Creative Commons

Two bills in Congress share a basic understanding that the unclassified research articles and data that arise from federal funding should be made available over the public Internet at some point after the articles have been published.  However, these two bills have sharply divergent approaches to how this basic goal should be achieved.

The forward-looking, pro-innovation bill is the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR).  It would effectively embody in legislation the requirements outlined in this Policy Directive from the Office of Science and Technology Policy.  FASTR is a bi-partisan bill that reflects a realistic appreciation of the economics of scholarly publishing and accommodates the needs of subscription-based publishers while also promoting rapid, publicly-provided, public access.

In contrast, the Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science and Technology Act (FIRST), which would fund the National Science Foundation, would roll back progress already made.  The bill would allow for access embargoes of up to 24 months even though publishers have failed to bring forth evidence that the much shorter 6-month embargo in Europe or the 12-month embargo used by the NIH have had any measurable impacts on the financial sustainability of the subscription-based publishing model.  This particular feature of the bill is simply anti-innovation. Second, the bill would not require that the agency receive a copy of the article arising from federal funding.  Instead, a mere link, without any requirements about its persistence, would suffice.  Sadly, this would turn out to be a public access mirage in many cases, as links frequently break. Last, NSF already has drafted a public access plan – that the Obama Administration currently has not shared — in response to the OSTP Directive.  The bill’s requirement for another 18-month delay is therefore merely an impediment to public access in the near future.

For more on the FIRST ACT, see Tim Vollmer, “Proposed U.S. law would weaken and postpone public access to publicly funded research.”

 

This week the US House Representatives introduced H.R. 4186, the Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science and Technology Act of 2014 (FIRST Act). The stated goal of the proposed law — “to provide for investment in innovation through scientific research and development, [and] to improve the competitiveness of the United States — is worthy and well received. But part of the bill (Section 303) is detrimental to both existing and proposed public access policies in the United States.

According to SPARC:

Section 303 of the bill would undercut the ability of federal agencies to effectively implement the widely supported White House Directive on Public Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research and undermine the successful public access program pioneered by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – recently expanded through the FY14 Omnibus Appropriations Act to include the Departments Labor, Education and Health and Human Services. Adoption of Section 303 would be a step backward from existing federal policy in the directive, and put the U.S. at a severe disadvantage among our global competitors.

The White House Directive, NIH Public Access Policy, Omnibus Appropriations Act, and the proposed Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR) all contain similar provisions to ensure public access to publicly funded research after a relatively short embargo (6-12 months). These policies make sure that articles created and published as a result of federal funding are deposited in a repository for access and preservation purposes. In addition, the policies provide for a reasonable process and timeline for agencies to development a plan to comply with the public access requirements.

The FIRST Act would conflict with each of these practices. Instead, if enacted it would permit agencies that must comply with the law to:

• Extend embargoes to federally funded research articles to up to 3 years after initial publication, thus drastically increasing the time before the public has free public access to this research. We’ve said before that the public should be granted immediate access to the content of peer-reviewed scholarly publications resulting from federally funded research. Immediate access is the ideal method to optimize the scientific and commercial utility of the information contained in the articles.
• Fulfill access requirements by providing a link to a publisher’s site. However, this jeopardizes long-term access and preservation of publicly-funded research in the absence of a requirement that those links be permanently preserved. A better outcome would be to ensure that a copy is deposited in a federally-controlled repository.
• Spend up to 18 additional months to develop plans to comply with the conditions of the law, thus further delaying the plans that are already being organized by federal agencies under the White House Directive and Omnibus Appropriations Act.

This bill is scheduled to be marked up in the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology tomorrow, March 13.

But there are better alternatives, both in existing policy (e.g. White House Directive), and in potential legislation (e.g. FASTR). Here’s what you can do right now:

• Send a letter to members of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee opposing Section 303 of the FIRST Act.
• Use the SPARC action center to customize and send letters directly to your legislators. Tweet your opposition to Section 303 of the FIRST Act, or post about the bill on Facebook.
• Write a letter to the editor or an op-ed for your local or campus newspaper. You can write directly to them or by using the SPARC legislative action center.
• Share this post with your colleagues, labs, friends and family.

Texto por Arelis Uribe, imagen del “semáforo” por (Ovtoaster) – SA

El acceso al conocimiento oscila entre prácticas restrictivas a otras más flexibles. Esa transición puede representarse con los mismos colores de un semáforo, donde el rojo es literalmente no pasar y el verde la libre circulación. ¿Por qué se da esta diferencia, qué implica cada tono de esta gama?

Juan Carlos Lara, Director de Contenidos de ONG Derechos Digitales, lo aclara. “Más que diferencias, entre todos estos conceptos hay una enorme relación. Se trata de un equilibrio entre los derechos de protección y el derecho a consumir productos culturales. En este abanico, el Copyright representa la protección y el Dominio Público representa el acceso”. Esa distancia puede representarse con los tonos rojo, amarillo y verde.

“El gran problema del Copyright es su naturaleza restrictiva (rojo) y su hegemonía como sistema regulatorio, de ahí que surjan alternativas (verdes y amarillas), como Copyleft, para apelar por la circulación del conocimiento y el arte”, agrega.

¿En qué consiste cada una de estas licencias? Aquí un breve panorama.

Copyright: la licencia más restrictiva. Sólo el autor de la obra tiene derecho a utilizarla. Si otra persona quiere usar la obra, debe pedir permiso y pagar al autor. Sin embargo, tras una cantidad de años luego de la muerte del autor –en Chile son 70 años-, ésta pasa a dominio público. El color aquí es rojo.

Copyleft: es el opuesto al Copyright, esta licencia permite la distribución, intervención, copia e incluso el uso comercial de una obra. Su origen y despliegue está especialmente asociado al software libre y open source. Su color evidentemente es verde.

Creative Commons: hay cuatro tipo de atribuciones, cuya mezcla va desde la mera atribución al autor con todos los demás usos liberados, hasta la licencia que prohíbe el uso comercial de la obra y su reutilización. En esta gama de licencias, Creative Commons posee la más amplia: atraviesa del amarillo al verde, diferencia que se remarca en el color del header de la web de cada licencia.

Dominio Público: se trata de obras que, a partir de la muerte de su autor, quedan libres del Copyright. Desde ese momento, cesan sus restricciones para copiar, modificar, publicar y comunicar una obra al público.

“Estos modos de distribución no implican dedicación total al dominio público ni una renuncia al derecho de autor. Al contrario, se basan en el derecho de autor (Creative Commons considera la atribución irrenunciable). Pero, a la vez, reconocen que las libertades del dominio público son mucho más favorables que el Copyright a la hora de enriquecer el sistema cultural”, concluye Lara.

 

 

This is part four of a five week series on the Affiliate Team project grants. So far, you’ve heard from our affiliates in Africa, Arab World, and Asia-Pacific. Today, we’re featuring our Europe projects, including a revived CC WordPress plugin from Finland, an awareness raising event in Dublin, Ireland, and a course for librarians and academics led by CC Romania.

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Finland: WpLicense Revived
by project lead Tarmo Toikkanen

CC Finland is working on a revived Creative Commons WordPress plugin, building upon the existing official plugin built by Nathan Yergler, former CC CTO.
The renewed plugin will work in multi-author blogs with varying license needs, which displays correct author information on all pages in the license RDF, and which is localized to several languages. As an additional feature, integration with online CC-licensed image banks for searching and using figures in blog posts would be extremely useful in helping bloggers use pictures legally.
As WordPress is the most used CMS in the world, it should have robust Creative Commons functionality, officially produced by CC. The plugin would both make it easy for bloggers to share their content openly, and would educate many about CC licenses.
On February 19th, we announced an alpha version of the renewed WpLicense plugin. Download it here: https://github.com/tarmot/wp-cc-plugin/releases/tag/release-2.0-alpha
We welcome any bug reports, issues or general feedback on WPLicense on the cc-devel mailing list or as issues in Github.

Ireland: Awareness-raising Event in Dublin, November 2013
by project lead Darius Whelan

Creative Commons Ireland held an awareness-raising event in Dublin on “Maximising Digital Creativity, Sharing and Innovation” in January 2014. The event took place in the National Gallery of Ireland and was attended by 100 people working in technology, libraries, academia, galleries/libraries/museums, media and education. The speakers represented a cross-section of perspectives, and the event was an opportunity for CC Ireland to develop relationships with organisations such as the Open Knowledge Foundation, Digital Rights Ireland, and Ireland’s Copyright Review Committee. Eoin O’Dell of the Law School, Trinity College Dublin talked about copyright law reform and its impact on Creative Commons licences. The Copyright Review Committee, which was chaired by Dr O’Dell, published its proposals for change in Ireland in October 2013 (see http://www.djei.ie/press/2013/20131029.htm). O’Dell said his committee’s report had provided the first legal definition of metadata, which particularly aimed to protect the rights of digital photographers. The report also proposed that parody and linking should be allowed without any infringement of copyright, as well as a nine-point ‘fair use’ doctrine. Kristina Alexanderson of CC Sweden spoke about how she uses CC licences in her work and her work has been accessed by very large audiences as a result.

