As research communities worldwide look for new ways to make the scientific process and its data and results more open and participatory, New Zealand is showing us how it is done.

In July 2010, The New Zealand Government Open Access and Licensing framework (NZGOAL) approved by the Cabinet provided guidance for agencies to follow when releasing copyright works and non-copyright material for re-use by others. NZGOAL seeks to standardise the licensing of government copyright works for re-use via Creative Commons New Zealand law licences and recommends the use of ‘no-known rights’ statements for non-copyrighted material.

Then in August 2011, the Declaration on Open and Transparent Government was also approved by the Cabinet whereby the government committed to actively release high value public data “to enable the private and community sectors to use it to grow the economy, strengthen the social and cultural fabric, and sustain the environment… to encourage business and community involvement in government decision-making.”

And earlier this month in December 2012, a report of the Education and Science Committee presented to the House of Representatives of the 50th Parliament an Inquiry into 21st century learning environments and digital literacy. Among its recommendations were that the Government:

• review the intellectual property framework for (NZ) education system to resolve copyright issues that have been raised, including considering Creative Commons policy.
• consider the advantages and disadvantages of whether all documentation produced by the Ministry of Education for teaching and learning purposes should be released under a Creative Commons licence.

In keeping with this spirit, a group of researchers committed to bringing an Open Research conference to Australia and New Zealand are organizing a three day event February 6-8, 2013 in Auckland.

The purpose of this conference is to explore new, open models of research that speed up the effective transfer of research results and improve economic, environmental and social impacts. A growing community of researchers around the world are investigating new commercial and academic models to enhance the reach of their research. These new ways of doing research openly are akin to changes happening in the IT and business world, where open innovation has enabled people to achieve more together than they ever could alone.

Creative Commons plays a key role in promoting openness in science. Events such as this one in Auckland demonstrate the concern about open science that the community shares with Creative Commons. In the end, only good things can come out of openness, sharing and broad participation. Creative Commons is very pleased to see this event take place, and wishes it utmost success.

For those who think that news reports on Syria lack context and historical background, Syria Deeply might be the solution. It is an amazingly well-done news aggregator, a great combination betwee journalism and technology. And it is also open-licensed., using the most flexible Creative Commons license, CC BY. 

Read my post on Creative Commons blog:

Syria Deeply: CC-Licensed News Aggregator

Donatella Della Ratta, December 21st, 2012

In January 2009, Al Jazeera launched a pioneering initiative: the first news repository licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. At the time, restrictions imposed by the Israeli military in Gaza prevented international news outlets from reaching the Strip and reporting from within. Al Jazeera, which had the advantage of being the only news outlet with a correspondent on the ground, came up with a creative solution by making its exclusive footage available to be used, remixed, translated and re-broadcasted by everybody, including competitors.

Three years later, a similar situation is happening with Syria. Shortage of news is dramatic and reports from within the country are rare and often require that journalists’ lives are put at risk in order to gather information. This is why it is key to have initiatives such as Syria Deeply, a news aggregator launched two weeks ago by a team of journalists and technologists headed by seasoned reporter Lara Setrakian.

Syria Deeply is a news platform that aims to redesign the user experience of the Syria story, for greater understanding and engagement around a complex global issue.‬ The platform is part news aggregator, part interactive backgrounder, part original reporting and feature stories. And the great news is that the content on the site is entirely CC BY–licensed, in order to encourage sharing and viral distribution.

This is a major step in crisis reporting and will allow a wider audience to become more aware of the dramatic situation in Syria, fostering a better understanding of a complex issue by adding context and historical information to the headlines.

“I believe technology is the key to getting more and better news to a broader audience,” says Setrakian. Open licensing can support this process and spread more and better understanding on Syria-related issues.

In November, representatives from CC projects in Asia Pacific nations came together in Jakarta, Indonesia. Every second year we gather in person to combine powers and plan for the future – and this time affiliates in South Korea, China Mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand were hosted by CC Indonesia.

From legal matters to community building and sustainability, we dedicated a whole day to discussions on a range of key issues and challenges for us as individual affiliates and as part of the regional and global CC community. Some fantastic work has been going on in each jurisdiction, and 2013 could be a year of projects across borders. Strategic areas include breaking down language barriers through translation work, developing messaging for government and education sectors, and creating mentoring relationships among teams. The massive diversity in our region is actually a strength, especially for all the CC volunteers out there who might want to work on projects from another country – and all of this will inform our 2013 roadmap (to be posted online).

