6th Creative Commons Newsletter
6th Creative Commons Newsletter
Legally
N E W S L E T T E R
http://creativecommons.org Issue No. 6 April 2008 1
2
CC Newsletter - Issue No. 6
Message
Dear All,
Over the past 10 months I’ve compiled and sent you newsletters that (to me) relay the most
interesting and informative links from the CC blog - a one stop (email) shop for current CC-
related news. But now that I have a number of these newsletters under my belt, I’m beginning
to wonder how I can make them better. So, in an attempt to improve the ccNewsletter, I’ve
decided to tweak the format. From now on, in order to provide you with a more comprehensive
overview of what we are working on here at CC, each newsletter will begin with an update
from one of CC’s projects. The first being Creative Commons International.
Contents
CCi News: Inside Scoop 24 Tone Releases Small Arm of Sea
3 Creative Commons International 25 German public broadcaster adopts CC license
Heaps of Positive Coverage for CC Licenses on German
CCi Events: Launches TV
6 Creative Commons Licenses Launch in India 26 Public Broadcasters Opt for CC
7 Launch of Creative Commons Switzerland 27 Revised Guidelines For International License Porting
8 Macedonian versions of Creative Commons licenses Process
presented 31 Asia and the Commons Case Studies 2008
9 Creative Commons Licenses Launch in Greece 32 Visit Planet Creative Commons
10 Luxembourg 40th Jurisdiction to Offer Ported Creative First CC-licensed Photography Contest in China
Commons Licenses 33 CC China Photo Contest
11 New Zealand Successfully Ports Creative Commons Panda Punk Lab: Inauguration in Chile
Licenses
12 Serbia announces ported licenses on Creative CC News
Commons’ fifth year 34 Creative Commons Announces New Leadership, New
13 Philippine Launch Celebration: a vibrant member of the Funding
global commons 35 Approved for Free Cultural Works
14 Puerto Rico Launches Localized Creative Commons 36 CC0 beta/discussion draft feedback and next step
Licenses CC Press Kit Relaunched
Creative Commons International (CCi) is a project of Creative • Launch of Swiss Creative Commons Licenses [audio
Commons that works towards linguistically and legally files] (http://www.archive.org/details/creativecommons_
adapting the Core Creative Commons licenses to copyright ch_2007_05_26)
legislations around the world. A dynamic, international
network of legal experts and policy-makers volunteer to Macedonia — June 19, 2007 in Skopje: Alongside
port and maintain the licenses in their jurisdiction. To date, the successful launch event attended by 120 visitors,
there are 44 jurisdictions with ported licenses, and six more Metamorphosis Foundation published the opening of the
scheduled to launch in 2008. This network consists of over Macedonian portal intended for encouraging e-content
200 active affiliate members from nearly 70 countries. development and their promotion.
Through coordination with CCi, these leaders promote • Macedonian versions of Creative Commons licenses
a culture of creativity and legal sharing in the digital presented (http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/content/
environment and beyond. view/929/26/lang,en/)
• Creative Commons Content Portal for Macedonia
This network of volunteers is one of the foremost reasons (http://www.cc.org.mk/)
behind the growth and dissemination of Creative Commons
and we are forever indebted to them for their work and
Greece — October 13, 2007 in Athens: The launch was
dedication to CC and the broader “open” movement. This
celebrated at the Ceremonies Hall in the University of Athens,
newsletter is dedicated to all of the affiliates. Thank you so
with a keynote address from Prof. Lawrence Lessig. The porting
much for your hard work, your dedication, and most notably
of the licenses to Greek law was headed by Legal Project
- your patience, as we figure out how we can best support
Leads Marinos Papadopoulos and Prodromos Tsiavos, with
you.
support from Public Project Lead Theodoros Karounos.
• Creative Commons Licenses Launch in Greece
Launches (http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7721)
• Greek Creative Commons 3.0 Launch [video] (http://www.
Nine jurisdictions successfully ported the Creative Commons
youtube.com/watch?v=G_GpEcIiqqc)
licensing suite in 2007-2008. The completion of the license
porting is celebrated at a launch event hosted by the local
jurisdiction project. Luxembourg — October 15, 2007 in Luxembourg: The
launch of the Creative Commons licensing suite at the Public
India — January 26, 2007 in Bombay: The Indian versions Research Center Henri Tudor (CRP) in Luxembourg marked
of the Creative Commons licenses were launched in the IIT the 40th jurisdiction worldwide to offer Creative Commons
Bombay’s auditorium in Mumbai, at a ceremony held as licenses adapted to national law.
part of the ‘IIT Techfest,’ IIT Bombay’s Annual International • Luxembourg 40th Jurisdiction to Offer Ported Creative
Science and Technology festival. Commons Licenses
• Creative Commons Licenses Launch in India (http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7737)
(http://creativecommons.org/press-releases/entry/7222) • CC-lu Launch Event 15.10 [program]
• Chitra Katha - Creative Commons Short Film Contest (http://www.luxcommons.lu/?page_id=60)
(http://cc-india.org/index.php?q=node/27)
Switzerland — May 24-26, 2007 in Zurich: The Swiss New Zealand — October 27, 2007 in Wellington: The
version of Creative Commons licenses were launched in launch was celebrated in Wellington at the National Library
Zurich at a ceremony held as the finishing highlight of this in cooperation with Te Whā¡inga Aronui The Council for
year’s Tweakfest, Switzerland’s Festival for Media, Culture, the Humanities. The event was followed by a free seminar
and Digital Lifestyle. The event was hosted by Digitale hosted by Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand on
Allmend in coopreration with Openlaw. the new licensing environment in the digital world.
• Launch of Creative Commons Switzerland (http://www. • Launch announcement
edri.org/edrigram/number5.11/creative-commons- (http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7768)
switzerland)
Launches
C reative C ommons L icenses
Launch in India
by Mia Garlick
26 January 2007
http://creativecommons.org/press-releases/
entry/7222
by European Digital Rights (EDRI) “We see the porting of Creative Commons licences to
6 June 2007 Switzerland as an important step - firstly because the swiss
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.11/creative- cultural movement will be able to contribute a variety
commons-switzerland of interesting works to a global creative community and
secondly in achieving a more balanced choice for creators
On 26 May 2007 the Swiss version of Creative Commons when deciding how their works is distributed and accessible.”
licenses were launched in Zurich at a ceremony held as the was the declaration of Martin Feuz from Digitale Allmend.
finishing highlight of this year’s Tweakfest, Switzerland’s
Festival for Media, Culture, and Digital Lifestyle. During the launch, Creative Commons Switzerland announced
several upcoming projects that plan to use the Swiss Creative
The launch was hosted by Digitale Allmend, a Swiss NGO Commons licenses, including netlabels (starfrosch.ch,
focused on access to digital information and creativity. sonicsquirrel.net), two online cultural TV channels (kulturtv.ch
Openlaw and Digitale Allmend are co-leading the Swiss and rebell.tv) or a video art website (lenarmy.ch).
Creative Commons project in a joint effort. With Switzerland,
the Creative Commons licenses are now offered in localized Creative Commons Switzerland
http://www.creativecommons.ch/
versions in a total of 37 countries around the world.
Digitale Allmend - News and videos from CC
John Buckman, Creative Commons board member and Switzerland launch
founder of magnatune.com, gave the keynote address, (German)
http://blog.allmend.ch/
explaining how he developed his website as a successful
example of a Creative Commons based business. Openlaw
http://www.openlaw.ch
There was live audio and visual performances by DJ Soult
Tweakfest
and VJ Set from Pixelpunx.ch who released a number of http://www.tweakfest.ch
works under the new Swiss Creative Commons licenses
that evening. Documentation:
Launch of Swiss Creative
Commons Licenses [audio files]:
Urs Gehrig from Openlaw explained the system: “The http://www.archive.org/details/
Creative Commons licensing system simplifies the exchange creativecommons_ch_2007_05_26
of cultural goods such as music, video, text and other
Podcast: John Buckman, Volker
creative media.”
Grassmuck at CC CH launch http://
blog.allmend.ch/2007/06/14/
stefanrechsteiner / Stefan Rechsteiner “John Buckman @ podcast-john-buckman-volker-
Tweakfest 2007” All Rights Reserved. http://flickr.com/photos/ grassmuck-am-cc-launch-ch/
macprime/515827669/
Interview Pixelpunx.ch - VJs and
Creative Commons Launch: http://
blog.allmend.ch/2007/06/02/
interview-pixelpunxch-vjs-und-
creative-commons-launch/
Launches
Macedonian versions of
C reative C ommons licenses
presented
by Metamorphosis.org.mk
19 June 2007
http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/content/
view/929/26/lang,en/
Darko Hristov. “joi ito creative commons macedonia”
In Skopje, on June the 19th, 2007, Mr. Joi Ito - chairman CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 http://flickr.com/photos/iofoto/570568949/
of Creative Commons promoted the Macedonian version
of the world famous licenses that enable the expansion of Mr. Mickoski and Mrs. Zdraveva outlined some of the
free culture. After adapting the licenses to the domestic legal specifics during the process of licenses localization, such
system, Macedonia became the 38th member country of the as the differences in the legal terminology; for instance, the
Creative Commons family. American term “license” means “Agreement for Non-exclusive
Transfer of part of the Copyrights” in Macedonian.
More than 120 visitors attended the presentation held in the
Holiday Inn hotel; opening statements were made by the Mrs. Pefeva outlined that the main reason for the success
translator of the licenses and the coordinator of this process - of Creative Commons in Bulgaria, which holds the second
Mr. Nikolche Mickoski from the Metamorphosis Foundation, position in the world with the number of licensed content, is
Mrs. Neda Zdraveva from the Faculty of Law - the expert for the great support from the authors provided by setting up
adapting the licenses to the Macedonian legislation, as well platforms for their mutual communication. The Government’s
as Mrs. Desi Pefeva, representative of the Internet Society decision to license the texts of the laws and publish them
Bulgaria, who shared the experiences of using the Creative in an electronic version was particularly positive, since they
Commons licenses in her country. were made available to the wider public.