Conor McCabe / CC BY

Alek Tarkowski, European Policy Advisor, CC, discussed open policies for user rights and freedoms, and highlighted a Polish project for providing open education textbooks. Gwen Franck, CC Regional Co-ordinator, highlighted the work of CC Affiliates throughout Europe. Professor David Post, of Temple Law School, Philadelphia, USA said there were between 400 million and 800 million Creative Commons licences in use today, and Creative Commons represented people “taking the law into their own hands.” He said copyright law had “run amok,” with copyright protection running for too long and being too wide. The event was chaired by Darius Whelan and Louise Crowley of CC Ireland and the Faculty of Law, University College Cork. Photos, videos and slides are available at www.creativecommonsireland.org.

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/114281612@N04/
Videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/creativecommonsirl
Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/cc-ireland

Romania: OER Awareness Activities for Librarians and Academics in Romania
#schoolofopen
by Jane Park (project lead: Bogdan Manolea)

Many librarians and academics in Romania are not aware of or knowledgeable about open educational resources (OER) and how they can best leverage them for their needs. CC Romania, along with the Association for Technology and Internet (ApTI), the National Association of Public Libraries and Librarians in Romania, and Kosson and Soros Foundation Romania teamed up to put on a series of workshops to raise awareness among librarians and academics on the topics of open educational resources (OER), copyright, and CC licenses.
The project was launched during the National Association of Librarians and Public Libraries (ANBPR) annual conference which took place between 10-12 October 2013 in Sibiu, Romania. The presentation prepared by the team project and delivered by Andra Bucur from the Soros Foundation explained in short about copyright issues and their limits, how to apply an open license to a creation, what are open educational resources (OER) and where to find them.
From this conference, participants signed up for a series of workshops which focused on the correct attribution of the CC licenses, aspects of OER, online courses and MOOCs delivered by Bogdan Manolea from ApTI and Nicolaie Constantinescu (ANBPR & Kosson.ro).
The series kicked off in 15 November in Brașov, Romania, as part of the International Colloquium on Social Science and Communication, a social science academic event.
Subsequent workshops were held in December 2013 and January 2014 at V.A. Urechia Regional Library in Galați; at Octavian Goga Regional Library in Cluj; at Polytechnical University in Timișoara; and University Vasile Goldiș in Arad. Future workshops wil take plece in Iași and Bucharest in February 2014.
The partners of the project are also organizing a conference in Bucharest during the open education week to share the best practices on education taught, but also learned in the project.
CC Romania also attended BVCCC – the first CC Film Festival to be ever organized in Romania that took place in Brașov in November 2013. This was a great opportunity for the team to reach out to a different type of public — mostly local artists and digital content creators.

On Thursday, March 14 Fundación Karisma, in collaboration with UNESCO and Creative Commons will launch the report “Public Expenditure On Education in Latin America: Can It Serve the Paris Open Educational Resources Declaration’s Purposes?”

“Human rights are not left at the door when we enter the online world.” This is the premise on which we embark on a new research project related to one of the fundamental rights under threat in a networked society: access to knowledge.

In Latin America, paper textbooks coexist with digital technologies, but for the most part these digital resources are not yet an essential part of education systems. Despite efforts to foster the pedagogical use of information technology, in Latin America there is currently more emphasis on connectivity issues. Without adequately addressing the challenges to connectivity, the educational ecosystem is wasting real opportunities to boost the adoption and implementation of appropriate technologies.

Open education promotes knowledge as a public good based on the following elements: redistribution (sharing with others), remixing (combining resources to create new content), free reuse of whole or partial educational materials with proper attribution, the ability to revise resources in order to make modifications, enhancements, and adaptations according to context, and peer reviewing to ensure resource quality.

As described in the report, the increasing availability of Open Educational Resources open up a range of possibilities for the countries of the region that are still depending on a high level of negotiations between state educational systems and the publishing industry. But while many governments do not have the technological capabilities to facilitate the realization of human rights, the recommendations of important instruments such as the Paris Open Educational Resources (OER) Declaration can be a useful tool to prompt political and social change within the educational systems in Latin America. According to the Paris OER Declaration, Open Educational Resources include any teaching, learning and research materials which are in the public domain or released under an intellectual property license that allows for free use, adaptation and distribution.

The report was commissioned by the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science in Latin America and the Caribbean. It will be released on Thursday and published under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license. The report seeks to identify and analyze public policy and the investment and expenditure that the governments of Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay and Uruguay have committed for the development and procurement of textbooks, books and digital content for primary and secondary education (K-12).

Because the purpose of Open Education Week is to raise awareness about the movement and its impact on teaching and learning worldwide, we invite you to be part of the webinar. The event will be a dialogue on open education issues in the region with the participation of Carolina Rossini, OER expert from Brazil, Juan Carlos Bernal from the Ministry of National Education of Colombia, and Patricia Diaz and Virgina Rodes, who are members of the Uruguayan OER community. In addition to these speakers, a Creative Commons and UNESCO representatives will join the talk, as well as the group of researchers from Fundación Karisma who developed the report.

Webinar details:

• Date: March 13, 2014
• Time: 5:00 pm (Bogotá, UCT-5)
• Place: Watch for the webinar link on our social networks: Twitter @karismacol, Facebook Fundación Karisma, and our website: karisma.org.co

This post originally appeared via Fundación Karisma, a civil society organization based in Bogotá, Colombia. The organization supports and promotes access to information and communication technologies in Colombian and Latin American society.

Today, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition organized a Congressional briefing on Open Educational Resources (OER) for Open Education Week. One speaker, Daniel DeMarte, described the experience that Tidewater Community College has had in rolling out it’s “Z-Degree” – an associate degree in business administration that uses a curriculum composed of entirely of OER.

Tidewater identified 21 courses and signed up faculty members to design the curriculum.  They started with the desired outcomes for each of the courses, and then built the curriculum with OER materials that would meet those outcomes. Developing the curriculum took about 12 months. One year into the program, the early results are highly positive.

The OER degree program had two goals – to eliminate cost as a barrier, and to improve teaching impacts. The textbooks for an associate’s degree in business administration normally cost $3679, which is about a third of the cost of the degree from Tidewater.  Adoption of OER reduces these costs to zero. Students and instructors alike are happy with the quality of the OER materials used in the classes. 96% of the students enrolled in the courses have rated the quality of the OER content as equal to or better in quality to the textbooks used in other classes.

DeMarte would like to see other schools follow their lead.  Tidewater intentionally developed a model that can be reproduced.  All of their curriculum materials are openly available under a Creative Commons Attribution License, and there is a wealth of additional open resources available.  Tidewater staff and faculty have made at least 12 presentations to others in the last month promoting these types of programs.

He said there are a number of key things that are necessary to make an open OER degree program work:

• Commitment from the organization to provide the necessary resources to build the curriculum.
• Engagement from the faculty, who must be willing to venture into unfamiliar territory. At Tidewater, Prof. Linda Williams played a key role in making the degree a reality.
• Engagement with the larger OER community.  Tidewater worked with Lumen Learning to set up this degree program
• A key role for librarians to work with the staff and faculty
• Continuous effort to fine tune and improve the program

After the panel, Michael Carroll and I talked briefly to DeMarte, who discussed how he wants others to adopt OER.  He told us “I don’t want to hear any more about students who didn’t take a course because they couldn’t buy the book.”  Down the road he would like to see a repository of Open Educational Resources that evaluates what exists based on student outcomes, and that identifies gaps in OER offerings for others to fill.

 

De Blender Foundation, de Nederlandse stichting die open source graphics- en animatiesoftware ontwikkeld, is een crowdfunding campagne gestart om een lange animatiefilm te maken. Project Gooseberry brengt hiervoor twaalf indie-animatiestudio’s over de hele wereld samen. De campagne loopt van 9 maart tot en met 19 april en het doel is om tienduizend donateurs te krijgen en daarmee een half miljoen euro binnen te halen.

Blender brengt jaarlijks korte films uit om de mogelijkheden van zijn open source software tentoon te stellen. Deze films zijn net als het gehele Grooseberry-project beschikbaar gesteld onder Creative Commons-licenties.

Donaties zijn mogelijk vanaf 20 euro, en vanaf 45 euro krijg je toegang tot de Blender-Cloud. Hier worden de donateurs op de hoogte gehouden van de voortgang van het project en kunnen zij meekijken achter de schermen en een bijdrage leveren. Wordt donateur, kijk mee achter de schermen en draag bij aan het project en de ontwikkeling van animatiesoftware.

W dniach 10-15 marca 2014 na całym świecie odbywa się będzie Tydzień Otwartej Edukacji. To wydarzenie wzorowane na Tygodniu Open Access jest  poświęcone dostępności zasobów edukacyjnych. Możecie wziąć udział w wielu wydarzeniach, głównie online, zarówno międzynarodowych (wszystkie na głównej stronie Tygodnia) oraz polskich, które organizuje Koalicja Otwartej Edukacji.

