Pearl Jam's Foray Into Creative Commons Licensing

The release of Pearl Jam's new album came and went without so much as a single flannel appearing in Belltown and nary a Rolling Stone cover story devoted to the Seattle Scene. Oh well, it's ok stuff and heartfelt, but hardly the life-altering event previous PJ albums may have been. The band released a video last week, though, which is something they haven't done since 1998. We barely remember '98: Y2K was approaching, the War on Terror was a gleam in Rumsfeld's eye, Pearl Jam was relevant.

The video is notable not because it's been so long coming or because it's some master work of visual expression (although it is ok as videos go), but because Pearl Jam released it under the Creative Commons license meaning you are free to "copy, distribute, display, and perform the work" so long as you don't alter it or make any money from it. Weird, huh? The video's available at Google Video until tomorrow. After tomorrow they'll be taking it off of Google Video and selling downloads, but if you want to go get it from somewhere else, your favorite file-sharing network, say, you don't have to worry about any mail from Sony's lawyer brigade.