CC News: Why Creative Commons must succeed

Elliot Harmon, May 29th, 2014

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Ryan Merkley / Rannie Turingan / CC0

Why Creative Commons must succeed

“Why am I joining CC? Because its success is so vital, and I want to ensure we succeed. Creativity, knowledge, and innovation need a public commons – a collection of works that are free to use, re-use, and build upon – the shared resources of our society. The restrictions we place on copyright, like fair use and the public domain, are an acknowledgement that all creativity and knowledge owe something to what came before.”

CC is proud to welcome its incoming CEO, Ryan Merkley.

• Australia’s premier public scientific research institute just released over 4000 photos under CC BY. Check out the ScienceImage library.
• The US White House’s new Open Data Action Plan embraces CC0 for open data.
• Are there too many video games about zombies? The organizers of the Public Domain Jam think so.
• Learn about Redactor, a new tool to replace All Rights Reserved images with CC-licensed ones.

NSF grantee opens up wind technology training materials for fellow grantees

Jane Park, May 28th, 2014

WindTech TV, a collection of wind turbine technician training materials and simulation modules, is now available under a CC BY license. Developed as part of a National Science Foundation (NSF) Advanced Technological Education project, WindTech TV’s modules are aligned with industry standards and designed to be integrated into two-year college wind technology programs to sustain workforce development in the field of wind power.

Modules are currently being used by community colleges across the United States, and Principal Investigator Phil Pilcher wants to expand that impact through reuse by other grantees, including those part of the U.S. Department of Labor’s $2 billion Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College & Career Training (TAACCCT) grant program.

“WindTechTV has always been free, but we think that the CC BY license will increase usage. One of our project goals is to disseminate the materials nationwide. The CC license lets instructors and administrators know that they can use our videos as they wish when they are developing and delivering courses. Also, TAACCCT grantees who are working on alternative energy courses will now be able to reuse our video content, which should speed up development.”

All modules are available at http://www.windtechtv.org and videos are available from WindTech TV’s YouTube channel.

Related

• US Department of Labor Invests in Open Educational Resources

Apply now to participate in the Institute for Open Leadership

Timothy Vollmer, May 23rd, 2014

Earlier this week, we kicked off the Open Policy Network. We announced that the first project within the Network is the Institute for Open Leadership. The Institute for Open Leadership is a training program to develop new leaders in education, science, public policy, and other fields on the values and implementation of openness in licensing, policies, and practices. The Institute is looking for passionate public- and private-sector professionals interested in learning more about openness and wish to develop and implement an open policy in their field.

Interested applicants should review the application information and submit an application by June 30, 2014. We plan to invite about 15 fellows to participate in the first round of the Institute for Open Leadership. The in-person portion of the Institute will be held in the San Francisco bay area in January 2015 (TBD: either January 12-16 or January 19-23). Applications are open to individuals anywhere in the world.

A central part of the Institute will require fellows to develop and implement a capstone open policy project. The point of this project is for the fellow to transform the concepts learned at the Institute into a practical, actionable, and sustainable initiative within her/his institution. Open policy projects can take a variety of forms depending on the interests of the fellow and the field where the project will be implemented.

Questions about the Institute for Open Leadership should be directed to opn@creativecommons.org. Our thanks to the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Open Society Foundations for funds to kickstart the Institute for Open Leadership.

The beginning of the Authors Alliance

Timothy Vollmer, May 22nd, 2014

Yesterday marked the launch of the Authors Alliance, a nonprofit organization that supports authors who want “to harness the potential of digital networks to share their creations more broadly in order to serve the public good.”

In an interview with Publisher’s Weekly, Authors Alliance founder Pamela Samuelson explained that the Authors Alliance will have a few different roles. Inwardly, the group will “provide authors with information about copyrights, licensing agreements, alternative contract terms,” and other practical legal information so that they can make their works widely and openly available. And externally, the Alliance will “represent the interests of authors who want to make their works more widely available in public policy debates,” and advocate for these reforms alongside like-minded public interest organizations.

The Authors Alliance was developed by Samuelson and several of her colleagues at the University of California Berkeley including Molly Van Houweling, Carla Hesse, and Thomas Leonard. The Alliance also has an advisory board made up of pre-eminent scholars, writers, and public interest advocates, including several members of the Creative Commons board of directors. The Authors Alliance is now accepting new members.

The Alliance has already developed a set of copyright reform principles, outlining its vision for changes to copyright law to support authors who write to be read.

We have formed an Authors Alliance to represent authors who create to be read, to be seen, and to be heard. We believe that these authors have not been well served by misguided efforts to strengthen copyright. These efforts have failed to provide meaningful financial returns to most authors, while instead unacceptably compromising the preservation of our own intellectual legacies and our ability to tap our collective cultural heritage. We want to harness the potential of global digital networks to share knowledge and products of the imagination as broadly as possible. We aim to amplify the voices of authors and creators in all media who write and create not only for pay, but above all to make their discoveries, ideas, and creations accessible to the broadest possible audience.