Tydzień Otwartej Edukacji w Polsce…

Koalicja Otwartej Edukacji zaprasza do zadawania pytań dotyczących problemów związanych z prawem autorskim w edukacji. Od 10 do 15 marca zbierane będą pytania, na które odpowiadać będą eksperci Koalicji. Specjalną stronę stworzyła również Bibliosfera.net, która zbiera pomysły na akcje w bibliotekach do zorganizowania w ramach Tygodnia. Niektóre biblioteki przygotwały już całkiem aktywny program np. Nowohucka Biblioteka Publiczna organizuje aż 3 wydarzenia w swoich filiach.

i na świecie

Spośród kilkudziesięciu webinariów i dyskusji online polecamy Waszej uwadze webinarium poświęcone wersji 4.0 licencji Creative Commons w edukacji (w środę, o 19:00 czasu lokalnego w Polsce) oraz całotygodniową dyskusję na temat planów Komisji Europejskiej na otwartość edukacji w szkolnictwie wyższym.

Creative Commons去年提供獎助申請，希望讓各司法管轄創用CC授權推動組織提出各自著眼的推動構想與執行方案。目前各地都有些提案及進展，其中亞太區域獲選者有：日本、紐西蘭、台灣。這裡是日本目前的狀況。

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I’m very excited to be speaking at South by Southwest tomorrow along with Scott Belsky of Behance, Sofya Polyakov of The Noun Project, and Eric Stover of Autodesk. Each speaker represents a community of designers that use open content or licenses in some way. I’m sure it will be a fascinating discussion.

For people coming to this blog post from the talk, here are some links you might like:

• Slides from the panel
• Featured CC Platform: Behance: My interview with Scott from a couple years ago, where he discusses why Behance users have so fully embraced CC licenses.
• Sofya Polyakov / Team Open: Sofya explains why open licensing is integral to The Noun Project’s business model.
• Autodesk invites users to remix its content: Our blog post from last year about Autodesk adopting CC licenses for all of its training content.
• Open Design Now: Online and print anthology about open design. Very fun read.
• Fiat: The Case for Letting Your Customers Design Your Products: Article in Inc. from a few years ago about Fiat’s CC-licensed car.
• CC in design: expanding your team of collaborators: My notes from a previous panel on open licensing in design.

After the panel, I’ll add a link to the slides.

Już od poniedziałku trwać będzie kolejny międzynarodowy tydzień otwartej edukacji, w ramach którego możecie wziąć w wielu akcjach i wydarzeniach (zwłaszcza w masie ciekawych webinariów)

1. Polskie otwarte epodręczniki nadal goszczą w mediach. Alek Tarkowski dla PAP mówi tym dlaczego otwarte zasoby edukacyjne (w tym epodręczniki) napędzają ewolucje w edukacji m.in. poprzez zmianę modelu, w których tradycyjnie wydawane podręczniki ograniczały innowacyjność nauczycieli.

2. Getty Images, jedna z największych światowych agencji fotograficznych zdecydowała się na zezwoleniem użytkownikom na niekomercyjne umieszczanie części zdjęć z kolekcji na stronach WWW. Choć brzmi to rewolucyjnie to szczegółowe warunki korzystania z tych zdjęć są niestety nadal bardzo restrykcyjne (należy korzystać ze specjalnego narzędzia do embedowania) oraz nie dają żadnych gwarancji bezpieczeństwa i trwałości licencji.

3. David Wiley proponuje rozszerzenie definicji otwartych zasobów edukacyjnych i wzmocnienie w niej praw posiadania i kontroli nad kopią (Retain – the right to make, own, and control copies of the content; prawo do zapisania, posiadania i kontrolowania kopii). Wiley uważa, że taka rozbudowa jest konieczna wobec wydawców, którzy mimo otwierania licencji na zasoby, które dystrybuują, równocześnie wprowadzają ograniczenia techniczne dla kopiowania czy archiwizowania treści.

4. OER Research HUB przygotowuje mapę wpływu otwartych zasobów edukacyjnych na świecie, zbierając dane, przykłady i i projekty z całego świata. Tutaj można dodać informacje za pomocą prostego narzędzia.

5. OERu (University) po kilku miesiącach od powstania publikuje swoje ambitne plany na najbliższy rok m.in. współpracę z kilkoma uczelniami bycie mentorem podczas Google Summer of Code. W Europie fundacja stojąca z OERu będzie współpracować z projektem badań nad otwartą edukacją Komisji Europejskiej eMundus.

6. Economist pisze o Wikipedii, jej przyszłości i niepokoju jaki wywołuje spadek edytorów w większości języków.

7. Czy otwarte OpenStreetMap może pokonać Google Maps? Ostatnie lata pokazały nie tylko siłę wolontariuszy stojących za OSM, ale również wewnętrzną umiejętność społeczności do wprowadzania zmian i podnoszenia jakości map, więcej na łamach The Next Web.

8. Wokół MOOC-ów (Massive open online course) narastają kolejne wątpliwości i konflikty (potrzebne by ta forma edukacji online wyrosła z bycia jedynie trendem o ciekawej nazwie) poza główną dyskusją o otwartości MOOC-ów (tylko część z nich używa otwartych licencji) kolejnym jest do kogo należą prawa do treści kursów?

Kristina Alexanderson / CC BY-NC-SA

Getty Images recently announced that it will allow free noncommercial embedding of 35 million of the images in its stock photography database. This is a good step toward better supporting a variety of users. Getty is clearly seeing its images appear across the web anyway, so it’s decided to go down the embed road, similar to how other content providers like YouTube handle the media they host. By requiring embedding, Getty will be able to track where its photos are being used online, and reserves the right to display advertisements. The announcement demonstrates a general understanding that Getty needs to meet users halfway in providing content in ways that is affordable, useable, and aligned with how people wish to share online today. At the same time, users may run into roadblocks in using Getty content, and openly-licensed resources could provide a straightforward alternative.

The Getty Images terms of use say that users can “only use embedded Getty Images Content for editorial purposes (meaning relating to events that are newsworthy or of public interest)”. Creative Commons-licensed images can be used for any purpose, by anyone, anywhere around the world, as long as the user follows the terms of the license. But no CC license dictates that a piece of licensed content may only be used for a specific purpose–editorial or otherwise.

The Getty terms also state that images “may not be used … for any commercial purpose (for example, in advertising, promotions or merchandising) or to suggest endorsement or sponsorship…”. The British Journal of Photography, in an interview with Getty Images representative Craig Peters, clarifies Getty’s interpretation of the boundaries of noncommercial use.

Blogs that draw revenues from Google Ads will still be able to use the Getty Images embed player at no cost. “We would not consider this commercial use,” says Peters.

Creative Commons has maintained a static definition of noncommercial use in its licenses over the years (which has earned its share of criticism). In license version 4.0 “NonCommercial means not primarily intended for or directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation.”

Another difference between the Getty Images embed service and Creative Commons-licensed images is that Getty would reserve the right to revoke its embedded photographs at any time. Its terms of use state that the “availability may change without notice. Getty Images reserves the right in its sole discretion to remove Getty Images Content from the Embedded Viewer. Upon request, you agree to take prompt action to stop using the Embedded Viewer and/or Getty Images Content.” So unlike even the most restrictive Creative Commons license (which permits verbatim noncommercial copying with attribution), Getty Images requires an HTML embed which it solely controls. When images are licensed under Creative Commons licenses, downstream users are granted more permissive rights. As stated in our Frequently Asked Questions:

The CC licenses are irrevocable. This means that once you receive material under a CC license, you will always have the right to use it under those license terms, even if the licensor changes his or her mind and stops distributing under the CC license terms.

Finally, the Getty terms prohibit uses “outside of the context of the Embedded Viewer”, which means that you can’t use the Getty images in remixes, videos, or really anywhere that doesn’t use embeds. On the other hand, CC-licensed images permit reuse in any medium. The licenses grant users authorization to exercise their rights under the license “in all media and formats … and to make technical modifications necessary to do so.”

It’s good that Getty Images is providing free online access to millions of images. But the advantages of CC-licensed photos is clear: users can’t have the content pulled out from underneath them, the images can be used for any reason in any format, and in many cases images are licensed for broad reuse and modification. And remember, there’s a huge trove of Creative Commons-licensed images out there too (not to mention millions of photographs in the public domain for use without any restrictions whatsoever!). Flickr now contains over 300 million CC-licensed photos. Wikimedia Commons hosts over 20 million multimedia files (a large proportion which are openly-licensed photographs being used on Wikipedia). Or even check out Google Images or Bing to easily discover CC-licensed images.

Bassel Khartabil is a Syrian-Palestinian computer engineer who, through his innovations in social media, digital education, and open-source web software, played a huge role in opening the internet in Syria and bringing online access and knowledge to the Syrian people. Many people reading this blog know Bassel through his work as lead for CC Syria. He was arrested in March of 2012 in Damascus, and has been detained ever since.

The second #FreeBassel Day will be held globally on March 15, marking the second anniversary of his imprisonment and the third anniversary of the beginning of the Syrian uprising.

