Grants/Outreach event for Iranian Musicians and songwriters to promote understanding and adaption of CC's tools, licenses and technologies.
Describe the project you are proposing as clearly as possible in just five sentences.
The Middle-Eastern Musicians projectʼs aim is to develop the CC community in the Middle-East through a three-day event in which the CC tools and licences can be explained to new artistic communities in the Middle East region, including in Iran. Bar-Ax Promotions, which promotes Iranian musicians and songwriters worldwide, aims to initiate an outreach event in one of the major cities in a Middle-Eastern country, which Iranian, Turk and Arab musicians and songwriters can attend, in order to promote understanding and adoption of CCʼs tools and licences in their work. The Iranian community, for example, both at an artistic level and in its media platforms, is currently unfamiliar with the CC mission and CC tools and licences. This proposal is to further develop the achievements of the CC mission in the Middle East.
Detail the tangible project output (e.g., paper, blog post, written materials, video/film, etc.; this would be in addition to the final written report that successful grant recipients will be expected to deliver to CC at the conclusion of the project).
The project will result in several outputs. The central output is the event itself, which will be covered by at least one major TV station. Bar-Ax has a supplierʼs contract with BBC Persian TV, and BBC Persian is interested in covering this event. Additional outputs that will contribute to a broader outreach of this event include videos, produced by the participating artists and the participating organisations, photos and an article. Besides the BBC Persian service, other TV stations, including Al Jazeera and the Persian service of Voice of America, will be invited to this event.
Describe the community you are targeting. How would the project benefit the community?
The target community is the semi-professional and professional artistic community from the Middle East, concentrating on those at the beginning of their careers. This ME musician event should empower them on their path to professionalise their talent, as well as helping to promote, licence and share their music, songs and videos globally.br />
Bar-Ax has PR contracts with more than 75 music bands from Iran. Bar-Ax was established in 2008 and, since then, has built an excellent relationship with the artists, the media platforms and a number of broadcasters worldwide. We are providing musicians with services that include copyright and legal consultancy, PR and marketing. One recent venture was an alternative Iranian Arts Festival in London, in March 2010. Another success has been a compilation CD of fourteen underground bands, produced in collaboration with Songlines magazine. Bar-Ax is a dynamic and very promising initiative that plays an important role in supporting and promoting the Iranian music community under difficult circumstances.
How will you measure and evaluate your project’s impact - on your main participants? Other contributors? On the larger community?
The success of the project is to be measured by two indicators. First, the event will be covered by at least one mass-media platform, whether it is the BBC Persian Service, Al Jazeera or both of these stations. This will ensure the broad outreach of the CC mission to new audiences, especially in Iran. Secondly, two famous participating artists from each of these communities will explain the CC work and licences, in their own words, in a video interview.
How many participants do you expect to be involved in your project? How will you seek and sustain their involvement?
There are several organisations involved in this project. Bar-Ax is initiating the project, and has invited a number of other like-minded organisations from the Middle East to co-operate with it. We expect to have more than 100 participants from several ME countries, including local artists from the host country. Bar-Ax, as initiator of this proposal, will collaborate with CC Middle East to ensure and to sustain the involvement of the artists by representing them in other fields – including networking and facilitating performances and distribution of their songs and videos.
Describe how your project will benefit Creative Commons' mission to increase the amount of creativity (cultural, educational, and scientific content) in "the commons".
The overall impact of the project is to increase confidence among Iranian musicians to participate in the global market without the fear of encountering copyright issues. In addition, the project's impact is to make this artists self-sustainable by educating about CC tools, sharing the know how and developing on networks at both the international level and local level which in turn impacts the collaboration across communities .
Describe what technologies and tools your project will use. What kinds of technical skills and expertise do you bring to the project? What are your technical needs?
The event should result in at least one video being produced by the organisers, which will reach a wide audience and introduce the CCʼs work through the words of the participants themselves. It will also result in press coverage by at least one major TV representative. The initiating organisation, Bar-Ax, already has a number of tools available for production, including a camcorder. Other tools that are available, and which will help to increase impact, are all related to production and sound quality, and include five Sony voice recorders, an extra camcorder, two camcorder tripods and two suitable microphones. The assets that Bar-Ax will bring to this project consist of a camcorder and the technical skills to film. impact collaboration across communities.
What challenges do you expect to face, and how do you plan to overcome them?
We anticipate two challenges: first, that the artists/musicians do not find Creative Commons (CC) licences suitable for commercial work. Therefore, the workshop programme should include clarification as to how working with CC can contribute to commercially viable results. Secondly, language could create a barrier preventing some artists from participating in an active way. To bridge any possible language barrier, Bar-Ax will invite interpreters and translators from its network to participate in the event.
How do you plan to sustain your project after the Creative Commons funding has ended? Detail specific plans. How do you plan to raise revenue to continue your efforts in the future?
Bar-Ax has several sources of annual funding to promote and sustain the Iranian music community. However, in order to carry out this project a funding by Creative Commons is absolutely necessary. Other sources of funding include the British Arts Council and private donors. To increase the number of participants in this important event, introducing CC to a new Middle-Eastern artistic community, Bar-Axʼs aim is to recruit the aid of further donors and sponsors. Please refer to the attached budget for other sources of funding.
How can this project be scalable, or have a scalable impact?
The musical and artistic community in Iran is currently totally unfamiliar with Creative Commons work. The impact of this project, to introduce CC licences to a wider community in the Middle East, can be tracked via the number of CC licences adopted through the Bar-Ax website and the Zirzemin website. Both organisations are mainly active in the Iranian artistic community.
What resources and support do you expect Creative Commons to provide to your project to ensure its success (if any)?
For the project to be realised, funding to the amount of $10.000 is required from Creative Commons to convene this outreach event. Additional support from other sources of funding will ensure the success of this project.
Describe how your organization currently communicates with its community members and network partners. (100 words)
We have excellent contact with the artists we are representing, through communication channels that include mailing lists, newsletters and pages on the social networking sites.
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