The principles include:

1. Further empower authors to disseminate their works.
2. Improve information flows about copyright ownership.
3. Affirm the vitality of limits on copyright that enable us to do our work and reach our audiences.
4. Ensure that copyright’s remedies and enforcement mechanisms protect our interests.

At the core, the Authors Alliance and Creative Commons share a similar goal: to provide useful resources and tools for creators who aren’t being served well by the existing copyright system. We’re excited to work with the Alliance on issues that support authors who write to be read–and the public interest for whom these authors create.

Show your support for imprisoned CC community leader Bassel Khartabil

Elliot Harmon, May 21st, 2014

Kalie Taylor / CC0 / Download all posters

If you follow this blog with any regularity, you’re likely already familiar with Bassel Khartabil, the Syrian CC community leader who has been in imprisoned since March 2012 without having had any charges brought against him. Thursday, May 22, is Bassel’s birthday, and the third birthday he’ll be spending in prison. This Saturday, he will have been in prison for 800 days.

Today, join CC and the open community in honoring our friend Bassel:

• Post a message for Bassel on Twitter with the hashtags #freebassel and #itsaboutallofus. In particular, people are encouraged to tweet between 13:00 and 16:00 GMT.
• Submit a photo or message of support to the #freebassel Tumblr.
• Print one of these beautiful posters by artist Kalie Taylor (CC0), or create your own, and distribute it in your community.

Read more

• On May 22, Say Happy Birthday To Bassel (Global Voices)
• Letters for Bassel
• Imprisoned internet pioneer Bassel Khartabil wins Index on Censorship Digital Freedom Award
• Free Bassel, Free Culture

French Ministry of Culture and Communication embraces CC licenses (and makes a cool video)

Elliot Harmon, May 21st, 2014

Aurélie Filippetti – Salon du Livre 2014 / ActuaLitté / CC BY-SA

In late 2013, we blogged about a set of initiatives that French minister of culture and communications Aurélie Filippetti had unveiled. Together, the initiatives represented a commitment to a more creative, more open France. And they also represented a strong commitment to helping students, cultural creators, and society as a whole understand and use Creative Commons licenses, in partnership with CC France.

Last week, the ministry announced that it was sharing its two flagships websites under CC BY-SA, culturecommunication.gouv.fr and culture.fr.

To help educate French-speaking populations on how to use CC licenses and find CC-licensed works, the Ministry and CC France produced this video. Watch it even if you don’t speak French: the excellent design and flow really speak for themselves.

Les licences Creative Commons by culture-gouv

FIRST Act moving ahead in US Congress

Timothy Vollmer, May 21st, 2014

Update: The amendment to Section 303 was adopted.

Can it be salvaged to promote public access to federally funded research?

In March we wrote about the introduction of the Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science and Technology Act of 2014 (FIRST Act). The aim of the FIRST Act is to promote the dissemination of publicly funded scientific research. But the contentious Section 303 of the bill rolls back some of the most common policies governing existing research investments.

If passed in its current state, the FIRST Act would extend embargoes to federally funded research articles to up to three years after initial publication. This means that commercial publishers would be able to control access to publicly funded research during this time, and the public would not have free public access to this research. Even the longstanding NIH Public Access Policy tolerates embargoes no longer than 12 months. 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.

The FIRST Act would allow grantees to fulfill access requirements by providing a link to a publisher’s site instead of requiring deposit in a federally-approved repository. Currently NIH research grantees must deposit in the PubMed Central repository. The reliance on publishers to make (and keep) the research available jeopardizes the long-term access and preservation of publicly-funded research in the absence of a requirement that those links be permanently preserved.

The FIRST Act would permit affected agencies to 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 Public Access Directive and Omnibus Appropriations Act.

The bill was previously was discussed in the subcommittee of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. The passage of the FIRST Act with the Section 303 language as-is would harm existing as well as proposed public access policies in the United States. Today during the full committee markup of the bill Representatives James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) will introduce an amendment that would improve Section 303.

The Sensenbrenner/Lofgren amendment would change the embargo to 12 months, with the possibility that under certain circumstances the embargo could be extended for an additional 6 months. The amendment still does not require that federally-funded research articles be deposited in an approved repository. But it would shorten the length of time agencies get to develop and implement their public access plans. Affected agencies would need to develop a public access plan and report to Congress within 90 days. And the plans would need to be implemented within a year. One interesting piece of the amended Section 303 is that after an initial three-month planning period, the agencies would be required to submit an analysis on whether covered works should be made available under an open license.

Such report shall include an examination of whether covered works should include a royalty-free copyright license that is available to the public and that permits the reuse of those research papers, on the condition that attribution is given to the author or authors of the research and any others designated by the copyright owner.

There’s still time for you to call members of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee and tell them to support the Sensenbrenner/Lofgren Section 303 amendment. The amendment is a step in the right direction to truly supporting public access to publicly funded research in the United States.