Mr. Ito held an inspirational presentation regarding the Aside from localizing the appropriate section for issuing
main aspects of free culture which enables the sharing of licenses at the central Creative Commons website, the
knowledge and benefits of creative work via the Internet. He Metamorphosis Foundation published the opening of the
emphasized that the Creative Commons system is part of the Macedonian portal intended for encouraging e-content
copyright protection system, with which the communication development and their promotion – www.cc.org.mk. All
of the authors with their public is facilitated, as well as the e-content authors will be able to learn more about the
communication with other authors that want to use their work licenses through the portal, and they will be able to set links
as a basis for their own work. to their licensed works. The portal also provides hosting
to the authors that cannot publish their work on their own
Rejecting the classification of the free culture movement websites.
as an effort of idealistically liberal students and law
professors, he presented several examples of Creative See also:
Official promotion of Macedonian version of Creative Commons
Commons acceptation by commercial systems interested
licenses [from CC MK]: http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/
in providing better services to their clients. He outlined content/view/918/61/lang,en/
that the extensions in Flicker - photo database owned
by Yahoo, and in Microsoft Office, enable their clients Additional Activities:
• Macedonian translation of 11 Shakespeare plays under CC
to easily integrate and use the licenses. The preparation
license: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/8156
of a similar extension for OpenOffice is ongoing,
• Creative Commons Content Portal for Macedonia:
and the diversity of all the stakeholders indicates the http://www.cc.org.mk/
preparedness of Creative Commons to be an incentive
for the promotion of new approaches – for the benefit of
everyone. According to him, companies such as Apple -
with its iTunes and iPod, realizing that users who share
content, such as music over the internet, are not a threat
but actually a new market, are rapidly becoming world
leaders in this market.
Launches
C reative C ommons L icenses
Launch in Greece
About GRNET
The Greek Research and Technology Network (GRNET)
supports the research and development of Information
and Communication Technologies (ICT) within Greece
and internationally, through the provision of its high-
capacity networking and grid computing infrastructure, the
strengthening of e-Learning & e-Business practices, as well
as the participation in international research and education
efforts. GRNET operates under the auspices of the Ministry
of Development and is supervised by the General Secretariat
for Research and Development.
University of Athens, photo by yuankuei (http://flickr.com/photos/
please/) licensed under CC BY-NC-ND. (http://creativecommons.
Documentation:
org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/)
• Greek Creative Commons 3.0 Launch [video]: http://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=G_GpEcIiqqc
October 13, 2007 — San Francisco, CA, USA and
• Lawrence Lessig - Creative Commons in Greece [video]: http://
Berlin, Germany www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWFgVW6fjuk
• Creative Commons Licenses Lent a Greek Touch [3rd party,
Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization dedicated to not under CC, for reference]: http://cordis.europa.eu/greece/
building a body of creative work that is free and legal to news_rd185.htm
share and build upon, unveiled today a localized version of
its innovative licensing system in Greece.
With the Creative Commons’ project in Greece joining the focalpointx. “Creative Commons launch in Greece” CC BY-SA 2.0
effort, Creative Commons licenses are now being offered http://www.flickr.com/photos/7634692@N03/1688036668/
in localized versions in a total of 39 countries around the
world.
Launches
Luxembourg 40th Jurisdiction
to O f f e r P ort e d C r e at i v e
Commons Licenses
by Michelle Thorne founder and CEO of Magnatune.com and Board Member
15 October 2007 of Creative Commons, and Paul Keller, Project Lead for
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7737 Creative Commons Netherlands.
About Luxcommons
The non-profit Luxcommons was founded in 2005 with the
goals of promoting, researching, and developing of Open
Content. Thanks to funding from “2007, Luxembourg and
Greater Region, Cultural Capital of Europe,” the National
Cultural Fund and with the Support of the Technoport
Incubator (an initiative of the Henri Tudor Research Center),
Luxcommons was able to start transposing the CC 3.0
License to the Luxembourg jurisdiction. For the future, a
stronger linking of similar initiatives in the Greater Region
and stronger tie-ins with institutional partners is sought to
keep the Luxembourgish CC project on stable footing. For
Johann Paul Keller. “Sylvain” CC BY-NC 2.0 http://flickr.com/ more information about Luxcommons, please visit their
photos/johannpaul/1589830549/
website http://www.luxcommons.lu/.
October 15, 2007 -- San Francisco, CA, USA and
Luxembourg, Luxembourg Documentation:
• John Buckman: Creative Commons presentation in French in
Luxembourg:
The launch of the Creative Commons licensing suite today in [presentation slides & video]: http://blogs.magnatune.com/
Luxembourg marks the 40th jurisdiction worldwide to offer buckman/2007/10/creative-common.html
Creative Commons licenses adapted to national law. Creative • CC-lu Launch Event 15.10 [program from Luxcommons]:
Commons worked in collaboration with Luxcommons ASBL, http://www.luxcommons.lu/?page_id=60
a local non-profit for researching and developing Open • launch poster: http://www.luxcommons.lu/wp-content/
Content headed by Patrick Peiffer, to linguistically and uploads/2007/09/cc-poster_a3_colour.pdf
legally port the licenses to Luxembourgish law.
by Michelle Thorne
26 October 2007
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7768
The Project Lead in NZ, Dr. Brian Opie, worked with his
legal team under the auspices of Te Whainga Aronui The
Council for the Humanities[8] in collaboration with Creative
Commons to bring the licensing suite to New Zealand.
Additional Activities:
New Zealand Labour Party Goes Creative Commons : http://
gpollard.wordpress.com/2007/12/04/new-zealand-labour-goes-
creative-commons/, http://labour.org.nz/index.html
Carved Maori Pole, photo by dartio (http://flickr.com/photos/
Documentation: dartio) licensed under CC BY-NC-SA. (http://creativecommons.
Webcast & video files from launch: org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/)
http://www.r2.co.nz/20071027/
Endnotes
1 http://creativecommons.org/international/gr/
2 http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7721
3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_GpEcIiqqc
4 http://flickr.com/photos/karpidis/sets/72157602407496488/
5 http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7746
6 http://creativecommons.org/international/lu/
7 http://support.creativecommons.org/
8 http://www.humanities.org.nz/
9 http://www.creativecommons.org.nz/
vlidi/2124943357/
by Michelle Thorne
15 December 2007
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7911
December 15, 2007 — San Francisco, CA, USA and About Slobodnakultura.org
Belgrade, Serbia Slobodnakultura.org is an non-formal network based
in Belgrade. Acting as a kind of meta-organization
The much-anticipated global celebration of Creative coordinating different initiatives and actions by different
Commons’ fifth year is amplified today with the announcement individuals and organizations, it presents a collaborative
of the locally ported Creative Commons licensing suite in platform for discussing and conducting various projects. All
Serbia. In close collaboration with slobodnakultura.org, of it’s projects are formally being conducted trough one or
Wikimedia Serbia, and New Media center Kuda_org, the several of it’s member organizations with the formal status.
Creative Commons Team in Serbia, lead by Nevenka Antic, Creativecommons.org.yu is the part of slobodnakultura.
has successfully adapted the Creative Commons licenses org, and it helps in building the tools requested from within
both linguistically and legally to Serbian national law. the society in order to introduce different social codes.
Fundraising and management for the localization of the
The ported the Serbian licenses, available soon online, Creative Commons licenses is being carried out by Bureau
will be celebrated today in Belgrade at Dom omladine for Culture and Communication Beograd (birobeograd.
at 5:00pm CET. Speakers at the event include Slobodan info), a member of slobodnakultura.org network. For
Markovic from ICANN, Ivan Jelic & Desiree Miloshevich more information, please visit: slobodnakultura.org and
of the Free Software Network and the Internet Society, and creativecommons.org.yu
Marcell Mars from CC Croatia and MAMA.
About Wikimedia Serbia
The festivities will continue at the Cultural Center Magacin, Wikimedia Serbia, formed in 2005, is a non-profit
where guests will join the CC Serbia Team in greeting independent organization, based in Belgrade. It is included
the globally synchronized Creative Commons Birthday in the international network of non-profit and independent
Parties via webcast. The international birthday parties are organizations sharing the goals of free knowledge issues as
being coordinated by local chapters around the world to well as improving and participating in the global collection
commemorate Creative Commons’ fifth year in a series of of educational content under free licenses or in the public
celebrations culminating in San Francisco on December 15th domain. Wikimedia Serbia supports free knowledge
from 10pm-2am PST.
Serbian Launch > 15
Launches
Philippine Launch Celebration:
a vibrant member of the global
commons
Endnotes
1 http://creativecommons.org/international/ph
© 2008. Berne Guerrero. Some Rights Reserved.
2 http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7910
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ph/ Built upon the
works of: Beth Kanter (cambodia4kidsorg). “What A Second Grader 3 http://www.arellanolaw.edu/
Knows About Creative Commons”. BY 2.0 Generic; Peter Shanks 4 http://www.philippinecommons.org/
(BotheredByBees). “CC swag XI”. BY 2.0 Generic; Emil Alviola. 5 http://creativecommons.org/international/ph/
“scratch-this”. BY 2.0 Generic; and Creativecommons.org/about
6 http://www.philippinecommons.org/2007/12/13/cc-ph-soft-
launch-and-cc-5th-birthday/
Launches
P uerto R ico L aunches L oc alized C reative
Commons Licenses
Documentation:
• Public Launch of Creative Commons License in Puerto Rico
[from CC PR]: http://www.creativecommons.pr/?p=50
• CD of the CC PR launch [images, music, publications]: http://
pr.creativecommons.org/cd-de-lanzamiento/
• pics: http://flickr.com/photos/24156661@N02/
sets/72157603992681305/, http://flickr.com/photos/
joi/sets/72157603970631839/, http://flickr.com/
photos/24156661@N02/sets/72157603992681305/
Endnotes
1 http://www.luxcommons.lu/?page_id=60
2 http://www.tudor.lu/
3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Buckman
4 http://magnatune.com/
5 http://www.kennisland.nl/nl/mensen/paul/index.html
6 http://www.creativecommons.nl/
7 http://lkratz.blogspot.com/
8 http://www.jamendo.com/
9 http://www.bnf.fr/
Community and free knowledge projects building the cultural and social policy. Some of the main issues include
Community in Serbia and providing the projects in Serbian interpretation and analysis of the history and significance
language. The projects are coordinated by the Wikimedia of the information society, the potential of information itself,
Foundation, the non-profit parent organization of various and the diffusion of its influence on political, economic and
multilingual free content projects, such as Wikipedia, the cultural relationships in contemporary society. New Media
famous online encyclopedia, and Wikimedia Commons, Center_kuda.org opens space for both cultural dialog and
the repository for free video, images, music and other media. alternative methods of education and research. For more
For more information: rs.vikimedija.org. information: www.kuda.org.
