Rules for the Revolution Goes North!

{Cross Posting from Rules for the Revolution Blog}

Creative Commons of Canada announced today that it has published a Canadian version (.pdf) of our Podcasting Legal Guide. This is great! I'm going to start reading it tonight!

One reason why we published the U.S. version of the Guide with the flexible CC-NC-SA license was with the hopes that attorneys in other jurisdictions would translate and adapt it for jurisdictions outside of the U.S.

Also, as the CC Canada press release explains, the authors did nearly a complete re-write of the guide because copyright, trademark and publicity rights receive different treatment in Canada. One example, is that Canada has many collecting societies that need to be understood if licensing music from Canadian artists (see page 15). This adapted guide for Canada also includes a "copyright matrix" (page 16) and a "rights clearance flow chart" (page 19), both of which will help explain the various rights and who get's paid for what in the world of music licensing. Moreover, it looks like authors Kathleen Simmons and Andy Kaplan-Myrth have a sense of humor. They have sub-titled their guide, "Northern Rules for the Revolution". Do we have any attorneys in Mexico, Central or South America who will volunteer to write "Southern Rules for the Revolution" next??

My sincere congratulations go out to Kathleen Simmons, Andy Kaplan-Myrth, the the faculty of the Law & Technology group at the University of Ottawa for bringing the podcasting community this great new resource.