The second day was a public program for CC representatives and local speakers to run sessions on open government, open data, OER, the creative arts and general tips for beginners. CC Indonesia had a special reason to celebrate since they had recently translated the license chooser and deeds into Bahasa Indonesian, and could present on them for the first time. A translation of Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture (PDF) had also been launched in February by friends from KUNCI Cultural Studies Center in Yogyakarta. Followers around the country submitted reviews of the Indonesian text in the hope of snapping up one of the 15 travel scholarships to Jakarta. The CC Indonesia project is run out of Wikimedia Foundation’s Indonesian arm, and so the keynote speaker Kat Walsh expertly intersected both communities as the Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation and a CC Legal Council. The best moments included stand up comedian Pandji Pragiwaksono, #SKUBYB boys and girls rapping, a dance performance by CC Malaysia, Adhitia Sofyan on acoustic guitar and the giant dancing Ondel-ondel puppets.

For more, see the the program and presentations, public session notes, Flickr photos, and roundup video.

LocalRec.ro in an online platform dedicated to the promotion of the Romanian electronic music producers. Half net label, half promoting agency, Local Records is an atypical label because it does not sell music, it just promotes it. „We don’t work with money, we work with enthusiasm“.

LocalRec.ro will be promoted in Europe with 4 shows in 4 major cities (Berlin, Vienna, London and Barcelona) in this autumn, each featuring 3 Romanian artists or bands. 2000 CDs from Buzz.ro! 2010 compilation, a CD that presents some of 17 Romanian artists’ work will be freely distribute at the shows. On this CD, beside the music, the booklet has some info about the Romanian electronic music scene, about LocalRec.Ro and its artists and some info about the Creative Commons licensing. The tracks on BUZZ.RO! 2010 have a Creative Commons Romania 3.0 license and they can be freely played and distributed both online and offline. This compilation can be downloaded here.

This project has been made possible because ORDU (Romanian Organization for the User’s Rights), the NGO behind this net label, has won a Cantemir grant from the Romanian Culture Institute in 2010.

There are 15 local electronic music producers on LocalRec.ro website. Each artist has his own section where he or she is presenting his work, via audio streams, and other information. LocalRec.ro’s blog is constantly updated with gigs dates and locations and will also cover the European shows with pictures, clips and reviews.

The 15 above mentioned artists are: Alien Pimp, Bogdan, Candlestickmaker, Cosmin TRG, Cristi Cons, Discoballs, Inner, Makunouchi Bento, Minus&Ion, The Model, Poor Relatives, Silent Strike, Sillyconductor, Suie Paparude. Local Records will add an extra artist every month.

The launching shows will take place in this order:

Berlin: Vlad Caia, Cristi Cons, Inner / 3 septembrie, club M.I.K.Z.

Vienna: Cosmin TRG, The Model, Alien Pimp / 17.09.2010 / club Fluc Wanne

London: Silent Strike, Sillyconductor, Bogdan / 8.10.2010 / The Vibe Bar

Barcelona: Makunouchi Bento, Minus&Ion, Poor Relatives / 29.10.2010

The first three releases of LocalRecords are:

[LCL00] Buzz.RO! 2010 Compilation / March 2010

[LCL01] Bogdan – Thermodynamics EP / June 2010

[LCL02] Minus – 95 / July 2010

Anul acesta la Street Delivery, prietenii de la ORDU (Organizatia Romana pentru Drepturile de Utilizator) va invita la un festin de  cultura libera:

Timp de trei zile, aducem Internetul în stradă! Devenit mediul cel mai eficient şi mai utilizat de cooperare artistică, Internetul a dus la apariţia şi dezvoltarea unor forme de licenţiere a operelor artistice care să permită în mod explicit utilizarea, remixarea, transferul şi chiar redistribuirea acestora, după dorinţa autorului. Credem că aceste forme de licenţiere, mai puţin restrictive decât cele stabilite de lege, trebuie încurajate şi promovate.