Version 3.0
Version 3.0 Croatia goes live
Upcoming Jurisdictions
CC in Thailand: license draft CC Hong Kong begins public
in public discussion discussion
We are pleased to announce that the CC project in Thailand It’s with great pleasure to announce that the CC project
has entered the public discussion for their localized license in Hong Kong has entered the public discussion for their
draft.[1] At this time, we would like to invite members of the localized license draft.[1] We would like to congratulate
community to join the Thai team in discussing and reviewing the CC Team in Hong Kong, lead by Dr. Yahong Li and
their license draft, which includes a re-translation of the Alice Lee (The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law)[2]
license into English and an English explanation of substantial as well as Rebecca MacKinnon[3] (Journalism and Media
legal changes. Studies Center).[4]
For their progress thusfar, we would like to congratulate the Please feel invited to join the Hong Kong team in discussing
CC Team in Thailand, lead by Phichai Phuechmongkol[2] and reviewing their license draft and help the licenses to
and Worasete Phueksakon[3] of Dharmniti Law Office be adapted to Hong Kong law. The role of the discussion
(DLO); Sunit Shrestha from TRN Institute;[4] and Arthit is to start the public debate and to make the least amount
Suriyawongkul, Sirindhorn International Institute of of changes necessary to bring the licenses into accord
Technology,[5] Thammasat University. with Hong Kong law (http://wiki.creativecommons.org/
Worldwide_Overview). We expect the archived discussions
We look forward to a lively discussion! to serve as a history of this experience. That way, your input
will continue to be useful to anyone from any country even
after the discussion for Hong Kong is completed.
Endnotes
Endnotes
1 http://creativecommons.org/international/th/
1 http://creativecommons.org/international/hk/
2 http://thailandlawoffice.com/attorneys?q=node/21
2 http://www.hku.hk/law/
3 http://thailandlawoffice.com/attorneys?q=node/23
3 http://jmsc.hku.hk/cms/component/option,com_magazine/
4 http://www.trnlab.org/ func,show_article/id,21/Itemid,33/
5 http://www.siit.tu.ac.th/ 4 http://jmsc.hku.hk/cms/
Upcoming Jurisdictions
License drafts from Ecuador
& Norway enter public
discussion
by Michelle Thorne Dra. Patricia Pacheco Montoya and Abg. Verónica Granda
21 February 2008 González, with support from the Universidad Técnica
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/8046 Particular de Loja.[1]
by Michelle Thorne
24 January 2008
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7994
Communia > 47
by Jon Phillips
11 March 2008
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/8120
“Open Culture in CC” is the theme of the first CC Korea Creative Commons’ second “CCi Legal Day”[1] is scheduled
International Conference, [1] a day-long event to be held on for July 29, 2008.
Friday, March 14th at the National Museum of Korea (map).
[2]
At the iSummit 2008 in Saporro, Creative Commons will
again invite its international network of project leads and
The CC Korea[3] team, lead by Chief Project Lead Jongsoo teams to participate in a workshop about the legal and
Yoon, have organized the conference not only to celebrate international aspects of the Creative Commons licenses.
the 3rd birthday of CC Korea and its localized CC licenses,[4] Similar to last year’s CCi Legal Day, this special meeting will
but as a platform to promote Open Culture in Korea, both be held one day ahead of the actual iSummit events. With
qualitatively and quantitatively, by discussing case studies the increasing growth of Creative Commons worldwide,
and coordinating future projects. a structured discussion about policies, legal issues, and
questions about interoperability will prove both necessary
The program is divided into four tracks, covering topics such and fruitful.
as open access and peer review, case studies in public sector
content usage, Government Information Licensing Framework We hope that the CCi Legal Day in Sapporo will build upon
(GILF)[5] in Australia, and media tools for CC in businesses. the initiative that began in Rio de Janeiro and continued in
Dubrovnik, and that the event will help set the stage for further
Speakers at the conference include Creative Commons’ detailed collaboration on questions about the international
own Lawrence Lessig and Jon Phillips, John Wilbanks from Creative Commons licensing suite.
Science Commons,[6] Project Lead Brian Fitzgerald from CC
Australia,[7] and many representatives from Korean institutions The agenda will be opened in March 2008 with a call
including SuMyoung Lee (Ministry of Culture and Tourism),[8] for discussion topics. The CCi team is looking forward
SeungHoon Chun (Samsung),[9] iSuk Woo (Korea National to receiving your input and ideas in order to organise a
University), KyoungHee Jung (Hansung University),[10] successful and interesting day in Sapporo!
JungWook Seo (Korea National University), SungWook
Moon (KDI School of Public Policy and Management),[11] See also
• CCi Legal Day Programme 2008
JongMin Ham (NHN), [12]and ChangShin Park (Newsbank).
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CCi_Legal_Day_
Programme_2008
Endnotes
1 http://www.creativecommons.or.kr/conference/eng/
2 http://www.museum.go.kr/eng/use/sub_02.jsp • Archives: CCi Legal Day 2007
3 http://www.creativecommons.or.kr/ http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CCi_Legal_Day_2007
4 http://creativecommons.org/international/kr/
Endnotes
5 http://www.qsic.qld.gov.au/qsic/QSIC.nsf/CPByUNID/6C310
1 http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CCi_Legal_Day_2008
63F945CD93B4A257096000CBA1A
6 http://sciencecommons.org/
7 http://www.creativecommons.org.au/
8 http://www.mct.go.kr/english/index.jsp
9 http://samsung.kr/news/index.jsp
10 http://www.hansung.ac.kr/eng/
11 http://www.kdischool.ac.kr/new/eng/index.jsp
12 http://www.nhncorp.com/
Creative Commons Wiki Project description. The project will bring together Nordic
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CC_Nordic_meeting Creative Commons licensing researchers and activists for a
weekend workshop to Stockholm in September 2008. The
workshop will provide networking for Nordic researchers
and co-ordinate and discuss the license localizations and free
2008 Nordic Creative Commons Summit. culture promotion. The event will be co-hosted by Helsinki
The summit brings together scholars and practitioners from Institute for Information Technology and VINNOVA Centre
legal and culture field to discuss best policies of implementing of Excellence for Sustainable Communications. Expected
legal open content sharing in Nordic countries. attendance is 100 people.
Background. The translation and localization work is done The program consists of keynote presentations, workshops
by volunteer teams in each jurisdiction who are committed to and panels. Invited papers are selected and printed in a
introducing CC to their country and who consult extensively special “open content, culture and law” publication in a joint
with members of the public and key stakeholders as part publication of Helsinki Institute for Information Technology
of the porting process. Denmark’s, Finland’s and Sweden’s and VINNOVA Centre of Excellence for Sustainable
volunteer country teams have adapted the previous version Communications. The publication will be made available in
of the licenses and have web pages for instructing the rights electronic form for free. The printed material will be made
owners for how to use the licenses. Norway is in the process available for academic and cultural institutions.
of localizing the licenses.
Information of the summit will be distributed through the
Creative Commons is based to copyright licenses that are international Creative Commons network and using Nordic
translated and localized to each countries local legal system. networks own channels like participating institutions web
This ensures that the licenses are easily understood and pages and mailing lists. The event is organized by the
enforceable in each country The Nordic legal systems has Nordic CC network.
a common heritage when it comes to copyright law. Nordic
co-operation can thus help to produce common licensing Endnotes
1 http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Nordic_CC_network
structure and provide insights for the translation process.
Having a face to face meeting also helps the networking of
the volunteer members of the movement.
Creative Commons turned 5 on 15 December 2007. New York, United States (Celebrate CC’s 5th Birthday in
In celebration, parties were held in Beijing, China (Birthday NYC); Bangalore, India (Khichdiz, Mixtures of Various
Party 2007 Beijing); Berlin, Germany (Birthday Party 2007 Kinds); and Los Angeles, United States (Surprise Birthday
Berlin); Pasay, Pilippines (Birthday Party 2007 Manila); Party 2007 Los Angeles)
San Francisco, United States (Birthday Party 2007 San
Francisco); Seoul, Korea (Birthday Party 2007 Seoul);
Belgrade, Serbia (Birthday Party and Launch Event 2007
Belgrade); Brisbane, Australia (CCau Birthday BBQ Bash);
CCi Points of Interest
D utch C ollecting S ocieties D anish C ollecting S ociety
Welcome CC KODA t e a m s u p w i t h CC
Denmark
by Melissa Reeder by Michelle Thorne
23 August 2007 31 January 2008
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7622 http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/8012
From Paul Keller[1] — CC Netherlands[2] Project Lead: Creative Commons Denmark[1] has just announced[2] that
KODA,[3] the Danish Authors’ Society, is now offering
On August 23, 2007, Dutch collecting societies Buma and noncommercial Creative Commons licensing to its members
Stemra and Creative Commons Netherlands launched - making it the second country worldwide to do so. A similar
a pilot project[3] that seeks to provide Dutch musicians pilot project[4] was initiated in 2007 by Buma/Stemra[5] in the
with more opportunities to promote their own repertoire. Netherlands. Both show that collective rights management
This project enables members of Buma/Stemra to use and Creative Commons licenses can be combined to the
the 3 non-commercial CC licenses for non-commercial benefit of creators. As Paul Keller of Creative Commons
distribution of their works. It also allows Dutch composers Netherlands[6] notes, “Creators can rely on the strength of
and lyricists who already use the CC NonCommercial collective rights management for commercial uses of their
license to join Buma/Stemra[4] and have them collect their works, while taking noncommercial online distribution into
royalties for commercial use of their works. their own hands by using Creative Commons licenses.”