If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, come join the SF open community on #FreeBassel Day SF at the Wikimedia Foundation offices in downtown San Francisco. In addition to sharing art, music, food, and stories about Bassel, we will be hosting a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon in honor of him. Bassel is a Wikipedian himself, so we’ll be working on writing and improving articles on topics that he cares about (and might be editing now if he weren’t in prison). Such topics include: Syria, computers, technology in the MENA region, open source web development, and peace (to name a few). Learn more about Bassel in his own words and the words of friends here and here.

No Wikipedia editing experience is necessary – just bring your laptop, and seasoned Wikipedians will be there to provide guidance in copy-editing, article creation, and sourcing. And friends and colleagues of Bassel will be there to tell you more about him and his work.

We’ll have an informal potluck, including food and beverages sourced from the #FreeBassel Cookbook V.1, a collection of recipes from friends and supporters of Bassel, collected by The Big Conversation Space and sponsored by Aerbook. Please bring something to share.

We’ll also be sharing art and media created by #FreeBassel supporters, including Disquiet Junto #FreeBassel and Letters for Bassel.

Details

• Date: Saturday, March 15
• Time: 12–4 pm
• Location: Wikimedia Foundation offices (149 New Montgomery Street, 3rd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105)
• Event: An edit-a-thon, pot luck, and more! Learn how to contribute to Wikipedia and collaborate with others to show your support for Bassel.
• Hashtag: #freebassel

Thomas Margoni van het Instituut voor Informatierecht, partner van Creative Commons Nederland, heeft een onderzoekspaper gepubliceerd over recht voor ontwerpers en de verschillen ervan binnen de Europese Unie: Not for Designers: On the Inadequacies of EU Design Law and How to Fix It. Het artikel gaat in detail in op de relatie tussen modellen- en tekenrecht en auteursrecht in de Europese Unie en hoe je succesvol Creative Commons-licenties kan toepassen op je producten.

Het gebruik van open content licenties zoals Creative Commons zorgt voor een ecologie van delen en creatie van kennis en informatie. Creative Commons-licenties zijn echter niet op alle gebieden van het intellectueel eigendom van toepassing. De 4.0 versie van de Creative Commons-licenties zijn van toepassing op het auteursrecht, naburige rechten en het databankenrecht. Gebruik van Creative Commons-licenties op werken die beschermd worden door andere intellectuele eigendomsrechten of aanverwante rechten kan problematisch zijn. Een goed voorbeeld hiervan zijn de verschillende rechten die van toepassing zijn op producten van ontwerpers. Het gebruik van Creative Commons-licentie is vaak wel mogelijk, maar er zijn situaties zijn meer handelingen nodig is om te verzekeren dat het product goed gelicenseerd is.

De publicatie laat maar weer eens zien dat het auteursrecht in Europa  niet geharmoniseerd is en door zijn complexiteit niet in dienst staat van creatieve makers. Alle publicaties van onze partners over Creative Commons zijn op onze pagina ‘juridisch onderzoek‘ te vinden.

Yesterday the European CC Leads have under their regional identity CC Europe responded (PDF) to the ‘Public consultation on the review of the EU copyright rules’, run by the EU Commission through its Internal Market and Services Directorate. Like several other groups, the CC Leads have stressed the need for more robust and flexible exceptions and limitations throughout the region, especially regarding transformative uses in general and educational uses in particular. They also urge the EU Commission to find ways for copyright law in Europe to better recognize creator’s wishes to contribute to the ‘voluntary Public Domain’ through legal tools like CC0. They also highlighted once more the fact that CC Licenses are a patch for certain aspects of the copyright system but not a fix that substitutes legislative action. According to the Commission, all responses to the 80 question consultation will be published at some point in the future.

Die alternative Verwertungsgesellschaft Cultural Commons Collecting Societ (C3S) und die Musikplattform Jamendo haben zusammen einen Sampler rausgebracht, der nur Creative Commons lizenzierte Musik enthält. “Pass the mic!” enthält 18 Lieder aus diversen Genres und zeigt, welche musikalische Vielfalt und Qualität CC-lizenzierte und GEMA-freie Musik zu bieten hat. Bei Jamendo kann man alle Songs einzeln oder als Album herunterladen.

Hier kann man reinhören:

Wir wollen netzpolitik weiter ausbauen. Dafür brauchen wir finanzielle Unterstützung. Investiere in digitale Bürgerrechte.

Communia has responded to Public Consultation on the review of the EU copyright rules that closes today. While we wait for the Commission to publish all the responses on its own website (given that we are hearing about more 10.000 responses so far this will likely be quite a challenge) we have uploaded our response here (pdf).

In our response we call for a radical overhaul of the European Copyright rules. In line with our 2011 policy recommendations we argue for a shortening of the copyright term, the introduction of a registration system, more harmonization of the limitations and exceptions (with the final goal of a single European copyright code), and a strengthening of user rights via a robust set of limitations and exceptions that ensure access to our shared knowledge and culture online. In addition to broadened or new exceptions for cultural heritage institutions, educators, researchers, people with disabilities and private individuals we also call for the introduction of more flexibility by adding an open norm to the list of existing exceptions.

We are very pleased to see that there has been a massive response from citizens and civil society organisations to this consultation. While the content of these responses is only known to the Commission at this point, the amount of responses clearly proves that the Commission’s strategy to limit the discussion about copyright policy to an intra-industry discussion about licenses is no longer sustainable. Europe needs a new set of copyright rules that embrace the opportunities created by the digital age, and this discussion needs to include citizens and civil society as important stakeholders. As far as Communia is concerned this discussion needs to focus on maximising the social and economic benefits of the internet instead of facilitating specific internet based business models.

2014年3月4日 第二十四期

2013CC年大事记之“开放学校”
	2013年开放学校社区（the School of Open community）完成了许多令人惊叹并足以载入年终大事记的事情。2012年，我们强调开放学校实体化，即通过目标设定和鼓励人员参与的实体工作形式。2013年，成功推出开放学校项目，推出了全套在线课程并在世界各地举办了各种庆祝活动！ 阅读全文>>
网络的功能
	苏丹政治漫画家Khalid Albaih通过拓展他的艺术创作范围来吸引新的读者。“如果人们热爱他们所从事的工作，并且希望他们的作品能被更多人所了解，那他们应该支持知识共享；如果人们渴望与来自世界各地的人合作创造美好的事物，那他们也应该支持知识共享……这些就是我们应当做的，也是互联网所具有的重要功能。” 阅读全文>>

古生物学数据库使用CC“署名”协议
	经过一年的团体反馈和讨论，古生物学数据库决定采用国际版CC4.0协议，数据库中所有资料将采用“署名”许可协议。 阅读全文>>

联合国教科文组织发起知识共享性质的开放性智囊库
	联合国教科文组织宣布了全新的开放性智囊库，使超过300种电子报告、书籍和文章能够在知识共享政府组织间开放协议框架下，为全世界所享用。 阅读全文>>

了解更多关于知识共享CC的相关消息请访问： CC中国大陆项目网站：http://cn.creativecommons.org/ CC总部网站：http://www.creativecommons.org/

（本文系与Shanan Peters教授共同创作之成果，Shanan Peters教授来自美国威斯康辛大学地球科学学院，为Paleobd项目负责人）

经过一年的团体反馈和讨论，古生物学数据库决定采用国际版CC4.0协议，数据库中所有资料将采用“署名”许可协议。

古生物学

对化石进行描述和生物学分类的古生物学，引发了大规模的实地考察、博物馆参观，相关出版物更是数不胜数。数据库建设的不断推进，不仅极大地拓展了人类对古生物的认识，还引发了有关“大规模物种演变和宏观生态平衡的进程”的诸多新见解。数据库基于一定的方式对化石的描述性信息进行汇总，该种方式旨在解决诸如在全球气候变化的过程中，长期的生物多样性进程、物种起源及灭绝等问题。

古生物学数据库

古生物学数据库（PBDB）是包含大规模化石数据汇编信息的数据库之一，由John Alroy 和Charles Marshall于1998年创建。这两位先驱者召集、成立了一个由科学家组成的小组，并鼓励他们制作第一版取样标准且在地理上具有清晰坐标的全球生物多样性曲线图表。

由此，古生物学数据库（PBDB）发展成为一个拥有多种研究议程和超过150名科学家志愿加入的国际性团队。总的来说，这个由志愿者及提供支持的研究团队历时九年，录入了超过28万个生物分类名称、近乎50万个基于这些名称的类别和层级的公共观念，以及超过110万个在分类过程中的意外发现。一些古生物学数据库（PBDB）的数据源自志愿者最初的实地调查和基于样本的研究，但是大多数数据是从超过4.8万已出版的论文、书籍、专著中的文本、图形及表格中提取出来的，这些论文、书籍和专著的论题大多被古生物学所涵盖。这些努力在新兴科学的适用中得到了肯定。截止到2013年12月，古生物学数据库（PBDB）已发行了两百种经同行审评的正式出版物，这说明不依赖于这样一个数据库，科学问题无法得到充分有力的回答。