Prin urmare, între 11 şi 13 iunie, pe strada Arthur Verona, participanţii la Street Delivery vor avea acces liber la filme, documentare, cărţi şi muzică care sunt distribuite de către autorii lor cu licenţe deschise. Veniţi cu stick-uri, hard-uri sau iPod-uri la standul ORDU, fiindcă am făcut o selecţie a celor mai bune asemenea produse artistice. Printre numele pe care le veţi găsi pe hard disk-ul nostru: Nine Inch Nails, Glass Candy, Lucky Dragons, Travka, Lawrence Lessig, Davis Guggenheim, Nina Paley. Mai multe detalii despre conţinutul hard-ului pe http://www.ordu.ro/

Trupa romaneasca Hi-Q recidiveaza in utilizarea licentelor libere si lansează un nou single sub licența Creative Commons (BY NC SA 3.0 Romania)

’Mor de dor’ este o piesă pop sensibilă interpretată împreună cu
Alexandra Stan, o tânără din Constanța descoperită de Mihai Sturzu și
Florin Grozea (fondatorii Hi-Q) acum 7 ani.

Ascultati si descarcati de aici.

Mai multe detalii

Daca stiti si alte utilizari ale licentelor CC in Romania sau vreti sa lansati niste opere pe Internet sub licenta CC, nu ezitati sa ma informati prin email (bogdan punct manolea at apti punct ro) sa anunt si pe acest blog.

Buzz.RO! 2010 [+_+] Compilation

Summary in english: Freshgoodminimal.ro, a lead Romanian electronic music blog, launched Buzz.RO!, the first local music compilation under Creative Commons license. The compilation appears on CD, in 1000 copies, with 12 electronic music composers from Romania, and also in digital form, with another five tracks, for a total of 17 artists. All the songs could be shared and downloaded from the net for noncommercial use and part of them could be sampled and remixed. The CDs are not for sale. They will be used to promote the artists and the digital compilation and will be distributed to labels, promoters and other artists form Romania and abroad. The digital compilation will be distributed on various electronic music blogs and sites.

Buzz.RO! 2010 Compilation

Blogul Freshgoodminimal.ro lansează in premiera in Romania, prima compilatie de muzica sub licenta Creative Commons. Compilatia apare in format fizic in 1000 de exemplare, cu 12 producatori electronici romani si, in format digital, cu 17. Piesele vor putea fi descarcate si sharuite (si pe internet), iar unele vor putea fi samplate si remixate. ( de pe 22 Martie le gasiti si pe site-ul FreshGoodMinimal.ro)

“De-a lungul a 15 ani, scena romaneasca electronica a crescut in promoteri si organizatori de petreceri, in festivaluri si public, in locatii si invitati straini. Pentru a cladi insa ceva local de calitate, nu este de ajuns sa ne strangem laolalta si sa ne hranim bine cu sound. A sosit vremea sa investim in artistii romani si sa ne laudam cu ei in afara!

Desi a pornit initial ca un proiect de promovare a ideilor de sharing, pe parcurs a ajuns sa se contureze din ce in ce mai tare ca o imagine a unei parti importante a scenei producatorilor de muzica electronica din Romania. Fara a abandona promovarea conceptelor CC, incercam, folosindu-ne de ele, sa promovam producatorii romani in tara si in strainatate. Ambitia nostra este ca, folosind CC si rubrica Buzz.RO! de pe blogul freshgoodminimal.ro sa cream o serie regulata de astfel de compilatii si o platforma coerenta si organizata de promovare a artistilor electronici romani. Selectia nostra nu va avea pretentia de a fi exhaustiva. Ocolind aspectele comerciale si incercand sa o producem numai din fonduri proprii sau donatii, incercam sa evitam tentatia muzicii “de top” si sa pastram o anumita calitate”.

CD-urile fizice sunt destinate promovarii. Ele vor pleca catre organizatori de petreceri, labeluri si artisti din tara si mai ales din strainatate. Vor actiona ca un indicator catre toata compilatia digitala. Varianta digitala va fi distribuita pe siteuri si bloguri de profil.

artwork by wonderboy / foto by sharky / master by alien pimp / stikers by Wonderboy, Simon Frison, Noper, Milosh, A.V. Rusu si Modu Lab / sponsored by Lor Instal Construct