Before now Dutch authors have not been able to make their KODA’s adoption of Creative Commons licensing marks a
work available online under the CC NC license while at breakthrough for Danish composers and lyricists wanting
the same time having Buma/Stemra collect their royalties to explore new ways of making their work available online
for commercial use of those works. The Netherlands is while at the same time collecting commercial royalties
the first country to bring such a collaboration between through KODA.
a music copyright organization and Creative Commons,
a move applauded by Lawrence Lessig, the founder and Members must sign an agreement with the KODA in which
chairman of Creative Commons International, as “the they indicate which works they wish to license, and for
first step towards more freedom of choice in the field of the purpose of this arrangement, only Creative Commons
exploiting music works in the digital world.” licenses with the “non-commercial” condition can be used.
The press release by Creative Commons Netherlands and For more information about this exciting initiative and other
Buma Stemra can be found at http://www.creativecommons. Danish projects, please visit CC Denmark’s website (Danish).
nl/bumapilot/070823persbericht_en_web.pdf. And for [7]
And for those of you who missed it, last week we posted[8]
more information about what’s going on in the Netherlands about the first album in Denmark to be released under a CC
check out CC Netherlands website [5] license in cooperation with KODA: Tone’s[9] “Small Arm of
the Sea” (download).[10]
Endnotes Endnotes
1 http://www.kennisland.nl/nl/mensen/paul/index.html 1 http://creativecommons.dk/
2 http://www.creativecommons.nl/ 2 http://creativecommons.dk/?p=11
3 http://creativecommons.nl/2007/08/23/cc-nl-start-pilot- 3 http://koda.dk/
flexibel-rechtenbeheer-samen-met-bumastemra/
4 http://www.creativecommons.nl/extra/bumapilot
4 http://www.bumastemra.nl/
5 http://www.bumastemra.nl/
5 http://www.creativecommons.nl/
6 http://creativecommons.nl/
7 http://creativecommons.dk/
8 http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7988
9 http://tonetone.org/
10 http://urlyd.com/section/downloads/tone-small-arm-sea/
by Cameron Parkins
21 January 2008
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7988
Today marks the release of Small Arm of Sea,[1] the debut Endnotes
album by female indietronica singer, songwriter and 1 http://urlyd.com/section/downloads/tone-small-arm-sea/
producer Tone[2] (Sofie Nielsen). While the album itself is 2 http://tonetone.org/
unique in its style and substance, seamlessly combining 3 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/dk/deed.
en_GB
abstract electronic composition techniques with a clear pop
4 http://urlyd.com/
sensibility, it is equally as intriguing in terms of distribution.
5 http://urlyd.com/section/label-profile/
Small Arm of Sea is available both in stores (on both
combined CD/DVD w/ visuals or vinyl) and online (for free,
non-DRM download), with physical copies containing the
text “Copy this album for your friends, please!”.
by Michelle Thorne The BBC also offers television and radio programs to stream
22 January 2008 or download through its iPlayer,[13] although the player’s
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7987 format has been the source of some criticism.[14]
The objective of the Creative Archive was to make BBC material Also, the Danish Broadcasting Corporation[18] features CC-
available online to UK citizens. The content was released licensed images and content on its website, and it was
under a Creative Archive Licence,[3] a license similar in some the first broadcaster to purchase and air the CC-licensed
respects to the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commerical documentary, Good Copy Bad Copy.[19] In the Netherlands,
ShareAlike License,[4] but more restrictive in that it allowed only the public broadcasting network VPRO[20] has implemented
non-profit educational & personal use, forbade promotional or CC licenses for its 3voor12 Plundert Musea[21] project, which
campaign use, and limited these rights to within the UK. makes available samples from rare musical instruments, and
furthermore the Dutch broadcaster also promotes CC music
During the pilot period, the Creative Archive received much on its radio show Wissel.[22] Also of note is Images for the
praise. At its conclusion in September 2006, the BBC had Future,[23] a joint project funded by the Dutch government to
released[5] nearly 500 clips, full programs, audio tracks, and digitize nearly 3 million photos, 140,000 hours of audio,
images. As the recent director of the Creative Archive Paul and 150,000 hours of video & film, which is another great
Gerhardt noted in an interview,[6] viewers respected the licenses, example of efforts to preserve the commons through online
and during the trial period, only two minor licensing breaches public access to cultural resources.
had been reported. However, a hurdle[7] for the initiative was
the fact that the Creative Archive could only license simple However, despite many positive strides, creators working
rights material from the BBC, which meant that no third-party for public broadcasters still often find themselves at odds
programming could be included in the Archive. with their institutions’ more traditional copyright policies. In-
house legal departments can be reluctant to embrace user-
Still, as Herkko Hietanen points out in Community Created generated content, remixes, downloads, and third-party
Content, “[8]The [Creative Archive] was in line with BBC’s material, and at times, they may endorse restrictive DRM
goal ‘ to turn the BBC into an open cultural and creative while resisting new and open media formats. As more and
resource for the nation’.” [9]The Creative Archive was indeed more publicly-funded content goes online, it is important
a significant step for public interest and one of the BBC’s enable and empower users, rather than leaving enriching
most applauded initiatives.[10] And so, although the Creative material to digitally decay.
Archive is not longer in active use, the philosophy of open
licensing has continued to grow within the BBC. If readers have any additional examples of CC license usage
in public broadcasting, we invite you to include them on our
Today several departments in the BBC publish content under Content Directories wiki.[24]
Creative Commons licenses: album reviews (for example)[11]
and a partnership[12] with MusicBrainz, a community music Endnotes
1 http://www.bbc.co.uk/foi/docs/bbc_constitution/bbc_royal_
metadatabase that uses CC licenses. Furthermore, under
charter_and_agreement/Building_Public_Value.pdf
other licensing conditions, the BBC has opened up its website
2 http://creativearchive.bbc.co.uk/
to developers at backstage.bbc.co.uk.
In November CCI revised its guidelines for the international Affiliate Institution
porting process. These guidelines provide an overview for The Affiliate Institution officially houses the CC project in
founding of a local CC jurisdiction project with the aim of their jurisdiction
porting of the CC licensing suite to national law. • locally run, owned, and managed
• mandate of host institution and potential for independence
Creative Commons International, which oversees the of CC project
internationalization of the Creative Commons licensing
• copyright/internet law expertise
suite, would like project teams in as many jurisdictions as
possible to join our efforts to increase the sum of raw source • professional network, prestige
material online and to make access to that material cheaper • willingness to collaborate
and easier. We are still looking for expert help all around • capacity
the world. The following overview is designed to help you
understand what helping us would entail:
Project Leads sign a Memorandum of
The porting process Understanding (MOU) with Creative
Commons
Affiliate Institution and Legal and/or
Public Project Leads are chosen Once the Project Lead(s) and an Affiliate Institution have been
identified, please email CCi with the names and contact
Building a Team information of the proposed team members. This information
To begin the process of porting the licenses to a new should also include formal titles, institutional positions, email
jurisdiction, a team of committed people within that addresses and any appropriate URLs.
jurisdiction must be identified. It is important that the team
members are dedicated to the project and are willing to CCi will prepare an MOU to be signed by the project
cooperate with each other, CCi, and other affiliates around leads and a representative from the affiliate institution. The
the world. purpose of the MOU is for the jurisdiction project and CC
to agree upon several policies and expectations regarding
The following roles will need to be assigned: their collaboration and the license porting.
Legal Project Lead Please return the signed MOU first electronically followed
Legal Project Lead is responsible for drafting the CC licenses by two originals in the mail to Gipsstrasse 12, 10119 Berlin
in their jurisdiction Germany. CCi will then sign and return one original to you.
• professional legal credentials
Internal administration and Timeline
• re p u t a tio n am o n g co pyr igh t an d in t e ll e c t u al
property experts
Mailing Lists
• enthusiasm for project At this time, CCi will announce the Project Leads and the
• willingness to work within the CCi guidelines Affiliate Institution on our mailing list and on our website
• ability to communicate in English under the column “Upcoming Jurisdictions”. There are other
recommended Creative Commons mailing lists, which you
Public Project Lead may choose to join and contribute to as well.
Public Project Lead is a spokesperson for the CC Project in
their jurisdiction Furthermore, we will provide your jurisdiction with its own
• strong network of collaborators mailing list, which can be used to host discussions about
the license drafts and coordinate events. Please invite Translate the license (if applicable)
to your list interested and valuable stakeholders in your Translate the license verbatim into the first official language
region. Examples of key stakeholders include prominent of your jurisdiction.
commentators on copyright in your jurisdiction, Wikipedia
leaders in relevant region or language, and potential license Analyze and adapt the license
adaptors in your area. Once you have literally translated the license into your
jurisdiction’s first language, then you must modify the license
We encourage you use the mailing list as tool to involve to be compliant with your applicable copyright legislation
and consult the members of your community, and also keep
them informed about developments in Creative Commons Prepare an explanation in English
projects, both local and worldwide. Prepare a document that describes any substantial legal
changes made to the generic license. A suggested format
Developing a timeline for this document is (by column): BY-NC-SA original version,
After the internal administration has been completed, the BY-NC-SA ported version (in jurisdiction’s first language), BY-
jurisdiction’s project leads will propose a timeline for the NC-SA ported version re-translated into English, commentary
porting process. Each step, especially the launch date, to changes.
should be coordinated with the CCi team. Please find below
a suggested timeframe: Send the license draft (re-translated into English)
and explanation of substantial legal changes
• Legal Project Lead produces first draft, including re- Send the re-translated license draft and the explanation of
translation into English and chart of substantial legal substantial legal changes to the CCi team.
changes: one month
CCi reviews first draft
• CCi reviews the first draft: one month
Please send the first draft and any other relevant material to
• Public discussion: one month Catharina at CCi.
