A letter from Lawrence Lessig

If you have been downloading our mixes, then you have mostly been downloading free music with a creative commons license. These creative commons licenses originate from Creative Commons (CC), which is a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. Organizations like Creative Commons depend on our support. We have shared with you 72 free DJ mixes, now you can do something in return.

Dear Creative Commoner:

It has been an exciting week in America. Many of us had been focused on this presidential election. Few have had the time to think about the other projects we have that are working hard to do good.

I’m writing today to ask you to think again about one of those projects that will always be important to me — Creative Commons. We’re in the middle of our annual drive. The success of this drive is essential to our ability to run. The vast majority of CC’s supporters, including of course its Board, and current CEO, are volunteers. But the organization depends upon a small number of wildly underpaid staffers, as well as modest infrastructure to keep the system alive.

This is a tough year to ask for support, I know. All of us are facing difficult decisions about what we can really afford to do. But as I looked out at the packed audiences in Hong Kong celebrating the launch of the 50th Creative Commons jurisdiction, I saw again just how critical it is to keep this movement growing. We have made important progress over the year, including most importantly for me, winning the confidence of the Free Software Foundation so that they will permit FSF licensed wikis (including Wikipedia) to relicense to a CC license. But there is an enormous amount of work left to be done.

Please help us in this. Whatever you can give is important. And if you’d like something tangible in return for your gift, I’m happy to send you a signed copy of my latest (and last in this field) book, REMIX, inscribed however you like. (I’m only going to sign a limited number for this purpose, and we’re going to charge an insanely high price, but if you’re interested, visit http://support.creativecommons.org/join. And if you’re ordering from outside the United States, you’ll get the Bloomsbury Academic version of the book, with the CC license explicit inside.)

I’ve not pestered you much this year. It has been important to me to see this organization thrive when I’ve not been at the center of its work. But Creative Commons remains the work I’m most proud of. And like any parent, it still keeps me awake with worry at night. Please help us make this year another success. Do what you can. Get 6 friends to do the same. We’ve been depending on small donations long before America could spell “Obama.” And we depend upon those donations still.

Please visit http://support.creativecommons.org/join and support Creative Commons today.

Thank you.

—–
Lessig
Stanford Law School
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, CA 94305-8610

This entry was posted on Friday, November 14th, 2008 at 3:16 pm and is filed under creative commons, news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.