Seeds of Change

Puneet Kishor, May 21st, 2014

I received a fat packet in mail, full of seeds with unusual names—Magma Mustard; Flashy Lightning Lettuce; Lemon Pastel Calendula; Cherry Vanilla Quinoa—and an even more unusual but evocative note stuck on the packets.

This Open Source Seed pledge is intended to ensure your freedom to use the seed contained herein in any way you choose, and to make sure those freedoms are enjoyed by all subsequent users. By opening this packet, you pledge that you will not restrict others’ use of these seeds and their derivatives by patents, licenses, or any other means. You pledge that if you transfer these seeds or their derivatives they will also be accompanied by this pledge.

Welcome to the Open Source Seed Initiative, a group that includes scientists, citizens, plant breeders, farmers, seed companies, and gardeners, and has its origins in both the open source software movement and in the realization among plant breeders and social scientists that continued restrictions on seed may hinder our ability to improve our crops and provide access to genetic resources.

Jack Kloppenburg, Professor, Department of Community and Environmental Sociology, and one of the founders of OSSI, contacted me a couple of years ago, just around the time I joined CC full-time. He was hoping for a CC-type license for the seeds. CC’s focus, however, is restricted to copyright. And, at least for now, copyright is an area that keeps our hands full. However, OSSI’s goals are very much in line with CC’s mission, to free information, to make it flow from those who create it to those who want to use it, with least impedance. And, what better example of information than a seed in which the very blueprint of life is embedded.

Jack’s email signature reads, “Well,” she said, “you have a high tolerance for lunatics, don’t you?” Knowing Jack, that sounds about right. You’ve got to be crazy to be able to change the world.

Yes Jack, let’s talk, heck, let’s not just talk, but let’s actually collaborate and spread the seeds of change.

Launch of the Open Policy Network

Timothy Vollmer, May 19th, 2014

Today we’re excited to announce the launch of the Open Policy Network. The Open Policy Network, or OPN for short, is a coalition of organizations and individuals working to support the creation, adoption, and implementation of policies that require that publicly funded resources are openly licensed resources. The website of the Open Policy Network is http://openpolicynetwork.org.

Increasingly, governments around the world are sharing huge amounts of publicly funded research, data, and educational materials. The key question is, do the policies governing the procurement and distribution of publicly funded materials ensure the maximum benefits to the citizens those policies are meant to serve? When open licenses are required for publicly funded resources, there is the potential to massively increase access to and reuse of a wide range of materials, from educational content like digital textbooks, to the results of scholarly research, to troves of valuable public sector data. The $2 billion U.S. Department of Labor TAACCCT grant program is an example of a policy whereby publicly funded education and training materials are being made available broadly under an open intellectual property license.

There is a pressing need for education, advocacy, and action to see a positive shift in supporting open licensing for publicly funded materials. The Open Policy Network will share information amongst its members, recruit new advocates, and engage with policymakers worldwide. The OPN members are diverse in content area expertise and geographic location. Creative Commons is a part of the Open Policy Network because we believe that the public deserves free access and legal reuse to the the resources it funds. With simple policy changes — such as requiring publicly-funded works be openly licensed and properly marked with easy-to-understand licensing information — the public will be better able to take advantage of their rights to access and reuse the digital materials developed with taxpayer funds.

With today’s launch of the Open Policy Network, we’re announcing our first project, the Institute for Open Leadership. Through a weeklong summit with experts, accepted fellows will get hands-on guidance to develop a capstone project for implementation in their organization or institution. The Institute for Open Leadership will help train new leaders in education, science, and public policy fields on the values and implementation of openness in licensing, policies, and practices.

The Open Policy Network is free to join and anyone is welcome! More information on the Open Policy Network is available at the website, Google Group, Twitter, and Facebook.

Attention game designers: Public Domain Jam!

Elliot Harmon, May 16th, 2014

If you’re a videogame designer and you have nothing to do over the next week (or if making cool games is more fun than your day job), why not spend the week developing a public domain game?

The idea of The Public Domain Jam is to encourage developers to create games based on public domain assets and stories, and optionally give the games themselves back to the public domain via the CC0 waiver. The game trailer encourages designers to think about the amazing wealth of public domain source material: maybe in the next week, Ovid’s Metamorphoses will dethrone zombies as the most important source of game design inspiration in the public domain.

The contest is being organized by game developer Gritfish, and fellow game developer Nick Liow is sponsoring a $1000 prize for the best CC0 game.

If you recognize Nick’s name, it might be because I interviewed him last year about his Open Game Art Bundle. Since then, he’s released his own crowdfunded CC0 game, Nothing to Hide.

Hurry! The Public Domain Jam ends May 24.

Update (June 9): The judges have selected the best CC0 game, Paper Jekyll. It’s a really interesting take on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Check it out! Congratulations to everyone who built a game.