• Legal Project Lead produces second draft: two weeks
• CCi reviews second draft: one month At this point, she will review the draft and work closely
• Project Leads arrange necessary translation and with the Legal Project Lead to ensure that the license is as
customization of the Commons Deed, the FAQs, and suitable as possible. Depending on the circumstances, this
other related content: one-two months collaboration will be conducted on a public list or offline.
• Ported Licenses are posted on creativecommons.org:
one week This stage may be intense, since there are often many
translation issues to consider. Therefore, it may take several
• The Launch is celebrated!
email exchanges and/or phone calls to ensure that all
the fine points of the licenses have been addressed and
Legal Project Lead produces a first draft understood correctly.
After a timeline has been agreed upon, then the Legal Project
Lead will produce a first draft of the license. Please be patient and open to feedback -- we are all working
together to write the most comprehensive and accurate
Review the license licenses as possible for your jurisdiction.
The license that you will be working with is the most recent
version of Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (BY-NC-SA). Public discussion
The public discussion is a stage in which the team
You should prepare the first draft from CCi’s working invites members of the public to participate in the
document, which is a document based on the most recent license drafting. Creative Commons will announce
version of BY-NC-SA, the most comprehensive CC license. the draft on creativecommons.org, and we expect
Every element required for all 6 generic licenses can be the Legal Project Lead to encourage commentary and
found in BY-NC-SA. criticism from their community.
This step is crucial in the porting process, since it enables • how Creative Commons fits into the current legislation
the community to develop and improve the license. It is • changes that were made to the licenses to accommodate
important to conduct the public discussion in an open and local legislation and policy
fair way and to incorporate the changes that the community
deems appropriate.
CCi reviews second draft
Before entering the public discussion, please Please send the second draft and any relevant material to
send us: CCi. Catharina will review the second draft and collaborate
• the most recent license draft (in the jurisdiction’s first with the Legal Project Lead to fine-tune the licenses and
language) (PDF) confirm that all aspects have been addressed.
• an English re-translation of the draft (PDF)
• an explanation of the substantial legal changes in As with the first draft, this collaboration will be conducted
English (PDF) either on a public list or offline.
first language, then you may also like to consider offering will be the decision of the Project Leads. However, the event
translations in other common languages in your region. should attract publicity to make sure the people will know
Furthermore, you should read through all documents to ensure where to find “creative work available for others to create
that the specifics of your jurisdiction are reflected in the upon and share.”
translations. These documents include, but are not limited to:
• FAQs Future collaboration
• Commons Deed After the launch, the jurisdiction team and CCi will discuss
• Trademark policy (other policies) whether the Project Leads and the Affiliate Institution would
like to continue to work with CC as part of an ongoing
• Disclaimer
collaboration. The parties agreeing to stay on board will
• Legal Concepts then sign a Legal/Public Project Lead Agreement, which
• Choosing a License outlines the expectations and responsibility involved in
• CC films on dotsub continued collaboration.
Press release
Once the XHTML files for all six licenses have been received,
CCi will post the licenses on the /international page along
with the Commons Deed in your jurisdiction’s language(s).
Then CCi will generate a press release to announce the
launch. At this time, please send any relevant information
about the project or event to CCi. A presskit for high quality
graphic files can be found at creativecommons.org/presskit.
Creative Commons Australia • Pig Head Skin & Jesus Rocks! (http://creativecommons.
http://www.creativecommons.org.au/ org.au/asiaandthecommons/pigheadskin)
asiaandthecommons • Creative Commons Taiwan (http://creativecommons.org.
au/asiaandthecommons/cctaiwan)
• International IDEA Publishing (http://creativecommons.
The Asia and the Commons case study project represents an org.au/asiaandthecommons/ideapublishing)
effort to uncover exemplary individuals and organisations • 6 0 S o x ( h t t p : //c r e a t i v e c o m m o n s . o r g . a u /
engaged in the commons in the Asia-Pacific region. From asiaandthecommons/60sox)
Australia and New Zealand to Malaysia and India—in text • Arab Commons (http://creativecommons.org.au/
and film and music and image—this booklet[1] is a snapshot of asiaandthecommons/arabcommons)
the Asian commons. The booklet has been prepared as part • Show Some Color (http://creativecommons.org.au/
of ACIA: International Workshop on Asia and Commons in asiaandthecommons/showsomecolor)
the Information Age[2] in Taiwan on 19-20 January, 2008. • Global Voices Online (http://creativecommons.org.au/
asiaandthecommons/globalvoicesonline)
This research is part of the Creative Commons Clinic[3] • Foundation for P2P Alternatives (http://creativecommons.
research program, funded by the Australian Research org.au/asiaandthecommons/p2pfoundation)
Council Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and • EngageMedia (ht tp://creativecommons.org.au/
Innovation[4] at the Queensland University of Technology.[5] It asiaandthecommons/engagemedia)
is being undertaken in collaboration with Creative Commons • Moshang & Asian Variations (http://creativecommons.
Australia[6] as part of the iCommons[7] Local Context, Global org.au/asiaandthecommons/moshang)
Commons initiative.[8] • NLA Picture Australia Click & Flick (http://creativecommons.
org.au/asiaandthecommons/nlaclickandflick)
Its primary goal is to examine past, present, and future • openDemocracy (http://creativecommons.org.au/
implementations of commons-based projects to offer insights asiaandthecommons/opendemocracy)
into the innovative operation and possible future direction of • Creative Commons Clinic (http://creativecommons.org.
Asia and the Commons. au/asiaandthecommons/ccClinic)
• Sony eyeVio (ht tp://cre ative commons.org.au/
The case studies assembled to date represent activities in asiaandthecommons/sonyeyeVio)
nine countries, broader regions such as the Arab nations,
and global efforts towards sustainability and social justice, To this end, we invite any individual or organisation
revealing creative ways of participating in the commons. participating in the commons to submit their stories to info@
Featured are remix artists, performers, open-source software creativecommons.org.au. Bountiful thanks go to all contributors
programmers, filmmakers, collecting institutions and and participants in these projects for helping to make the
publishing houses focused on democracy and change, who commons a flourishing cultural movement.
demonstrate a diverse set of motivations to engage with the
shared ideals of openness and community collaboration. Download the booklet at http://creativecommons.org.au/
materials/AATC/Asia%20and%20the%20Commons%20
We hope that you enjoy reading these vignettes, and booklet.pdf
are inspired to contact the individuals and organisations
involved. This booklet will contribute to a larger selection of Endnotes
1 http://creativecommons.org.au/materials/Asia%20and%20
case studies to be presented at the iSummit ’08, to be held in
the%20Commons%20booklet.pdf
Sapporo, Japan, between 29 July and 1 August, 2008.
2 http://meeting.creativecommons.org.tw/
3 http://www.cci.edu.au/ccc
Case Studies 4 http://www.cci.edu.au/
• Following Alexis West (http://creativecommons.org.au/
5 http://www.qut.edu.au/
asiaandthecommons/followingalexiswest)
6 http://creativecommons.org.au/
• Strange Symphonies Blog (http://creativecommons.org. 7 http://icommons.org/
au/asiaandthecommons/strangesymphonies)
8 http://icommons.org/nodes/local-context-global-commons
We’ve been syndicating CC jurisdiction project blogs on Judging will be carried out in two phases, the first consisting
the CC home page[4] for a while. Now you can see more of open, online voting ending October 15, followed by a
and subscribe at planet.creativecommons.org/jurisdictions/. selection by a panel of experts. Awards will be presented
Or visit the Planet Creative Commons[5] home page to get to the winners on November 3rd at the National Library of
this blog, CC jurisdiction blogs, and various CC community China[4] accompanying the opening of a critically-acclaimed
blogs all at one time. photography exhibition.
You can read about the software that runs the Planet on the Official contest page: http://cc.nphoto.net/
CC wiki,[6] including CC engineer Nathan Kinkade’s plugin
to read syndicated license information.[7]
Endnotes Endnotes
1 http://planet.debian.org/ 1 http://cn.creativecommons.org/en/
2 http://planet.gnome.org/ 2 http://cc.nphoto.net/
3 http://planet.mozilla.org/ 3 http://cn.creativecommons.org/en/index.php/2007/09/19/
4 http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7710 first-cc-licensed-photography-contest-in-china/
5 http://planet.creativecommons.org/ 4 http://www.nlc.gov.cn/old/english.htm
6 http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Planet_Venus
7 http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Syndication
CCi Points of Interest
CC China Photo Contest Panda Punk Lab: Inauguration
in Chile
Yesterday, I attended the Creative Commons China[1] Photo Claudio Ruiz[1] from Creative Commons in Chile[2] reports
Content ceremony at the National Library in Beijing. There the inauguration of the Panda Punk Lab, a multimedia lab
were 10,000 submissions of professional and amateur in Chillán City offering educational software running on an
works licensed under various CC licenses. There were three Ubuntu Linux operating system:
categories: Society, Nature and Portraits. Winners were
chosen by a panel of judges including famous photographers, “ Because the indemnification received by the violation of
professors and other notable people. The photographs were a Creative Commons license - the first case in Chile and
amazing. There is a web page of the winning photographs. Latin America - the “Panda Punk Lab” was inaugurated
[2]
Don’t forget to click the link underneath the winning photos yesterday (Monday), which will benefit more than 200
for the second place winner gallery. students of the E-120 “María Saavedra” School, Chillán.
While we have silly people in the West saying that for every During the ceremony, the Director of Studies of NGO
free photo on Flickr a professional photographer loses their Derechos Digitales,[3] Alberto Cerda, emphasized how
job, we have professional photographers in China licensing this donation ratifies the validity of the CC licenses to
their best works under CC licenses. As far as I could tell, the share and spread intellectual works, and protect them
amateur and professional photographers seemed integrated from non-authorized uses.
and supportive of each other.