采用CC“署名”许可协议的原因

最初，古生物学家对数据录入投入了很多精力，就数据管理和访问规则提出了一些观点，这些观点对适当的授权和印证激发了很多争论。最初的古生物学数据库（PBDB）申请许可政策，是由每个志愿者对其汇总的化石数据，自己选择所适用的CC协议。这样就造成了三种志愿者：一种志愿者不知如何选择、不关注或者不了解新政策的要求——必须对现有记录的许可情况予以详细说明，这种志愿者占55%；另一种占34%的志愿者选择了最严格的协议；第三种志愿者则选择了最宽松的许可协议，这种志愿者占统计数据的10%。

随着对数据库关注度的提高，这些通过社会媒体和其他渠道所收集到的消极反馈通过领导方式和管理方式的转变，而被逐渐接受。管理阶层也随之对相关领域的反馈予以回应。在CC协议的选择上，志愿者迈出了第一步。许多志愿者并不了解CC协议，对于他们的个人意愿及变更许可协议所带来的影响也未进行深思熟虑。这就使得较为严格的许可协议转向了最为宽松的许可协议：CC“署名”许可协议。多数志愿者的个人选择趋向了最为宽松的许可协议，改变了数据库中记录的平衡。在该种情况下，一个志愿者选择了严格的许可协议，管理层会迅速对数据库采用统一许可协议：CC“署名”许可协议。现在，CC“署名”许可协议作为数据库规则之一，使得所有的新纪录得以明确适用。当然每个志愿者仍然有权在他们个人公开的新数据上标注中止符号，以保护他们在科学上的权益。

古生物学数据库（PBDB）的未来

除了作为古生物学领域的科学资产外，在迅速崛起的数据平台完善上，古生物学数据库（PBDB）连同相关数据库开辟了另外一种渠道。为了扩大其在该种领域的范围，古生物学数据库（PBDB）采用了应用编程接口（API），使得数据访问更为简便明确。应用编程接口（API）的适用既有利于研究者个人，也有利于诸如网络应用程序PBDB导航及曼科斯iOS移动应用程序等程序。这些建立在API之上的应用程序使得生命环境学的存档历史更为清晰明了。

该种具备交互性、可视性的新型模式体现了古生物学数据库所具备的潜在价值。采用API的古生物学数据库对于开放式集合及生物学和古生物学的数据库初步规划和线上资源提供了便利。这些初步规划和线上资源既彼此关联又各自独立，主要包括Neotoma古生物学数据库、morphobank及生命百科全书等。非古生物学研究领域的地理学家也可以利用该种古生物学数据库，从而推动了古生物学数据与其他不同类型数据的汇总及输出，例如GPlates的地球版块漂移和地球物理学的模型。自由便捷的CC“署名”许可协议确保了新兴基础学科的交互性及其数据访问的必要性，这意味着与之前通过单一网站或应用程序访问数据相比，CC“署名”许可协议使得古生物学的研究范围扩大到一个包含研究者和教育者在内的、更为宽广的领域之中。

相关链接：http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/41216

翻译：李智

BioMedical Central （BMC）是全球最大的开源出版商，它拥有超过250种同行评议的开源期刊和每年超过10万份开源文章。长期以来，BMC都通过采用CC协议完成其使命“降低开源成本，促进科技开源”。

去年6月，BMC高管Hrynaszkiewicz and Matthew Cockerill发表了一篇名为“默认开源”的评论文章，他们提出在同行评议的开源研究和数据中采用著作权协议和弃权协议。该文章主要内容如下：

“全球范围内，有关科学数据的著作权和许可事宜十分复杂，由此造成数据共享、合并和再利用的法律障碍，并阻碍科学知识有效传播与发掘。采用CC协议和CC0（弃权）协议的开源期刊将向用户，从读者到机器，清楚地解释如何合法使用相关数据；这样开原文章和研究数据将被更高效地使用。”

为了更好地实现其使命，2013年9月3日，BMC采用CC0协议。CC0消解了公共领域内作品共享和再利用的所有障碍。优质的科学资源通过不断引用增加价值，几个世纪以来，很多科学家都采纳这种做法。采用CC0意味着放弃作品所有权益并鼓励再使用，尽管CC0的推广使用也遇到一些困难，将CC0设为默认协议将在一定程度上消除不确定性，加速科学数据的获取、整合、参与和分享。

2014年2月3日，BMC数据库中的“Chemistry Central”和“SpringerOpen”系列期刊都开始采用最新的“CC BY 4.0”协议。该协议条款曾在2013年11月25日进行修改。随着CC4.0协议的使用，BMC不仅更加可信赖，增强了全球认可的开源标示，同时为未来的科学开源设定了标杆。

作为BMC的倡导者，知识共享为它们在科学开源领域做出的贡献表示赞赏，祝愿BMC能开创一个坚实且充满活力的科学开源时代。

相关链接：http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/41329

翻译：刘萍

苏丹政治漫画家Khalid Albaih通过拓展他的艺术创作范围来吸引新的读者。“如果人们热爱他们所从事的工作，并且希望他们的作品能被更多人所了解，那他们应该支持知识共享；如果人们渴望与来自世界各地的人合作创造美好的事物，那他们也应该支持知识共享……这些就是我们应当做的，也是互联网所具有的重要功能。”

YouTube名人Jonathan Mann，每当他的作品激励他人创新时，他都为此感到兴奋和骄傲。“当许多人了解我从事的工作后，他们会告诉我他们希望自己不论是什么工作都可以从中收获更多。他们希望更多地挖掘到自己的创造力。”当然，Jonathan Mann也发掘出了自己的创造力。他开始每天录制一首歌曲，通过CC许可协议发布到网上，任何人都可以再利用或混录这些歌曲，这一行为吸引了全球众多关注的目光。

插画家和社会活动家Miyoung Yi希望向韩国艺术家展示共享的价值。在韩国，她用自己经CC授权的插画传递了信息分享这一理念。“知识共享”理念能为成功另辟蹊径，这条路有别于庞大的投资、大公司和支柱产业的参与。

让我们同Miyoung Yi，Jonathan, Khalid以及成千上万的创作者肩并肩，支持的“知识共享”理念，被分享的艺术创作是最美的。你可通过链接向知识共享捐款：https://donate.creativecommons.org/?utm_campaign=2013fund&utm_source=blog5&utm_medium=blog， 感谢关注！

相关链接：http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/41505

翻译：闫冀骎

2013年开放学校社区（the School of Open community）完成了许多令人惊叹并足以载入年终大事记的事情。2012年，我们强调开放学校实体化，即通过目标设定和鼓励人员参与的实体工作形式。2013年，成功推出开放学校项目，推出了全套在线课程并在世界各地举办了各种庆祝活动！

但我们做的远不止这些。这一年来，CC志愿者一直以各种精彩的方式致力于推进开放学校项目。接下来，我们将尝试着对这些活动进行整理和总结，并以此作为2014年开放学校“登录页面”的预告。

开放学校最引人注目的变化在于，它不再仅仅是一套运行于P2PU平台（Peer to Peer University platform）的在线课程。它是一个全球性的社区和一项志愿者开发、运行各种在线课程的运动，内容涵盖综合课程、研讨会和现场训练课程。一切旨在通过开放资源和工具，帮助人们更好地完成他们的工作。

2013年，CC开放学校大事记：

1.推出了12门可供公众随时获取、个人或团队学习均可的独立课程。

2.共开展了11门相关话题的课程引导，如为教育工作者的版权（Copyright 4 Educators）、设计协作研讨会（Designing Collaborative Workshops）、开放科学（Open Science）、 CC许可（CC licensing）、如何编写维基百科（Writing Wikipedia Articles）和为什么要进行开放运动（Why Open）等话题。

3.对某些课程的效果进行了初步研究，同位于英国米尔顿•凯恩斯（Milton Keynes）的开放教育资源研究中心（the OER Research Hub）一起完成了一项研究实习。

4.举办多个研讨会和课程冲刺，并在5大洲的一些国家（像英国，德国，肯尼亚，中国，苏丹，阿根廷，南非，美国等）举行了其他的活动。

5.开办了开放学校（School of Open Kenya）肯尼亚项目，这是一种向高中生开放的课后课程，内容涉及开放教育资源，CC许可协议以及由此产生的开放文化。

6.为中国大学生举办了一场涉及开放资源和普及CC理念的“工程与设计挑战赛”活动。

7.为中国浙江省温州市洞头县鹿西岛上的孩子，组织了一场为期两周的开放教育资源夏令营活动，详情可阅读博客文章。

8.推出了维基项目开放（WikiProject Open），这是由经验丰富的新维基人组成的社区，致力于完善维基百科对开放信息资料（all things “open”）的覆盖，并通过使用获得许可的素材，提高维基百科文章的质量。

9.开设了开放学校之“如何写作维基文章”的课程，该课程被采纳为一门正式的大学课程（如，密西西比大学开设的“开放教育资源及其实践”）。

10.为我们开设的7门课程先导进行了P2PU徽章（P2PU badges）试点。举例来说，对使用开放教育资源徽章（Remix OER badge）和介绍科学开放获取徽章（Intro to Open Science Open Access badge）进行了考核。

11.建立了开放教育空间的人类时间表（human timeline of the open education space），我们希望人人都参与进来！

12.帮助将Mozfest 会议“跨开放空间的合作”（ collaborations across the open space）模式转换为兼职岗位模式，该模式有助于协调各开放社区的工作

