is the title of the first ccSalon in Jozi. It's about celebrating cultural pioneers in South Africa who are pushing the boundaries of the digital world and recognising how important legal remixing is to building a vibrant creative industry in South Africa. ccSalons are being held around the world: from San Francisco to Beijing, from Korea to Berlin - and now in Jozi. The salon is a chance for digital artists, free culturists, musicians and creators to get together to chat about what's new on the digital commons front, where to find material that you can legally remix and share, and to learn about how to incorporate Creative Commons copyright licences into your work.
Presentations at the event include multi-media artist Nathaniel Stern, who will be showing and discussing his remix work from his attendance at the iCommons Summit in Brazil; the dynamic duo, MtKidu, who will be presenting their live beat construct and visual manipulation show; and DJ, producer and sound designer, Richard tha IIIrd, who will be discussing, demonstrating and playing his own brand of South African mashups.
Join us for a glass of wine at 6.30pm on Thursday 31 August at Gordart Gallery, 78 3rd Street, Melville and experience some of the sights and sounds of Jozi's pioneering musicians, digital artists and free culture activists who are making the commons work for them.
About Creative Commons South Africa (ccSA)
The vision of Creative Commons South Africa is of a thriving African internet community using Creative Commons licences to educate our people, grow our markets, share our knowledge and celebrate Africa’s culture and heritage with people around the world.
Creative Commons licences provide a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors, artists, and educators that build upon the "all rights reserved" concept of traditional copyright to offer a voluntary "some rights reserved" approach.
About iCommons
Incubated by Creative Commons, iCommons is an organisation with a broad vision to develop a united global commons front by collaborating with open content, access to knowledge, open access publishing and free culture communities around the world. iCommons will incubate projects that cross borders and unite commons communities, acting as a platform for international collaboration towards the growth and enlivening of a global digital commons.
For more information contact Daniela Faris
daniela@icommons.org
+27 72 2966430
+27 11 327 3155/3201