The case was born in April of 2007 when designer
After the awards ceremony, we have a workshop with Armando Torrealba realized one of his works - a panda
presentations from an illustrious and interesting group of bear drawing with pink punk hair - was used by a retail
speakers. Overall a groundbreaking and well executed store for publicity without his authorization. After NGO
event. Congratulations Chunyan and the CC China team! Derechos Digitales’ intervention, the enterprise indemnified
the professional with a non-specified amount,[4] part
I’m uploading photos from my trip in a Flickr set.[3] I found out of which was destined to the implementation of this
yesterday that there is a Firefox Plugin to bypass the Chinese laboratory.”
block on Flickr.[4]
Endnotes
Endnotes 1 http://www.quemarlasnaves.net/acerca/
1 http://cn.creativecommons.org/en/ 2 http://www.creativecommons.cl/
2 http://cc.nphoto.net/contest2007/winners.html 3 http://www.derechosdigitales.org/
3 http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/sets/72157602918061297/ 4 http://www.derechosdigitales.org/2007/04/13/creative-
4 https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4286 commons-logra-triunfo-historico-en-la-proteccion-de-los-
derechos-de-autor/
CC News
Creative Commons Announces New Leadership, New Funding
Founding board member and Duke law professor James Founding board member and Duke law professor James
Boyle[6] will become chair of the board, replacing Ito, who Boyle will become chair of the board, replacing Ito, who
will remain on the board. remains on the board. “Jamie has demonstrated his
commitment to Creative Commons from its founding,” said
San Francisco, CA, USA — April 1, 2008 Lessig. “He led the formation of Science Commons and
ccLearn, our divisions focused on scientific research and
Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that works to education respectively. There is no person better suited to
expand the body of creative work available to the public for lead the Creative Commons board.”
legal sharing and use, today announced both a leadership
evolution and a major new grant of $4 million from the Boyle is optimistic about Creative Commons’ future. “If one
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to support its activities. looks at all the amazing material that has been placed
“Both pieces of news we are announcing today reflect under our licenses – from MIT’s Open Courseware and
Creative Commons’ maturation from a startup into crucial the Public Library of Science to great music, from countless
infrastructure for creativity, education, and research in the photographs and blogs to open textbooks – one realizes
digital age,” said the organization’s founder, Stanford law that, under Larry’s leadership, the organization has actually
professor Lawrence Lessig. Creative Commons celebrated its helped build a global ‘creative commons’ in which millions
fifth anniversary last December. of people around the world participate, either as creators
or users. My job will be to use the skills of the remarkable
Lessig has announced a shift of academic focus from people on our board – including a guy called Larry Lessig,
copyright to political corruption. He recently launched who has promised me he isn’t going away any time soon –
to make sure that mission continues and expands.”
CC News
A pproved for F ree C ultural
Works
by Mike Linksvayer
The Hewlett Foundation grant consists of $2.5 million to 20 February 2008
provide general support to Creative Commons over five years http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/8045
and $1.5 million to support ccLearn, the division of Creative
Commons that is focused on open educational resources.
“The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has been a strong
supporter of openness and open educational resources in
particular,” said Catherine Casserly, the Director of the
Open Educational Resources Initiative at Hewlett. “Creative
Commons licenses are a critical part of the infrastructure
of openness on which those efforts depend.” The Hewlett
grant was a vital part of a five-year funding plan which also
saw promises of support from Omidyar Network, Google,
Mozilla, Red Hat, and the Creative Commons board.
Vice President and General Counsel Virginia Rutledge, who One obvious way to think of the definition is as an application
joined Creative Commons last year from Cravath, Swaine of the principles of free software[5] to content. These demand
& Moore LLP, will take on a new role as Vice President and the freedom to modify without any discrimination against
Special Counsel. In her new role, Rutledge will focus on uses or users, which means that Creative Commons licenses
development and external relations, while continuing to lead containing the NonCommercial or NoDerivatives terms do
special legal projects. not qualify. Of course you don’t have to agree with the
definition of freedom used by the free software movement
Endnotes and the Definition of Free Cultural Works, and even if you
1 http://www.hewlett.org/
do agree, there may be reasons for using a more restrictive
2 http://learn.creativecommons.org/
license in some cases. However, this seal and approval
3 http://www.lessig.org/
signals an important delineation between less and more
4 http://change-congress.org/
restrictive licenses, one that creators and users of content
5 http://joi.ito.com/
should be aware of.
6 http://www.law.duke.edu/boylesite/
CC News
CC0 beta/discussion draft feedback and next step
by Kaitlin Thaney
24 February 2008
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/8065
In a new piece[1] [free reg. req.] this week from GenomeWeb It is not easy. But it is, in a way, a very simple change.
Daily News, Aled Edwards[2] — director and CEO of the It just requires the flipping of a switch, from a default rule
Structural Genomics Consortium[3] — describes the drug of “sharing doesn’t matter” to one of “sharing matters
discovery process as a “lottery,” and argues that increasing enormously.” It is as easy, and as hard, as the NIH
the chances for discovery will require that people in mandate on open access. It’s a matter of willpower.
“academia, industry, and funding bodies collaborate and
keep new structural data accessible to all researchers who Edwards points out that governments and academic
might be interested in using it.” institutions spend “hundreds of billions of dollars” each year
on activities related to drug development, and biotech and
The sentiment echoes those of Science Commons’ own pharmaceutical companies “spend another $50 billion.” Yet
John Wilbanks, who earlier this year wrote a post on the the pace of discovery remains static — and according to
Nature Network[4] comparing drug discovery to a game Edwards, may even be slowing down.
of roulette. It’s a game, says Wilbanks, that people win by
“betting on every square, then patenting the one that wins Clearly, the current approach isn’t working. We at Science
and extracting high rents from it.” The biggest problem in this Commons are encouraged that more people are coming to
scenario, he argues, isn’t the existence of patents, but the understand that it’s time for a new approach to tilt the odds
sheer complexity of the human body, and how much we still in our favor — so that we can save not only time and money,
have to learn about it: but also human lives.
by Kaitlin Thaney
14 March 2008
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/8065
The International Association of Scientific, Technical & need now more than ever greater clarity and transparency.
Medical Publishers (STM)[1] recently released a statement this Overly general statements about what “typical” or “most”
March called “Statement on journal publishing agreements publications agreements allow should hardly be of comfort.
and copyright agreement ‘addenda.’”[2] It dismisses concerns
of scholars, scientists, and universities that publisher copyright It is, nonetheless, a step in the right direction for journals to
agreements leave authors without sufficient rights to share acknowledge that authors should be able to retain more rights
or re-use their own articles as “rhetorical.” The statement to their own articles. Authors receive no compensation for their
suggested that “standard journal agreements” already allow articles, and are often called upon to provide peer review
authors to retain rights that various copyright addenda, like for others without compensation. Journals, of course, provide
the ones offered by Science Commons,[3] SPARC,[4] MIT,[5] valuable services, including the coordination of peer review,
and others, were designed to address. Thus, they seem to for which they ought to receive fair compensation. However,
suggest, the addenda are superfluous at best. this statement by these publishers implicitly acknowledges that
the balance has rested too far in favor of restrictive journal
However, despite their insistence that “most” journal policies intended to protect revenue streams, and that this
publication agreements “typically” allow authors to retain balance has been shifting, and needs to shift further, in favor
some combination of rights, the reality is that there is no of authors’ freedom and the public interest.
“standard” publication agreement. Publications agreements
vary widely in what rights they allow scholars to keep, Endnotes
1 http://www.stm-assoc.org/
ranging from full rights of re-use and sharing to sometimes
2 http://www.stm-assoc.org/documents-statements-public-
exotic format restrictions (you can distribute the doc or html
co/2008.3%20STM-PSP-ALPSP%20Statement%20Publishing
version but not the pdf) to no rights at all, so that scholars have %20Agreements%2020080310.pdf
to purchase copies of their articles if they want to distribute 3 http://scholars.sciencecommons.org/
to colleagues. The Sherpa project[6] has a large database 4 http://www.arl.org/sparc/author/addendum.html
showing the variations among journal policies. Unfortunately, 5 http://info-libraries.mit.edu/scholarly/mit-copyright-amendment-
even Sherpa’s summaries of these policies do not always form/
reflect the most accurate or up-to-date information, because 6 http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/
the journals can change their publication agreements or
policies from time to time. Some of these policies are buried
in fine print, some are only found on obscure journal web
pages, and some are not published anywhere and are only
communicated to a scholar when they bother to call the
publisher. And of course these policies are subject to change
at any time.
Bayanihan is a Tagalog term originating from the root word The United Nations University, an official member of the
Bayani, or hero. Today, Bayanihan represents an heroic OpenCourseWare Consortium,[1] has just launched their web
effort on the part of the community, or the actions of a group learning portal. Joining more than 100[2] other institutions
of people that result in a common good. Greg Moreno’s of higher education, UNU is providing open access to an
new initiative, Bayanihan Books,[1] is aptly named. initial dozen[3] training courses, spanning from subjects like
Integrated Water Resources Management to the Social
With 17.5 million public school students in the Philippines, Construction of Technology in Development. The courses
affordable access to textbooks is not a simple matter. are aimed towards educators, students, and individuals–
Textbook companies can monopolize the market, upping pretty much anyone who’s interested.
prices for students and schools that can’t always afford
them. Moreno’s plan is to compete with these companies by Rather than replacing for-credit courses, the United
shifting the control of textbook content from a few to many— Nations University recognizes the significance of different
the community. Textbook making will be a collaborative approaches to education in the 21st century. As a result,
project, a sort of wiki-style peer editing and review consisting the courses are licensed under the Creative Commons
of volunteers. The content will be published under a Creative Attribution License 2.5.[4]
Commons license specific to the Philippines that allows it to
be shared. But the ultimate goal is to have the content be in Endnotes
print and distributed widely to public schools. That’s where 1 http://ocwconsortium.org/
the publishing companies come in. 2 http://www.ocwconsortium.org/index.php?option=com_
content &task=view&id=17&Itemid=32
3 http://ocw.unu.edu/Courses_listing
The publishing companies will bid on the content, and
4 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/
because they don’t have to deal with doling out royalty fees
to a community of volunteers, they will only have to shoulder
the costs of the actual printing. Then they can distribute the
books at minimal cost to schools around the country, while
still making quite a profit for themselves. Everyone wins.