13.为课程主持人开发支持资源（support resources），其中包括一个综合的提示表，而每个课程主持人享有95%的保留率。

14。创建了一些在线会议视频，如K-12教育工作者（kindergarden to 12th grade educators）和开放埃德周（Open Ed Week）创建的视频。

15.2013年知识共享全球峰会在布宜诺斯艾利斯举行，会上对开放学校项目的CC分支机构进行了介绍。

更多内容，请详阅CC博客： http://creativecommons.org/tag/school-of-open。

2014年，我们将进行以下几项工作：

1.我们在三月份将推出第三轮课程引导，注册通道开通时，请参见注册须知。

2.改进开放学校的登陆页面，以便更好地反映我们的活动内容的丰富多彩。

3.打造出多语种课程。到目前为止，志愿者们纷纷表示有兴趣将课程翻译为西班牙语、罗马尼亚语、印度语、瑞典语、汉语、韩语、荷兰语、法语、阿拉伯语、德语、葡萄牙语、丹麦语、芬兰语、希伯来语……

4.将现有培训计划扩大到其他地区，例如，我们希望在加纳，尼日利亚和坦桑尼亚开展类似于“开放学校肯尼亚”的类似项目。

5.在南非、哥伦比亚、乌拉圭、萨尔瓦多、阿根廷及其他地方开展新的课程和培训计划。

6.与其他开放组织伙伴多合作，如开放知识基金会（OKFN）、Mozilla基金会、维基媒体和 P2PU（Peer to Peer University）等。

7.开展更多研究工作，完成同“开放教育资源研究中心”的联合研究报告。

8.让更多开放学校课程（SOO courses），被采纳为正式的大学课程。

9.与加州学校图书馆馆长协会（CSLA）合作推广CC和加强K-12学校中(kindergarten to 12th grade school)对开放教育资源的教育。

10.举办更多的研讨会，特别是 将SOO志愿者联系起来，开发新项目的研讨会。

11.为开放学校留下比2012年更多影像记录。

要做的事还有很多，恕不赘述。我谨代表开放学校社区祝您假期快乐和新年新气象！

如果您想加入我们，竭力在所有开放事物上提供免费的教育机会的话，你可以在开放学校之谷歌团队（School of Open Google Group）里进行自我介绍，然后报名，最后参加一门到三门课程的考核，即可。

(关于开放学校:  开放学校是一个全球性的志愿者社区，专注于在数字化时代，为公众提供有意义的内容、有影响的应用并扩大“开放”的内涵。这样将对内容创造者、教育、科研等相关领域产生积极影响。志愿者开发并运作的课程，涵盖知识共享许可协议、开放教育资源和分享创造成果的网上课程，也包括线下研讨会和现实生活中的训练课程。开放学校是由CC和P2PU共同创办，后者是一个开发和运行的免费在线课程的平台。)

相关链接：http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/41423

翻译：毛玫洁

联合国教科文组织宣布了全新的开放性智囊库，使超过300种电子报告、书籍和文章能够在知识共享政府组织间开放协议框架下，为全世界所享用。

摘自联合国教科文组织新闻报道：

“目前，智囊库涵盖了12种语言的作品，包括重要的联合国教科文组织报告和关键的研究性出版物。同300种开放性出版物一样，联合国教科文组织将为其余数百种重要报告和文章提供在线获取通道。（这一智囊库）覆盖了来自地球不同区域的各类主题，通过知识共享协议发布，这些知识可以被普通公众、专业人员、研究者、学生和政策制定者所分享。”

在2013年四月被采纳的全新开放性政策的指导下，联合国教科文组织将运用过去精选的出版物以及所有的新作品，扩大其对开放性资源的搜集。自2013年7月起，新的联合国教科文出版物将采用知识共享政府组织间开放性协议之一进行发布，并被载入到开放性智囊库中。大部分的联合国教科文组织资源将在“署名-相同方式共享”协议框架下被公开地许可。

联合国教科文组织推行在2012年巴黎公开教育资源宣言（翻译）中也对此做法予以称赞和鼓励：

“d. 促进对开放性许可协议框架的理解和使用；

g. 鼓励在多元化语言和环境背景下开放教育资源的发展和采纳；

i. 使得发现、检索和分享开放教育资源变得便捷；

j. 鼓励那些使用公共资金创造的教育资源进行开放性许可。”

通过对其出版物的开放性许可，联合国教科文组织不仅使得其所创造的知识自由、开放地为全世界所享用，同时也为其195个成员国（和9个附属成员）在开放许可协议框架下，发布公共资助资源的“强有力的政策性主张”提供了重要的参考。它传达了明确的信息，即：开放许可政策将有力促进教育、研究、科学及文化资源共享，降低公众接触成本，这种做法值得鼓励。

相关链接: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/41265

翻译：吴双

Last week, friends alerted me that one of my online artwork was used by a Facebook page owner without crediting me.

The artwork was licensed under a Creative Commons ATTRIBUTION license. All the user had to do was credit me and he would be free to modify, repurchase, even sell the image. I did not specify any specific way for attribution. As long as the user made a reasonable attempt, it would have been fine.


But the page owner didn't credit me. My name in the image had also been cropped out.

I wrote the FB page owner a private FB message. In it, I identified myself as the image creator and I requested (not demanded) that he remove the image. I explained that my image was created as a subtle protest against the commercial harvesting/ exploitation of civet cats half-digested coffee beans. His Facebook page was, ironically, promoting the sale of "Kopi Luwak" coffee beans.

There was no response after 2 days, so I left a public comment on the (modified) image he posted in his page album. I gave him the benefit of doubt that he might have missed my mail. My comment only asked if he had received my message. I did not want to embarrass him by publicly saying he had (inadvertently or otherwise) infringed on my rights.

A day later the comment was deleted.



Now, CC licenses cannot be revoked. If the fella had credited me in a reasonable way, all would have been dandy.

Once you apply a CC license to your material, anyone who receives it may rely on that license for as long as the material is protected by copyright and similar rights, even if you later stop distributing it.
Source: wiki.creativecommons.org/Considerations_for_licensors_and_licensees#Irrevocability

Under CC (or CC-BY, in my case), even if I was uncomfortable with my image used that way, he still had every right to reuse it. I respected that right. That said, it was also within my rights to ask that I am not credited with the image if I felt strongly about it.

The CC-FAQ covers this issue quite clearly:

What can I do if I offer my material under a Creative Commons license and I do not like the way someone uses it?

As long as users abide by license terms and conditions, licensors cannot control how the material is used. However, CC licenses do provide several mechanisms that allow licensors to choose not to be associated with their material or to uses of their material with which they disagree.

First, all CC licenses prohibit using the attribution requirement to suggest that the licensor endorses or supports a particular use. Second, licensors may waive the attribution requirement, choosing not to be identified as the licensor, if they wish. Third, if the licensor does not like how the material has been modified or used, CC licenses require that the licensee remove the attribution information upon request. (In 3.0 and earlier, this is only a requirement for adaptations and collections; in 4.0, this also applies to the unmodified work.) Finally, anyone modifying licensed material must indicate that the original has been modified. This ensures that changes made to the original material--whether or not the licensor approves of them--are not attributed back to the licensor.

Source: wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#What_can_I_do_if_I_offer_my_material_under_a_Creative_Commons_license_and_I_do_not_like_the_way_someone_uses_it.3F

Had he bothered to discuss with me, I would have explained CC to him, and what were his rights were as well.

But his intentions was obvious by that time. I reported to Facebook with necessary details. Facebook took down the image fairly quickly.

What happens if I offer my material under a Creative Commons license and someone misuses them?

A CC license terminates automatically when its conditions are violated. For example, if a reuser of CC-licensed material does not provide the attribution required when sharing the work, then the user no longer has the right to continue using the material and may be liable for copyright infringement. The license is terminated for the user who violated the license. However, all other users still have a valid license, so long as they are in compliance.

Under the 4.0 licenses, a licensee automatically gets these rights back if she fixes the violation within 30 days of discovering it.

If you apply a Creative Commons license and a user violates the license conditions, you may opt to contact the person directly to ask them to rectify the situation or consult a lawyer to act on your behalf. Creative Commons is not a law firm and cannot represent you or give you legal advice, but there are lawyers who have identified themselves as interested in representing people in CC-related matters.

Source: wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#What_happens_if_I_offer_my_material_under_a_Creative_Commons_license_and_someone_misuses_them.3F

The version 4.0 CC license goes a step further to say:

Modifications and adaptations must be indicatedIn the 4.0 license suite, licensees are required to indicate if they made modifications to the licensed material. This obligation applies whether or not the modifications produced adapted material. As with all other attribution and marking requirements, this may be done in a manner reasonable to the means, medium, and context. For example, "This section is an excerpt of the original." For trivial modifications, such as correcting spelling errors, it may be reasonable to omit the notice... ...Source: wiki.creativecommons.org/License_Versions#Modifications_and_adaptations_must_be_marked_as_such

REFLECTIONS
If you really, really want to protect your work, or the intent behind your work, against such IP violations, the surest way is NOT to share anything online. Or share it anywhere, for that matter. But that's impractical and also give rise to a false sense of security. For instance, if you licensed your work in a legitimate contractual agreement (e.g. artwork in a poster for public display), how can you possible ensure that others will not take handphone pictures of your work and make unauthorised copies?