TRACKLIST COMPLET

01. Sillyconductor – Woolfia [cc by nc nd 3.0 ro]
02. Cristi Cons – Couch Revenge [cc by nc sa 3.0 ro]
03. Bogdan – Beginnings [cc by nc sa 3.0 ro]
04. Inner – Azotool [cc by nc sa 3.0 ro]
05. Ion – Master-Freier [cc by nc nd 3.0 ro]
06. Poor Relatives – Sanie [cc by nc nd 3.0 ro]
07. Vlad Caia – Random#9 [cc by nc sa 3.0 ro]
08. The Model – The Simple Life [cc by nc nd 3.0 ro]
09. TRG-Belgraded [cc by nc nd 3.0 ro]
10. Alien Pimp – The Original [cc by nc sa 3.0 ro]
11. Makunouchi Bento feat. Selfmademusic – Nukekubi [cc by nc sa 3.0 ro]
12. Michi – French Kiss [cc by nc nd 3.0 ro]
13. Alexandrina – Noi Doi (Silent Strike Remix) [cc by nc nd 3.0 ro]
14. Candlestickmaker – Take Me Elsewhere (And Back Again) – Contorsionist Remix [cc by nc sa 3.0 ro]
15. Minus & Ion – One Time Only [cc by nc nd 3.0 ro]
16. PoorRelatives – a a a [cc by nc sa 3.0 ro]
17. Discoballs – Str. Ongfeeling [cc by nc sa 3.0 ro]
18. Suie Paparude – Belladonna [cc by nc nd 3.0 ro]

BY = Attribution – oricine poate folosi piesa în orice scop, cu condiția să menționeze autorul.
SA = Share Alike – oricine poate folosi piesa pentru a face o alta derivata din ea, cu condiția să o distribuie mai departe sub aceeași licență CC.
ND = No Derivative Works – nimeni nu are voie să facă o operă derivată din piesă.
NC = No Commercial – oricine poate asculta piesa, ea poate circula liber inclusiv pe internet, dar nu o poate folosi nimeni în scop comercial.

Licențele CC au valoare juridică și sunt traduse și adaptate conform legislației a peste 52 de țări din lume. În România, au fost traduse și adaptate la legea română de către Asociația pentru Tehnologie și Internet (APTI).

Mai multe detalii despre licențe și utilizarea lor pe www.creativecommons.org

Zilele astea sunt la castelul de la Macea,  judetul Arad unde se desfasoara Scoala de Vara  “Informatica la Castel”, care include Simpozionului “Linux și medii virtuale de instruire.”

Am avut placerea sa fac o prezentare despre Creative Commons si utilizarea sa la nivelul actual. Daca e cineva interesat de ea, o pun si mai jos (evident licentiata prin Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 Romania)

De la echipa eok.ro :

Datorită succesului înregistrat de concursul “RMX & B Famous 3″ ne-am hotărât să organizăm câte un concurs de acest gen la fiecare 2 luni! Asta nu înseamnă că vor fi mai puţine premii, sau mai puţină promovare.

Dimpotrivă! Datorită partenerilor şi a sponsorilor noştri generoşi avem mai multă expunere online şi mai multe premii.

Concursul “RMX & B Famous 4″ vine cu o provocare: melodia Hi-Q “Eu+Tu=Iubire“ nu este încă lansată deci nimeni nu ştie cum sună originalul. Vocile sunt licentiate printr-o licenta Creative Commons Romania BY-NC-SA 3.0 . E momentul ca voi să vă puneţi talentul la contribuţie şi să faceţi o melodie aşa cum v-ar plăcea vouă.

Vocile pentru remix le găsiţi pe contul Hi-Q de pe eOk.ro… Sau, şi mai simplu, apăsaţi pe bannerul de pe prima pagină.

Concursul a început oficial pe 6 octombrie şi se încheie pe 10 noiembrie. Aveţi mai mult de 30 de zile să câştigaţi premiile oferite de Tuatara.ro, Microsoft şi DjSuperStore.

Premiile sunt în valoare totală de peste 4000 de RON!

Hai, treci la treabă

Echipa

PS: Creative Commons România susţine acest concurs şi pe plan internaţional. Să se ducă vestea!

1. Mergi la http://creativecommons.org/license/?lang=ro

2.  Bifeaza casutele pe care le vrei si le crezi de cuviinta si apoi apasa butonul Selecteaza o licenta

3. Ia Codul HTML din pagina ce urmeaza si pune-l pe creatia ta (muzica, text, video, etc)!

Pentru mai multe detalii, intrebari sau discutii – poti sa intri pe lista de discutii cc-ro.

• Prezentare Bogdan Manolea o gasiti aici (odp) – sau aici(ppt)sau pe slideshare pusa de Florin.
• Poze de la Nicu. .
• Miron Ghiu filmulete. (1,2,3 si 4).
• Filmul promotional despre CC este pe dotsub (subtitrarea facuta cu ajutorul lui Carmen)

Nos alegramos al confirmar que otro de los sites más importantes de la blogósfera se ha incorporado a las licencias de Creative Commons Puerto Rico. El Dr. Antonio Vantaggiato, pionero en el campo de educación a distancia y fundador del Instituto de Educación a Distancia (INED) de la Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, ha anunciado en su blog, Skate of the Web, que se une al esfuerzo colectivo de ccPR.