Endnotes
1 http://blog.bayanihanbooks.org/
2 http://blog.bayanihanbooks.org/books
CC Points of Interest
Wikitravel Press launches first Nebraska Library Commission
printed titles adds CC- licensed books to
collection
by Mike Linksvayer by Timothy Vollmer
3 February 2008 22 February 2008
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/8016 http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/8056
Wikitravel Press announced[1] its first printed guidebooks, Congratulations to the Nebraska Library Commission[1] for
Wikitravel Chicago[2] and Wikitravel Singapore.[3] Like the spearheading an initiative[2] to add Creative Commons-
Wikitravel site,[4] the books are licensed under CC Attribution- licensed book editions to the library collection. Michael
ShareAlike,[5] allowing sharing and adaption, including Sauers,[3] Technology Innovation Librarian for the Commission,
commercial uses. was asked, “Why don’t libraries start cataloging and offering
CC-licensed works?”
Taking collaboratively created material to print is another
landmark for the Wikitravel community, and another The NLC staff went to work cataloging
commercial success for Wikitravel’s founders, who sold the and then posting electronic versions
site to Internet Brands in 2006[6] and subsequently launched of CC-licensed works like Cory
Wikitravel Press[7] (they have an agreement with Internet Brands Doctorow’s Down and Out in the
to use the Wikitravel name in this independent business). Magic Kingdom and Steven Poole’s
Trigger Happy to the library’s web
Wikitravel Press titles look like normal guidebooks rather than server. Patrons can now access these
printouts of related wiki articles, but they aren’t stale tomes and other CC-licensed books from the
either — they’re updated every month[8] and printed to order. online library catalog. Sauers adds
So while the businesses-built-on-liberal-licenses angle is cool, that some of the CC-licensed titles were
I think currency is another area in which Wikitravel Press will also printed as spiral-bound books so
lead the travel guide pack. As someone who has printed out they could be added to the library’s
articles from Wikitravel and other online resources in lieu of physical collection.
buying travel books for a couple years (in spite of always
ending up with a disorganized mess of papers by the end of The Nebraska Library Commission
a trip), I wouldn’t go back to the convenient packaging of a now offers nine CC-licensed electronic Nebraska Library
book unless it were nearly as up to date as the web. titles, and hopes to add more. This is Commission. “Someone Comes
fantastic news, and we encourage other to Town, Someone Leaves Town
Endnotes libraries to follow their lead. It’d be great by Cory Doctorow” CC BY-NC-SA
1 http://wikitravelpress.com/pr/20080201 2.0 http://www.flickr.com/photos/
for Michael and the NLC to document librarycommission/2250621029/
2 http://wikitravelpress.com/books/en/Chicago/
and share the specifics of the cataloging
3 http://wikitravelpress.com/books/en/Singapore/
process so other libraries can try it too!
4 http://wikitravel.org/
5 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0/
Check out some photos[4] from the NLC.
6 http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5864
7 http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7596 Endnotes
8 http://wikitravelpress.com/faq 1 http://www.nlc.state.ne.us/
2 http://www.nlc.state.ne.us/blogs/NLC/2008/02/nlc_tries_
creative_commons_1.html
3 http://www.travelinlibrarian.info/
4 http://www.flickr.com/photos/librarycommission/
sets/72157603875045969/
CC Points of Interest
Freeing America’s Operating System
by Mike Linksvayer
11 February 2008
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/8039
Last November Carl Malamud’s Public.Resource.Org Resource.Org to deliver this important governmental and
announced[1] an initiative to free 1.8 million pages of U.S. case judicial material back into the public domain.
law, publishing them online with no restrictions on reuse.
Carl Malamud (emphasis added):
Today the results of this initiative are available at http://bulk.
resource.org/courts.gov/. Developers and interested members of the public are
invited to join our open discussion group which will
From the press release (pdf):[2] evaluate the format of this public domain data. These
cases and codes are America’s operating system and for
Today’s release covers all U.S. Supreme Court decisions the first time Americans can use them with freedom.
and all Courts of Appeals decisions from 1950 on. The
release is equivalent to 1,858 volumes of case law in Read whole release,[3] get the data.[4]
book form, a stack of books 348 feet tall.
Endnotes
1 http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7828
The files have all been converted to the XHTML standard and
2 http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/0_Press_20080211.pdf
make extensive use of CSS style sheets to allow developers
3 http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/0_Press_20080211.pdf
to build new search engines and user interfaces. Since the
4 http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/
U.S. Courts do not yet digitally sign their documents, a
SHA1 hash is provided on their behalf.
Lawrence Lessig:
CC Points of Interest
Is it possible to design non-defective DRM?
by Mike Linksvayer The only exception to that certain futility rule has been Sun’s
28 February 2008 Project DReaM[8] team. While it is far from clear that they
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/8080 have succeeded, theirs is perhaps the first honest attempt
(at least outside academia) to specify a DRM system that
supports CC licensed content and fair use — which we
DRM[1] (Digital Rights Management, pejoratively known as consider a requirement for supporting CC licenses.
Digital Restrictions Management) is said to be defective
by design[2] — making digital devices and content more The project has produced two white papers outlining potential
annoying, less secure, less compatible, [3]and generally less support for CC licensed work and fair use, which are now
useful, and especially where protected by recent legislation, open for comments: DReaM-MMI Profile for Creative Commons
in conflict with free speech. If this dysfunction is not included Licenses (pdf)[9] and Support for Fair Use with Project DReaM
by design, it is at least a direct side effect of a largely futile (pdf).[10] A forum[11] has been set up to collect comments.
attempt to make computers worse at copying.
An introductory post [12] from Susan Landau sets forth
In light of these problems, Creative Commons licenses the challenge:
stipulate[4] the following:
This is just to say that we welcome comments on the
When You Distribute or Publicly Perform the Work, You DReaM-MMI fair use document and the DReaM-MMI
may not impose any effective technological measures on specification for implementing Creative Commons
the Work that restrict the ability of a recipient of the Work licenses. We’re not unaware of the inherent contradiction
from You to exercise the rights granted to that recipient of a DRM’s support for fair use and Creative Commons
under the terms of the License. licenses. What we are seeking to do in DReaM is develop
an open-source DRM system, and include in it the things
This is not an outright prohibition of DRM on works distributed that ought to be part of any DRM system: support for fair
under terms of any CC license, but it does rule out existing use — and Creative Commons licenses.
DRM schemes that would clearly restrict the ability to exercise
the rights granted in any CC license. We are very happy that Project DReaM has taken this step
to encourage open discussion, which is certain to generate
However, use of Digital Rights Expression, also variously intense criticism, as anyone familiar with the DRM debates
known as Digital Rights Description and Rights Management will immediately recognize. However, open criticism by
Information, has always been a core part of Creative many legal and computer security experts is the only way
Commons’ strategy. The point of DRE and other information to properly evaluate a DRM system that aspires to support
describing creative works is to describe works, not to facilitate public licenses and fair use.
restrictions imposed by your own computer. Computers
should help users find[5] and manage[6] content, not help There is some existing literature on DRM and fair use. One
content owners manage and expose users. starting point is a 2003 special issue of the Communications
of the ACM on the theme “Digital Rights Management and
We’ve only begun to exploit the ability of machine-readable Fair Use by Design.” Unfortunately these papers are not
code describing works and licenses to make media more open access, but abstracts and exceprts are available at
valuable rather than less. Look for a paper on what we’re Cover Pages.[13] Another is the DRM page of the Samuelson
now calling ccREL[7] — CC Rights Expression Language — Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic,[14] which features
coming soon. several downloadable papers on DRM and fair use. In brief,
there are two extremely difficult problems to overcome for a
ccREL has nothing to do with DRM, but this hasn’t stopped DRM system to support fair use: determining what constitutes
many people with DRM implementations or schemes from fair use or trusting users and privacy.
approaching us about making CC licenses work with their
DRM. Nearly all of these conversations have been very brief Even if Project DReaM has successfully specified support
as they were clearly futile.
CC Points of Interest
L o o p s : S o l o D a n c e , CC -
Licensed
for CC licensed works and fair use with DRM, there would by Cameron Parkins
probably be other hurdles to deploying truly non-defective 22February 2008
DRM. The good news is that in the last year many more http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/8057
people have realized that DRM is not good for business or
consumers, particularly in the music industry. [15] However,
attempts to make DRM work will probably be with us for some Loops[1] is an amazing new project, created collaboratively
time. If it can be shown that it is possible to design a DRM between the Merce Cunningham Dance Company[2] and
system that supports fair use, consumers and advocates can The OpenEnded Group,[3] to release Merce Cunningham’s[4]
demand that all DRM systems meet that standard. If not (and choreography for his solo dance Loops under a CC BY-NC-
admittedly, we suspect this is the case), all the more reason SA license.[5]
to hasten the abandonment of DRM and the hindrance it
poses to innovation, and to embrace technologies that make By releasing Loops under a CC-license, anyone is able
content more useful and empower users. to perform, reproduce, and adapt it for non-commercial
purposes. Simultaneously, the digital artists of The OpenEnded
Endnotes Group (Marc Downie, Shelley Eshkar, and Paul Kaiser) will
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management
release a digital portrait of Cunningham, also entitled Loops,
2 http://defectivebydesign.org/
as open source software. This artwork derives from a high-
3 http://techdirt.com/articles/20080226/092905359.shtml
resolution 3D recording of Cunningham performing the solo
4 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode
with his hands and promises to provide ample substance for
5 http://search.creativecommons.org/
derivative works.
6 http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7658
7 http://wiki.creativecommons.org/ccREL
The public release of the Loops project will take place this
8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_DReaM
Tuesday, February 26 at 6:30 PM in the Merce Cunningham
9 http://www.openmediacommons.org/collateral/DReaM-MMI-
Studio.[6] The event is co-hosted by the New York Public
CC-v1.0-CClicensed.pdf
Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center[7] and will
10 http://www.openmediacommons.org/collateral/DReaM-MMI-
Fair-Use-v1.0-CClicensed.pdf include a presentation of the choreography and digital
11 http://www.openmediacommons.org/forums/forumdisplay. artwork, remarks from Merce Cunningham as well as Paul
php?f=12 Kaiser and Marc Downie of The OpenEnded Group, and
12 http://www.openmediacommons.org/forums/showthread. a reception. The choreography and code will be released
php?t=471 simultaneously online the same day.