The key issue here is really about discovery (or lack of) IP rights violation and subsequent enforcement. E.g. costs of pursuing legal action. But such an issue existed long before CC came into the scene. You may not adopt CC for your work, and you would still face this issue when someone uses your work without your permission.

For me, the great thing about CC is that there is greater clarity of rights and obligations. With CC, and of course the prep work done by the folks who maintain the CC FAQ and licenses, there's less room for ambiguous interpretations compared with the typical Copyright legalese. I was very clear on the steps to take, and confident that I had the CC terms to refer to (Note: CC is not an alternative to Copyright; CC is built on the foundations of Copyright).

Will this incident stop me from licensing my art and music under CC? No, not at all. I'm reminded of these lines of poetry from the poet Rumi: "Do not burn a blanket because of a flea..."

Will I be uncomfortable if the said party reinstates the image, with credits to me? Ultimately, no. Anyone who is that obtuse -- as to use a image that is AGAINST the business he/ she is in -- is either a genius or someone who does not warrant my time or attention. I believe there are enough people who have benefited from CC licensed works and are using them correctly. Besides, once I've made a decision to license a work under CC, I can and will only look ahead.

What if the said party re-posts the modified image, this time with attribution? Doing it out of spite, perhaps.

I've no problem with that. Because CC (version 4.0) allows the "violation" to be rectified within 30 days. Still, my rights do not change. I can accept the attribution, or ask for the attribution to be removed. If the user does not comply with that, it is a violation of terms.

Knowing that such conditions are attached to CC-licensed works gives me that additional assurance on what my rights are, if I find that my intent (conveyed through the work) has been misrepresented.

How I would pursue the matter is, of course, a separate decision.

Increasingly, in a vastly connected world, there are also social norms to contend with. Enforcement is not always about the law. It will be obvious to people that someone's goodwill has been taken advantage of.

As they say, (online) reputation is everything.

This is part three of a five week series on the Affiliate Team project grants. So far, you’ve heard from our affiliates in Africa and the Arab World. Today, we’re showcasing projects in our Asia-Pacific region, including open data workshops from Japan, a media studies textbook from New Zealand, and software tools and guidelines for public domain materials from Taiwan.

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Japan: Workshops and Symposium for Open Data in Japan
by Puneet Kishor (project lead: Tomoaki Watanabe)

Last year in June, the CC Japan Affiliate team (CCJP) hosted by CommonSphere, won a grant to hold three workshops and a public symposium on the use of CC tools (licenses and the CC0 Public Domain Dedication) in the context of open data. The aim of the workshops was to respond to informal inputs from government and other stakeholders on their implementation of CC tools in the context of open data, a new frontier of openness in the last few years in Japan. The team was planning to invite involvement from Japanese national and municipal government agencies and Open Knowledge Foundation Japan.

The first event was a workshop at Information Processing Agency, IPA, an independent administrative agency discussing open data licensing. The panel involved a member of Open Knowledge Foundation Japan as well. The whole session was video-recorded by the IPA staff, and it is now available online, along with presentation materials. The attendance was mostly government officials and the agency staff, around 50 people, and an attendant survey indicated a reasonable success.

The second meeting was held among key figures related to open data and other relevant initiatives, as invitation-only discussions on licensing and other legal issues. CCJP provided logistics support and expertise. It was decided by the attendants that the discussion will remain informal and unpublished.

The third was a symposium to discuss implementation issues of open data, including licensing issues organized by the third party, Innovation Nippon, a joint project between Google Japan and GLOCOM. Both CCJP and OKF Japan helped with pre-event publicity and provided expertise. It featured and was attended by local government officials and municipal law makers, along with business people and academics. The event was videocast and the archive is available already, along with the slides.

The team also responded to an important emerging development – Japanese national government is revising terms of use for government web sites. Creative Commons Japan’s interest has been to present benefits of interoperability with Creative Commons licenses, and ways to achieve that.

The discussion is still ongoing, and some are concerned about potential “undesirable” use of government information, which may lead to a non-interoperable terms of use. The Japanese government may lean towards more liberal and interoperable approach if a few of the following happen:

1. Political will, however, key politicians are not necessarily expected to support liberal licensing allowing use that goes against public order.
2. Evidence, anecdotal or scientific, showing that more liberal licensing results in better outcomes. However, such evidence is not abundant, and some government agencies have very specific uses in mind that may make them hesitate.
3. Evidence showing other governments of developed countries are doing things differently from what Japan is doing or planning to do. UK, FR, US, AU, NZ all are CC-BY compatible or use a CC-BY license. Their licensing all seem to be open in the Open Definition sense. Japan may result a bit differently.
4. Prospective users actively asking for a change.

The challenges faced by the team so far have been 1) the above-mentioned development away from CC tools and 2) the lack of availability of licensing and editing talent on a more stable basis.

The team is in talks with a local government to hold at least one more workshop to discuss licensing issues as they relate to local governments. The symposium was originally planned to be at the end, but given the emerging development above, it may be timed differently.

New Zealand: Media Text Hack
by project lead Matt McGregor

In the middle of 2013, a few New Zealand academics and librarians began to toss around an exciting-but-preposterous-sounding idea: what if they could hack a media studies textbook in a weekend, and then release the results to the world under an open Creative Commons license?

The social benefit – the why – was clear. With textbook prices continuing to rise (and rise) well above inflation, and student debt levels ballooning, the Pacific region desperately needs a new model for producing and distributing educational resources. As Dr Erika Pearson, who led the Media Text Hack project, put it, “Textbooks currently available for New Zealand first year students are often produced overseas, usually the US, and can have a cripplingly high price tag.”

The how was a bit more difficult. Academics and librarians are already rather busy people, and the process of building and managing a team of contributors is labor intensive, with plenty of emailing, documenting, cat-herding, and problem-solving. Thankfully, with the help of a $4000 affiliate grant from Creative Commons, the team could hire a project manager — Bernard Madill — to help build the network of contributors, document progress, and make sure the hack weekend progressed smoothly.

Cut to 16-17 November, 2013: the team, largely made up of early career researchers from across New Zealand and Australia, got together and successfully produced the ‘beta’ version of the textbook. For the last few months, they have been progressively editing and re-editing content, to ensure that the textbook is classroom ready in time for the first down-under semester, which starts in late February.

As the book is shared, edited, and reused by students and teachers across the world, the team will incorporate new ideas, explanations, and examples, producing a text that can be hacked and re-hacked over the years ahead.

This is new territory: while there have been a few textbooks hacks in other disciplines – including this inspirational group of Finnish mathematicians – this is of the first (to our knowledge) of this kind of text-hack in the humanities.

For this reason, the team is putting together a parallel ‘cookbook’, to enable other projects to understand what worked – as well as what did not work – about the project. This will be released in the first half of 2014, and will hopefully inspire other projects around the world to attempt open textbook projects of their own.

The team is hopeful that open textbooks will become more prevalent in public higher education. As University of Otago Copyright Officer Richard White, a core member of the text-hack team, puts it, the open textbook marks a return to the “core principles of academia: sharing knowledge, learning from, and building on the work of others.”

Taiwan: Practices and Depositories for The Public Domain
by project lead Tyng-Ruey Chuang

The project “Practices and Depositories for The Public Domain” (PD4PD) aims to develop software tools and practical guidelines to put public domain materials online more easily. This is a joint uptake of the GNU MediaGoblin project [1], NETivism Ltd. [2], and Creative Commons Taiwan [3], with the latter coordinating the team effort. The overall project goal is to firm up access to and reuse of the many digital manifestations of public domain cultural works by means of replicable tools, practices, and communities.

Tools: The plan is to extend the functionality of the GNU MediaGoblin software package so as to make it more suitable for hosting large collections of public domain materials. For this purpose, new features have been suggested to add to GNU MediaGoblin to help users self-hosting their media archives. These features include batch upload of media (with proper metadata annotations), customizable themes and pages, and an “easy install” script (to install GNU Media Goblin itself).

Practices: The plan is to develop guidelines and how-to on self-hosting public domain materials. Two versions are planned: One in English and the other one in the Chinese language used in Taiwan. An educational website on the public domain, and self-hosting, is also planned.

Community: The plan is to outreach to content holders in Taiwan, and to work with them in releasing some of their holdings to the public domain. It will be demonstrated by a website using the tools mentioned above.

This six-month project started in December 2013 and plans to finish in June 2014. The GNU MediaGoblin project has been focusing on tool development while NETivism Ltd. is concentrating on community outreach. Creative Commons Taiwan is working on practical guidelines. Several interns have been recruited to help with this project.

[1] http://mediagoblin.org/
[2] http://netivism.com.tw/
[3] http://creativecommons.tw/

Przed linkami przypomnienie o trwających do 5 marca unijnych konsultacjach dot. reformy prawa autorskiego, jak wziąć w nich udział i dlaczego warto polecamy przeczytać we wpisie Alka Tarkowskiego na blogu Centrum Cyfrowego i kilkunastu innych blogach biorących udział w akcji blogerów zachęcających do konsultacji m.in. Edukator Medialny, Prawo Kultury, Michał Kowalski w NaTemat.