Pueden acceder a la entrada, publicada esta mañana, por aquí.

Desde el blog Guerrilla Pop de Rafi Torres nos llega una reseña muy completa de lo discutido la noche del lanzamiento de las licencias ccPR. Rafi es el diseñador de la página original de Creative Commons Puerto Rico y forma parte del equipo desde nuestros inicios.

Pueden acceder a la reseña por aquí.

El Decano de la Escuela de Derecho, Dr. Roberto Aponte Toro, la y la Clínica de Asistencia Legal le invitan al lanzamiento público de las licencias de Creative Commons Puerto Rico

Viernes, 22 de febrero de 2008
7:00 pm
Salón L-2
Escuela de Derecho

Exhibición y presentación artística luego de la presentación

Creative Commons es una corporación sin ánimo de lucro que ha desarrollado un innovador proyecto internacional con el objetivo de fortalecer a creadores y creadoras para que sean ell@s quienes definan los términos bajo los cuales sus obras pueden ser usadas, qué derechos desean entregar y bajo qué condiciones lo harán. Creative Commons es una respuesta al régimen tradicional de de derechos de autor o copyright, el cual impone obstáculos excesivos al proceso creativo y la cultura libre. Bajo dicho régimen, las creaciones artísticas, literarias e intelectuales quedan automáticamente y por defecto bajo la protección de las leyes de copyright, las cuales establecen que toda creación plasmada en un medio tangible tiene “todos los derechos reservados.”

Creative Commons ensaya resolver un problema dual: por un lado, que autores interesados en hacer cumplir sólo algunos de sus derechos (o ninguno de ellos) no tienen una forma fácil de anunciarlo y, por otro lado, que personas que quieren copiar y reutilizar obras creadas por otros no tienen una forma fiable de identificar los trabajos que están disponibles para tales usos. ¿Cómo resuelve este problema Creative Commons? Creative Commons crea unas licencias que definen un abanico de posibilidades entre dos extremos: los derechos de autor plenos (“todos los derechos reservados”) y el dominio público (“sin derechos reservados”). En otras palabras, a través de sus licencias, Creative Commons ayuda a un autor a ofrecer su trabajo con “algunos derechos reservados” en vez de “todos los derechos reservados” y, consiguientemente, ayuda a los individuos a fácilmente encontrar obras que podrán utilizar flexiblemente (para usos creativos subsiguientes), según permitido por el autor, sin temor de violentar derechos o de estar expuestos a costosos procesos legales.

Para más información, puede explorar los sitiales de Creative Commons Puerto Rico (http://pr.creativecommons.org) o Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org/international/pr).

Pueden ver la invitación aquí

Ya comenzamos a subir material de la noche del lanzamiento de las licencias ccPR.

Pueden ver las fotos aquí:

Fotos del lanzamiento de las licencias Creative Commons Puerto Rico:
http://flickr.com/photos/24156661@N02/sets/72157603992681305/

Fotos que tomó Joi Ito, Chairman of the Board, de Creative Commons:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/sets/72157603970631839/

Les envío una nota de Creative Commons desde el blog del Dr. Mario Núñez del RUM. Esto es un paso importante ya que DigiZen siempre ha sido una plataforma clave en la blogósfera no sólo puertorriqueña sino de la educación en línea en general.

Gracias por esto, Mario… enhorabuena

Pueden acceder al blog aquí.

Pueden acceder a las nuevas licencias ccPR aquí.

* No olviden que este viernes es la fecha de lanzamiento de las licencias ccPR en la Escuela de Derecho de la UPR, Salón L-2, 7:00pm

Les envío la primera reseña publicada del lanzamiento de las licencias ccPR. En estos días estaremos subiendo las fotos del evento a la página y comunicándonos con los artistas que solicitaron reuniones más pequeñas para adiestrarles en el uso de las licencias.

