This could be huge: Professor Lessig has announced that CC is working on project that would recover “lost” rights to artists who have previously signed them away. This quite an ambitious and important step for musicians who have made the career ending move of signing with a major label in the last 40 years.

if the creator wants, the system would then refer the case to a legal aid clinic or Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, so that with the help of a trained counselor, the creator could reclaim his or her rights. We’d offer this tool for free. And while, of course. we’d give creators the freedom to license any rights they recover under Creative Commons licenses, we wouldn’t require them to do so. Instead, our only purpose is to make the law simple so that it might work better for the people it was intended to benefit: Creators.

This is just smart.

And finally, I want to say that while I don’t think CC should be the very first place you drop a charity dime, if you are one of the people that posted one of the over 2,300 uploads to ccMixter or if you spent some time enjoying it you should definitely considering giving something back. If I understand it correctly, the IRS is looking at number of donors to CC this year as a means to determine their tax except status (I can’t find the link where I read that). So while the amount is, of course, important, just being counted as an active supporter of CC is important too.

Support ccMixter/Creative Commons Here.

Thanks.

(disclosure: I used to get paid from CC but I don’t any more. I may someday again. If your donation to them is contingent on me never doing that again I totally understand and I’ll try to accommodate.)