1. 25 lutego br. Rada Ministrów przyjęła Sprawozdanie z realizacji Rządowego programu rozwijania kompetencji uczniów i nauczycieli w zakresie stosowania technologii informacyjno-komunikacyjnych “Cyfrowa szkoła”. Na bazie wniosków z pilotażu (które prowadziło MEN i MAiC) przedstawiono rekomendacje dla wieloletniego programu rządowego. Wnioski, które wiele ekspertów zmuszą do powtarzania “a nie mówiłem” to m.in sugestia, że “przed podjęciem szerokich działań na rzecz cyfryzacji szkół przydatne byłoby opracowanie i upowszechnienie materiału zawierającego kilka proponowanych sposobów wykorzystania TIK w edukacji wraz z określeniem wiążących się z nimi wymagań dotyczących zaopatrzenia w sprzęt i oprogramowanie”. Skrót sprawozdania w serwisie Edukacja i Dialog, pełne na stronach MEN.

2. Tymczasem Gazeta Prawna bada jak powinien działać rynek podręczników szkolnych wg. rodziców. Artykuł choć przedstawia propozycję rządową jako nieakceptowaną społecznie, to już same dane prezentują dość ciekawe wnioski: Niewielka jest różnica między popierającymi jeden podręcznik (28%) od popierających zakup przez szkoły jednego z kilku podręczników (34%). Dość dziwnie jako alternatywę do tych opcji dano e-podręcznik (14%), który jest formą podręcznika a nie modelem jakich zmianę proponuje rząd.

3.  Jeśli otwarte epodręczniki wydają wam się nieuniknioną lub dobrą alternatywą to przeczytajcie artykuł o historii i planach Boundless. Ten amerykański serwis tworzący otwarte epodręczniki i płatne usługi wokół nich po ugodzie z wydawcami pod koniec ubiegłego roku nadal świetnie się rozwija.

4. Prof. Lawrance Lessig  wygrał proces z australijskią wytwórnią o wykorzystaniem klipów z popularnej piosenki zespołu Phoenix w wykładzie, który został później umieszczone w Internecie. Liberation Music, która reprezentuje Phoenix w Nowej Zelandii, twierdziła że klipy naruszało prawa autorskie, zażądał od YouTube usunięcia wykładu a następnie groził pozwem prof. Lessigowi. Sąd uznał, że wykorzystanie wideo i publikacja wykładu w sieci mieściła się w ramach dozwolonego użytku i nakazał Liberation Front poprawienie mechanizmu zgłaszania naruszeń.

5. W tym samym tygodniu prof. Lessig udostępnił na licencji CC BY-NC swoją ostatnią książkę “Republic, lost” poświęconą korupcji i systemowemu zepsuciu relacji między biznesem a władzą w USA.

6. W wolnym czasie jeden z programistów Google postanowił stworzyć serwis uczenia się przez działanie. Oppia.org ma symulować nauczanie indywidualne z nauczycielem poprzez tworzenie “interaktywnych dialogów” czyli odpowiedzi  sugestii tego co uczeń może zrobić dalej wg jego wyników. Narzędzie wg. twórców może ułatwić nauczycielom pracę, a uczniom pomoże w nauce online dzięki przyśpieszaniu informacji zwrotnej. Kod Oppia.org jest otwarty, a wszystkie lekcje jakie są dodawane są na licencji CC BY-SA. Tu możecie przeczytać dłuższą recenzję serwisu.

7. Mike Caulfield (wiele lat działający w Opencourseware Consortium) i Tim Owens i zapowiadają nowy produkt na rynku otwartych zasobów edukacyjnych. Jeszcze nie do końca wiemy czym ma być Federeted OER Wiki, ale po twórcach można spodziewać się wiele.

8. W czasie trwania kampanii “Możesz to zrobić lepiej niż chomik” promującej otwarty dostęp polecamy rozmowę Elizabeth Dzeng z Sydney’em Brennerem (profesorem medycyny i laureatem nagrody Nobla w 2002 z medycyny) eksplorującą to jak aktualny model wydawniczy w nauce hamuje jej rozwój.

9. Na koniec: serwis obsługujący BitTorrent FrostWire uruchomił nowe funkcje dla udostępniających w nim pliki: można teraz łatwo określić w nim licencję Creative Commons dla swoich plików oraz włączyć możliwość przekazywania dotacji w wirtualnej walucie Bitcoin.

2014年1月20至23日，知识共享中国大陆项目志愿者参加了由清华大学经济管理学院顾学雍教授发起的第四次跨学科系统集成设计挑战（Xtreme Learning Process，以下简称XLP）活动。

什么是XLP？

从宏观层面上来讲，地球村的逐渐形成，“多元化”一词已愈来愈耳熟能详。就学术领域而言，在经历闭门造车、“互不干涉”的阶段后，早已在世界发展一体化浪潮中冲破桎梏，进入到一个互相交叉、融合的新阶段。各学科的研究在不断深化的同时，也不断地扩张着自己的“触角”，跨学科研究终“千呼万唤始出来”。而XLP便是跨学科研究中的一道亮丽的风景线。

XLP主要分为任务方和挑战方，挑战方成员来自中国人民大学法学院、清华大学法学院、清华大学经管学院、北京理工大学、北京大学、台湾清华大学等院校具备不同专业背景的教授和学生，在立足于各自专业的基础上，共同设计了一系列挑战任务，如完成3D全息投影仪、制作活动微电影等。而任务方——清华大学力学班及其他院系共60名同学需要在XLP的80个小时内依次完成上述挑战任务。所谓极限学习过程（Extreme Learning Process）由此可见一斑。

XLP中的CC协议

相较于其他业已成熟的权利概念，知识产权虽然年轻但发展迅速，俨然一副“后生可畏”的模样。而CC作为知识产权共享的先驱者也越来越被人所熟知。作为CC大陆的成员的顾学雍教授与CC大陆负责人王春燕教授十分希望将CC协议引入到本次XLP活动当中，使得CC精神得到更好的传播。因此在本次XLP活动里，我们鼓励任务方在完成任务的过程中，就其作品选择CC协议的适用。为了更好地促使任务方了解、使用CC协议，我们除了在活动开幕式时向任务方对CC进行介绍外，也通过XLP评分机制，对在其作品上标注CC协议文本标志的任务方予以一定加分。

在XLP初始阶段，任务方同学忙于应对繁杂任务而忽略了CC协议的适用，甚至很多同学对CC的概念都一知半解，加之任务方的成员多是理工科背景，对法学，对知识产权了解不够，从而造成了CC协议被“束之高阁”、“无人问津”。之后通过CC志愿者耐心地介绍和讲解，并且随着对CC协议的适用与分数相挂钩的评分规则的形成，有效地调动了任务方的积极性，前来问询CC的同学络绎不绝，我们也很高兴地看到在之后的作品中标注了CC-BY协议。

知识产权与XLP

在XLP这种具有虚拟空间性质的系统集成活动中，根据需要设置了相应的银行、市场，以及法院、专利局等机构。由CC成员负责的法院、专利局其主要宗旨在于定纷止争、明晰产权归属、解决纠纷。秉持此种宗旨，我们依据我国现行的民事诉讼法制定了一套为XLP量身定做的诉讼规则和程序；根据我国现行的专利法设计了专利申请及驳回、专利授予以及主张专利无效等制度和程序。

除了努力做到让XLP活动“有法可依”外，“法官”、“专利局工作人员”在受理申请与诉讼的过程中也做到了“有法必依”。根据XLP法院与专利局的信息汇总，在此次活动的80个小时里，法院一共接到起诉14次，其中成功受理的达到7次，专利局的信息则更为丰富，共接收到专利申请多达42次，其中成功授予专利的发明达18个。在短短的80个小时内，这些之前不具备法学及知识产权背景的同学从一知半解到运用法律武器、通过规则维护了自己的合法权益，可谓跨出了一大步。有意思的是，就XLP法院反馈的信息来看，成功受理的7次起诉中所有被告都是XLP挑战方的不同成员，这使得这些诉讼饶有一丝“行政诉讼法”的意味。

此次XLP不同于以往三届的一个明显特征在于彻底地运用了GIT分布式数据库，使得包括挑战方与任务方在内的所有操作都必须通过 GIT实现数据的线上化，确保了数据的精确性及来源。此外，XLP通过将法学、力学、物理、计算机、教育学等多种看似“风马牛不相及”的学科汇集起来，得到的结果远不止简单相加，这对于不同学科的跨学科理论和实践、CC的发展与完善都大有裨益。XLP是跨学科学习与教学一次成功尝试，它的存在及运行为其他科学及跨学科研究提供了很好的借鉴，跨学科研究与实践的潜力不可估量。同时，作为此次活动重要的参与者，知识共享中国大陆的志愿者们也将继续关注和参与XLP,促进CC理念在中国的传播和运用。

文：李智  图：王德宇