La reseña es del Dr. Antonio Vantaggiato, catedrático de la Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, pionero del aprendizaje a distancia y de la blogósfera en general: http://blogs.netedu.info/?p=293

Es importante seguir regando la voz en torno a ccPR. Les envío unos enlaces para distribuir:

Para suscribirse a las novedades de ccPR:
http://lists.creativecommons.pr/mailman/listinfo/red_ccpr

Para licenciar trabajos creativos:
http://creativecommons.org/international/pr/

Hoy he encontrado dos nuevas reseñas del lanzamiento que comparto con ustedes:

Noctámbulo
Incluye fotos del evento

Dondequiera
En inglés

Pueden leer otra reseña del evento de lanzamiento de ccPR en el blog estudiantil Free Culture @ UPRM. También aprovechamos para felicitarles por la iniciativa de difundir la cultura libre en las universidades puertorriqueñas. Enhorabuena

Ya están disponibles los materiales creativos incluidos en el CD de lanzamiento de Creative Commons Puerto Rico. El CD incluye las siguientes obras, todas licenciadas bajo diversas licencias de Creative Commons Puerto Rico:

Artes visuales:

Liani Cabán Reyes
Chloe S. Georas
Loredana Hernández
Mailyn López-Badillo
Teresa López Martínez
Rolando Silva
Jaime Olmo

Música:

Mima
Walter Morciglio
Unidos NO

Publicaciones:

Hiram A. Meléndez Juarbe
Érika Fontánez Torres
Pedro Saadé Llorens y Érika Fontánez Torres
Revista: Hotel Abismo

Last year we wrote about the introduction of an OER bill in Brazil. Yesterday, the State of São Paulo approved PL 989/2011, which establishes a policy whereby educational resources developed or purchased with government funds must be made freely available to the public under an open copyright license. The Governor must sign the bill for it to become law. You can view the bill text (Portuguese) linked from the State Assembly website.

Brasao Estado Sao Paulo Brasil
Public Domain

State-funded educational materials must be made available on the web or on a government portal. They must be licensed for free use, including copying, distribution, download and creation of derivative works, provided that the author retains attribution, the materials are used non-commercially, and the materials are licensed under the same license as the original. Essentially, the legislation language suggests a CC BY-NC-SA license, even if not specifically stated.

Congratulations to the State of São Paulo for passing this law. We’ve seen similar policies enacted in Poland, Canada, and the United States. PL 989/2011 will set a powerful positive precedent for other countries to follow, and São Paulo will be contributing to the worldwide movement to create a shared commons of high-quality Open Educational Resources.

For more information on these developments see the Recursos Educacionais Abertos site.

Class of 2012 by P2PU / CC BY-SA
(See all Class of 2012 workshop participants)

It’s been an exciting year for School of Open, from the P2PU residency in Berlin, to the curriculum building meeting in Palo Alto, to the various course building workshops we ran in Helsinki, London, Mexico City, Berlin, and more. Our community, which started off with two active volunteers at the beginning of July, has since grown into a diverse group of voices and interests. However, we all share the common goal of furthering openness in our respective fields, and helping others to take advantage of open resources to further their own goals — whether they are teachers, artists, researchers, or students.

Below are highlights from the “Class of 2012,” and below that is what you can expect from the School of Open community in 2013 — because the world didn’t end after all.

2012 highlights

Note: The “we” pronoun used below refers to the School of Open community collectively, which consists of volunteers from the CC and P2PU communities – and beyond!

Building the School of Open / mollyali / CC BY

• During the P2PU residency in Berlin, we put our heads together and figured out the what, how, and who of the School — including basic governance structure and logistics, philosophy, guidelines, and an initial set of short courses for independent learning.
• These courses are Teach Someone Something with Open Content (part one and two); Get Creative Commons Savvy; and the Open Access Wikipedia Challenge. Lots of people have taken these courses already, and you can, too.
• We planned the curriculum for more courses with a fantastic group of open advocates and experts at a two-day Convening on an Open Policy Institute and School of Open in Palo Alto.


Helsinki Class Group Shot / Timothy Vollmer / CC BY

• We also held smaller course building workshops and discussion sessions at the Open Knowledge Festival, the Mozilla Festival, the Open Ed Conference, the Summit on Open Strategies, and the CC- Africa, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America regional meetings. You can see all events on our roadmap.
• We held our first real world course sprint at the Open Video Forum, resulting in the draft course, A Look at Open Video. (A course sprint is like a book sprint, but the end result is a course instead of a book.)
• We also held our first real world class in Ann Arbor, Michigan, based on Get CC Savvy.
• We discussed and settled on a course review process for all School of Open courses…

…in the spirit of open governance, because we strive to work as openly and transparently as our name makes us out to be!

