As a bit of end of the week fun, I thought I'd highlight the amazing remix culture that's building up around the ABC's user generated site, Pool.

Thanks to the strong creative ethos, Pool is rapidly becoming the largest source of CC-licensed, reusable and remixable material in Australia.

From the Pool blog:

"Great to see the remixing & repurposing unfold in Pool. Zeb has used Ruben Kai Maher’s beautiful audio piece Snow in Cities and added visuals to make this video here.

Next layer, anyone?"

I whole-heartedly concur.

Cultural Capital by Tama Leaver

As announced on the main CC website, CC has launched a survey to find out what non-commercial means - and it wants your input.

The survey forms part of the larger study into the definition non-commercial that CC announced a while ago. With the growing use of the 'non-commercial' term in online licences (and not just CC licences - it's even on the PM's website), it's becoming more and more important to try to pin down a common understanding of exactly what it means.

So CC is asking its community to help out by taking a few minutes to responding to this questionnaire on the topic. All responses are anonymous, and no personal data is collected. The questionnaire will stay up til 7 December. If you have any questions, you can email them to noncommercial@creativecommons.org.

If you've always wanted to have your say on one of the hottest issues facing the free culture and web 2.0 communities, now's your chance.

Just a quick note to tell everyone to mark 16 December in their calendar - CCau is having a party!

CC's 6th birthday is a couple of days later, so we thought we'd take the opportunity to celebrate, bond and see the year out in style.

It's going to be a CC film night, held at Lock and Load in West End, Brisbane. We're still working on the program, but it will definitely feature local and international films, including documentaries on CC, animations, user-generated films and a few randoms we'll throw in.

The whole thing is free - though we'll be encouraging people to donate to CC's fundraising campaign (which finishes 31 December, so everyone get donating).

More details to come. Look forward to seeing everyone!

CCau's sister project, Remix My Lit, just seems to be going from high profile media event to high profile media event.

After featuring at the Melbourne Writer's Festival, the Brisbane Writer's Festival and the This Is Not Art (TINA) festival in Newcastle, this week RML was the subject of a great episode of ABC Radio National's The Book Show.

The program includes interviews with the RML coordinators, Amy Barker and our own Elliott Bledsoe, as well as RML author Cate Kennedy and remixer Amra Pajalic. They talk about their experiences with the project, the history of adaptive works and what remix means for literature.

I'm sure everyone has been glued to the fabulous new series of ABC's Not Quite Art, and so there's no need for me to post this.

But for those who couldn't get to their TVs - last night's episode focused on remix culture, and had a great section in CC. This included footage from CCau's conference and ccSalon in June, interviews with two of our featured commoners, Yunyu and Chris Denaro (don't miss his exhibition at Metro Arts!), and a great bit from friend of CCau, Mark Pesce.

Oh, and an interview with Lawrence Lessig.

Still from Prototype 24 by Chris Denaro

A fabulous new exhibition that has just launched at Metro Arts here in Brisbane does a great job of showcasing the potential for remixed and remixable art in a free culture environment.

Shift, which showcases the work of CC artist Chris Denaro, focuses on the theme of 'motion' and is the culmination of a 10 month residency in which Chris worked with found material and other local artists.

Those of you who made it to CCau's conference and ccSalon in June will no doubt remember Chris's animations, which were screened on the big screen and plasmas in the venue throughout the day.

Amy Barker, Project Manager of Remix My Lit and Elliott Bledsoe, Project Officer, ccAustralia are both heading down to Australia's biggest independent arts festival This Is Not Art to take part in a number of events.

On Friday 3 October, find us at:

CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSING (part of Electrofringe)

ABC Pool Producer (http://pool.org.au), Katie Gauld takes you though a clear and detailed explanation of Creative Commons licensing from a producers point of view.

Speakers: John Jacobs, Producer, ABC Pool, Radio National, Australian Broadcasting Corporation; and Elliott Bledsoe, Project Officer, Creative Commons Australia
Cost: Free event

LICENCE TO ILL: LEGALITIES, LICENSING, IMPLICATIONS AND IMPLEMENTATIONS! (part of Sound Summit)

Key representatives from APRA, the PPCA and Creative Commons join artists and industry to discuss the latest on artist copyright, licensing, downloading and legislation. In particular, addressing the impact & implications for local music communities.

I can't quite rate the national television appeal of Elliott, but as those who can decipher the flyer to the left can see, I have managed to break the international internet radio market.

And for those having as much difficulty with the Spanish as I am - I'll be interviewed by Colombian-based Radio Fantasmas tomorrow night at 4pm Colombian time, 10pm European.

Radio Fantasmas Project is a spin off of the Fantasmas Collective, a group of video and other artists working out of Colombia. From their website: "The aim of this project is to promote different local artists working with new technologies, presenting interviews and live presentations of their work through the program. . . This, of course, has allowed us to bring about an interesting dialogue between the artists and the public."

Last night Elliott Bledsoe, Creative Commons Australia Project Officer, was a guest on the new ABC2 television program The Hack Half Hour. Loosely modeled on Triple J's Hack radio program, it's a current affairs program which gets a group of young Australians together to talk about different issues. The first episode, on which I was a guest, was called MyFace, and explored the issues of privacy facing social networks, their owners and their users.

Check here to see the program.