What to expect in 2013

The Library of Congress / No known copyright restrictions

In 2013:

• We will officially launch our first set of courses during Open Education Week! (March 11-15). We have 16 courses in development: the bulk of these will be designed for independent learning, such as Get CC Savvy, but a few, such as Copyright 4 Educators, will be facilitated for a set period of time beginning in March. You can check out the full list of draft courses at http://schoolofopen.org.
• We will run more offline workshops around the world. In fact, we are developing a course to prepare people for the delivery of workshops on open culture and related topics in informal spaces.
• We will run additional course sprints. We have one in mind around open science data (watch out Bay Area) and another on open video (Berlin or London).

With the development of 16 courses; the running of offline workshops in cool spaces; and the emergence of the course sprint — we have a very full year ahead of us! If you would like to help shape any of the courses or activities above, join us at https://groups.google.com/group/school-of-open and introduce yourself and your area of interest. Additional ways to get involved and more info at http://schoolofopen.org.

That’s all folks! We wish you a wonderful holiday and a happy new year.

♡ Copying is an act of love. Please copy and share. Contact for more permissions relating to This work is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

2012 has been a very successful year for CC in Australia. We’ve seen the CC licences adopted for the Queensland Police data website, Geoscience Australia Landsat 8 images, the Australian Government’s Vocational Education and Training database website, the Australian Electoral Commission website, ABC’s 80 Days project, and more recently, the Victorian Government’s data website – data.vic.gov.au.

We ran a day-long Creative Commons seminar in Melbourne, and a comprehensive series of seminars – CC and the Digital Economy – covering CC use in the education, research, government, creative and cultural sectors in Brisbane, among other consultations, presentations and workshops about CC throughout the year. We also participated in the Creative Commons Asia Pacific Regional meeting and conference in Jakarta, Indonesia, and enjoyed meeting our CC colleagues at the launch of CC Indonesia.

For those who have been in contact with us, attended our seminars or adopted CC licensing, thank you for your support. All we can say is watch this space in 2013! We’ll be enjoying the Christmas break from 22 December 2012 and will be back on deck on 2 January 2013.

We look forward to the new year and getting more traction on all things CC!

Domenica scorsa abbiamo festeggiato a Torino i dieci anni di Creative Commns.

La serata di Torino è stata una delle tante iniziative intraprese in tutto il mondo per celebrare il dieci anni di attività di CC e non sarebbe stato possibile organizzarla senza il prezioso contributo di tante persone, alle quali vanno i nostri più vivi ringraziamenti.
Ringraziamo quindi Gianluca Gozzi e tutto lo staff del Balh-Blah per la loro ospitalità ed il supporto logistico; Radio Flash 97.6, in particolare Dario Castelletti e Giorgio Valletta, per la diretta della serata ed il DJ Set di chiusura; i partecipanti alla tavola rotonda sulle licenze (Simona Lodi, Davide Suppo, Mariano Equizzi e Federico Morando - il nuovo Lead di CC Italia) per i loro spunti di discussione; i Boom Boom Beckett, i rev rev rev e gli Aba Made Sound per esser stati il cuore artistico della serata con le loro esibizioni; Top-IX e CSP che si sono uniti all'organizzazione della festa fornendoci la competenza del loro staff, soprattutto nelle persone di Tiziana Motta, Vincenzo Cicanesa, Laura Pippinato, Maria Costanza Candi, e lo staff del Centro Nexa che ha coordinato l'organizzazione ed unito le forze per l'allestimento e gli ultimi preparativi della serata.

Dulcis in fundo, una menzione speciale va ovviamente a tutto il pubblico che, intervenendo nel corso dei festeggiamenti, è stato destinatario e autentica ricompensa dei nostri sforzi.

Grazie a tutti!!!

Il Gruppo di Lavoro di Creative Commons Italia

leggi tutto

In 2010, Australian Research Council Center of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, ccAustralia and etcc project coordinators Benjamin Reeve, Skye Reeve and Elliott Bledsoe received funding in the inaugural round of the Creative Commons Catalyst Grants. The succesful application pitched for a touring remixable art exhibition that explored ideas of creation and appropriation in the visual arts sector.

The following year, etcc 
hosted
 three
 consecutive
 exhibitions
 in
 Sydney,
 Brisbane
 and
 Melbourne
 featuring
 a
 body
 of
 new
 works
 that
 explored
 the
 realities
 of
 copyright
 in
 the
 visual
 arts.
 Each
 artist
 took
 Creative
 Commons
 licensed
 images,
 created
 new
 work 
based 
on 
those 
images,
 and 
in 
turn
 licensed
 their 
own image 
for 
others 
to 
remix
–
legally.
  Through 
this
 process,
 the
 project
 utilized emerging
 copyright
 practices
 to
 demonstrate
 new
 models
 of
 distribution,
 collaboration
 and
 commerce.
The project also illustrated the notion
 that
 many
 works
 are
 derivative
 in 
nature.

You can check out the artwork and read more about the etcc project, which has been documented on the project website http://etcc.tv/.

A few days ago, Ryan Singel wrote a thought-provoking piece for Wired, suggesting that users pressure Facebook — and, by extension, its recent acquisition Instagram — to adopt Creative Commons licensing options.

#electricity / mkorbit / CC BY-NC-SA

Creative Commons embodied an ethos of sharing that went beyond just show-and-tell. It’s been a vital part of sharing on the net, which has given all of us access to no-cost printing presses in the form of blogs; cheap ways to create, edit, and share videos and photos; and democratized distribution channels such as YouTube and Reddit.

[…] Facebook is about Facebook. Sharing to them means sharing … on Facebook. Connecting with other people means connecting with other people … on Facebook. Like the old joke about fortune cookies, you have to append “on Facebook” to get the real meaning.

Instagram is still young, so perhaps it can buck its corporate master. But it’s yet to show a commitment to doing right by users and the public, and the recent decision to prevent Twitter users from seeing Instagram photos inside Twitter makes it highly unlikely the company considers being part of a larger sharing culture a priority.

The column — along with a controversial update to Instagram’s privacy policy — has triggered a wave of discussion online. From Kurt Opsahl at EFF:

Reflection in the rice field / pinot / CC BY

Some of these problems are less pressing if the photo is intended to be public, and some users may actually want the opportunity for their photos to get wide spread fame and fortune. For those users, the better way forward is enabling users to easily license their photos with Creative Commons.

Other photo services offer revenue sharing with their users. For example, Yahoo’s Flickr not only offers the ability to mark photos with a Creative Commons license, but also has an opt-in program with Getty Images for users who want to commercialize the photos. While imperfect (Getty requires exclusive rights, and is incompatible with CC licenses), there is something to the notion of sharing the revenue with the user.

Alyson Shontell at Business Insider takes the debate a step further, with the provocative suggestion that Instagram should require its users to license their photos under CC by default:

Of course, this will enrage a lot of people. Facebook has been reprimanded for pushing privacy boundaries too far, and not all Instagram users may feel comfortable sharing their photos with the world.

But really, they already are. This just puts a legal framework around that sharing.

In all the flurry of attention, there’s one important point to keep in mind: Creative Commons licenses don’t cancel out user agreements. That is, when you upload media to Flickr or YouTube, it’s subject to the terms you agreed to when you signed up for those services, regardless of whether you license it under CC.

raining… / Denise Weerke / CC BY-NC

To put it a different way, when I upload a video to YouTube and license it CC BY, I’m entering two different agreements at once: one with YouTube (see 6. Your Content and Conduct) and one with any potential user via the CC license. It’s a good idea to be conscious about the agreements you’re making when you use any online service. There have even been various projects over the years to make terms of service and privacy policies as easy to read and understand as CC license deeds.

Of course, that’s not to say that there’s no value in media platforms adopting CC licensing natively. Indeed, platforms are where we’ve seen the most rapid uptake in CC adoption and the most potential for reuse. Have you ever uploaded a photo to Flickr and seen it show up on a blog post days or years later? That quick, painless reuse is only possible because Flickr makes it easy to search and sort photos by CC license. Users on other sites — including both Facebook and Instagram — sometimes add CC license info to their profiles manually. That’s better than nothing, but without a consistent, platform-wide implementation, finding those CC-licensed uploads can be very difficult.

And if the discussions over the past few days have shown anything, it’s that the demand exists for native CC implementation in Instagram. i-am-cc.org, the third-party archive of CC-licensed Instagram shots, has grown to nearly 5000 users in just a few months. A search for CC-licensed Instagram photos published on Flickr yields 167,000 results. The popularity of these solutions demonstrates that many Instagram users are willing to jump through a few hoops to share their photos under CC.

For our recent tenth anniversary celebrations, we profiled several media platforms that support CC licensing. Nearly all of the people we talked to said that user demand was a major factor in their decisions to use CC. We would be thrilled if Facebook and Instagram decided to start supporting CC licensing, but ultimately, your voice matters more than ours does.