13 http://xml.coverpages.org/ni2003-05-15-b.html
14 http://www.law.berkeley.edu/clinics/samuelson/drm.html Endnotes
15 http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7641 1 http://www.openendedgroup.com/index.php/in-progress/
loops-open-source/
2 http://merce.org/
3 http://www.openendedgroup.com/
4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merce_Cunningham
5 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
6 http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=55+Bethune+Str
eet +New+York,+NY+10014&ie=UTF8&om=1
7 http://www.nypl.org/research/lpa/lpa.html
CC Points of Interest
Wireless Networking in the Developing World
by Mike Linksvayer
25February 2008
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/8066
Wireless Networking in the Developing World[1] is a free Network,[5] which very conveniently also happens to be
book about designing, implementing, and maintaining low- available under an Attribution-ShareAlike license.
cost wireless networks. The second edition has just been
released[2] under a CC Attribution-ShareAlike[3] license with Endnotes
1 http://wndw.net/
versions in English, Spanish, French, Italian, Arabic,[4] and
2 http://wiki.wndw.net/mw/index.php/WNDW2_Release
soon Portuguese.
3 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
4 http://www.lasilky.org/
For a bit on why a book on wireless networking in the
5 http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7841
developing world may be particularly interesting, see
last November’s post on Building a Rural Wireless Mesh
The Encyclopedia of Life,[1] an ambitious project to Some very exciting news for music fans: Tonight, Nine
document all of Earth’s known species, has released its Inch Nails released Ghosts I-IV,[1] a collection of 36 new
first 30,000 pages of content. Over the next 10 years, the instrumental tracks that are available to the world under a
project aims to aggregate, in one place, information on Creative Commons BY-NC-SA[2] license.
an estimated 1.8 million species. From the Encyclopedia of
Life (EOL) press release: This music arrived unexpectedly as the result of an
experiment. The rules were as follows: 10 weeks, no
Intended as a tool for scientists and clear agenda, no overthinking, everything driven by
policymakers and a fascinating impulse. Whatever happens during that time gets
resource for anyone interested released as… something.
in the living world, the EOL is
being developed by a unique …
collaboration between scientists
and the general public. By making The end result is a wildly varied body of music that we’re
it easy to compare and contrast able to present to the world in ways the confines of a
information about life on Earth, major record label would never have allowed - from a
the resulting compendium has the 100% DRM-free, high-quality download, to the most
potential to provide new insights luxurious physical package we’ve ever created.
into many of life’s secrets.
We’ll have a lot more to say about this exciting development
In most cases, Encyclopedia of Life contributing very soon. In the meantime, read more[3] about the project
members have made content available using one of the and check out the music![4]
following Creative Commons licenses: Attribution, Attribution-
ShareAlike, Attribution-NonCommercial, or Attribution- Endnotes
1 http://ghosts.nin.com/
NonCommercial-ShareAlike. Users can easily note the CC
2 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/
license attached to each article and accompanying media
3 http://ghosts.nin.com/main/more_info
(like photos).
4 http://ghosts.nin.com/main/order_options
Endnotes
1 http://www.eol.org/
2 http://www.eol.org/content/page/press_releases
3 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/science/26ency.
html?_r=1&em&ex=1204261200&en =264ffed20b39b8f4&ei=
5087%0A&oref=slogin
CC Points of Interest
Sound Copyright Diesel Sweeties Archive Released
Under CC License
Creative Commons licenses help creators (and users) opt rstevens (the r is for Richard), creator of popular webcomic
for reasonable copyright by offering[1] (and using)[2] creative Diesel Sweeties,[1] announced on his blog[2] that starting
works under “some rights reserved” terms, expanding the today he will be releasing the entire Diesel Sweeties archive
commons where the default is “all rights reserved”. for free under a CC BY-NC license.[3] The archive contains
close to 2,000 web comics, offering massive potential for to
We also offer tools to mark works that are in the public interesting reuses (via Boing Boing):[4]
domain — and are working on a major upgrade of those
tools[3] — with a goal of making public domain works more By my calculations, DS is going to hit 2000 comics in a
available and more usable, effectively expanding the “no little under two months. April is Clango’s 8th birthday. I’d
rights reserved” portion of the commons. like to celebrate by releasing the entire webcomic archive
for free in ten volumes. It worked for Nine Inch Nails and
However, there’s nothing CC tools can do to protect against Radiohead- not bad company to try and keep!
the stunting of the public domain through fiat, such as the
retroactive extension of copyright terms. This is why many These files will be in PDF form, available one per week
friends of CC are involved in efforts like Sound Copyright,[4] for ten weeks. You can donate if so inclined, or take
a petition to the European Union to stop the retroactive advantage of ten classic shirt designs @$10.99. At the
extension of copyright in sound recordings from 50 years end of ten weeks, I plan to release a special anniversary
to 95 years. art book.
Read about[5] why retroactive copyright extension is bad All eBooks will be released under a Creative Commons
policy[6] — it offers miniscule incentive for the creation of new Attribution Non-commercial license. You’re free to
works while imposing large costs on the preservation and reformat them into .CBR, Word docs, XML, whatever
use of existing works. As a beneficial side effect, you’ll better you like. You’re also free to archive and share them with
understand the milieu from which Creative Commons arises others for free. They’re even small enough to email. Just
and why the voluntary adoption of reasonable copyright don’t use them commercially.
through tools like ours are crucial to ensuring the existence
of a viable commons — an open, participatory culture — for Endnotes
1 http://www.dieselsweeties.com/
future generations.
2 http://www.dieselsweeties.com/blog/?p=283
Endnotes 3 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
1 http://creativecommons.org/license/ 4 http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/10/diesel-sweeties-coll.
2 http://search.creativecommons.org/ html
3 http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/8045
4 http://www.soundcopyright.eu/
5 http://www.soundcopyright.eu/learn
6 http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/eldredvashcroft/supct/
amici/economists.pdf
18 < Communia
Endnotes
1 http://www.ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/
econtentplus/projects/psi/communia/index_en.htm
2 http://www.flickr.com/photos/creativecommons/
sets/72157602218241506/
3 http://www.ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/
econtentplus/projects/funded_projects/index_en.htm
4 http://www.polito.it/
3 http://creativearchive.bbc.co.uk/licence/nc_sa_by_ne/uk/ 15 http://www.ndr.de/
prov/ 16 http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7838
4 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ 17 http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7842
5 http://creativearchive.bbc.co.uk/archives/for_download/ 18 http://www.dr.dk/
6 http://goodcopybadcopy.blip.tv/file/151953/ 19 http://www.goodcopybadcopy.net/
7 http://creativearchive.bbc.co.uk/archives/2006/06/paul_ 20 http://www.vpro.nl/
gerhardts.html 21 http://3voor12.vpro.nl/plundertmusea/kaft/index.jsp
8 http://turre.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view 22 http://www.vpro.nl/programma/wissel/
&id=20&Itemid=41
23 http://www.beeldenvoordetoekomst.nl/en
9 http://www.bbc.co.uk/foi/docs/bbc_constitution/bbc_royal_
24 http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Content_Directories
charter_and_agreement/Building_Public_Value.pdf
10 http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2004/sep/20/
mondaymediasection.bbc
11 http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/release/c2w6/
12 http://blog.musicbrainz.org/archives/2007/06/the_bbc_
partner.html
13 http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/
14 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_iPlayer#Criticisms
CC Points of Interest
What good is a CC licensed specification?
by Mike Linksvayer
29 March 2008
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/8165
Proto-lawyer, GNOME hacker and CC friend Luis Villa’s This is what I intended to highlight in a recent post on IE8 and
brief “CC-licensed specification” rant[1] is correct: removing copyright barriers to collaboration with technology
communities[5] (emphasis added):
[I]mplementing a spec may require (among other things)
licensing of “pending utility and design patent claims, It’s cool that Microsoft not only released the specifications
copyrights, trade dress and trademark rights.” Putting a under liberal terms, but followed the lead of the
specification under a CC license gives you a copyright relevant communities, ensuring that there are no
license to the text of the specification; it does not give copyright barriers to collaboration with those
license to the necessary trademarks, or to the patents, communities.
and depending on the license chosen, may not even give
you the right to make a derivative work […] As the post explains, Microsoft released their specifications
under the same liberal terms (one under CC BY-SA,[6] another
Fortunately all such specifications I’m aware of are published dedicated to the public domain)[7] as related specifications have
under free CC licenses (or placed in the public domain)[2] so been released under by others. This simply (but importantly)
that derivative works and commercial use are legal. means that in terms of copyright anyway, the relevant
communities are free to fold the Microsoft specifications into
However, liberal copyright terms on the text of a specification their wikis and other materials for ongoing collaboration (and
are not sufficient (and strictly speaking, perhaps not even so are you).
necessary) for a protocol (or format or similar) to permit
independent implementation, interoperability, and extension, My post did not explain (as it should have) that as above,
including by free and open source software. there’s much more to making a protocol usable than just
placing its specification under liberal copyright terms.
Software patents[3] may be the main legal barrier to such use. Microsoft obviously realizes this, as at the same time they
This is why patent grants often get the most thorough public also offered a (patent related) Open Specifications Promise[8]
vetting of any non-technical aspect of a new specification for the specifications in question — though whether the
and why (for example) the debate over the W3C’s patent promise is good enough may be subject to debate — see
policy[4] several years ago was so important. further quotation of Luis below.
There are also non-legal items that will often be more important I briefly raised another reason to place a specification
for a protocol being “open” in practice than the protocol under a well-known liberal copyright license in a post about
specification’s copyright license. For example, the very the Sitemaps Protocol: Creating a space where Google,
existence and publication of an unambiguous specification, Microsoft, and Yahoo! can collaborate:[9]
and the availability of a reference implementation and test
suite, preferably under a free and open source software This is just a guess, but I imagine that agreeing to release
license. the [Sitemaps protocol][10] under a CC license saved
Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft many hours of legal
So what good is putting a specification under a liberal copyright haggling over copyright in the protocol. It is not a guess
license? Is it just about signaling good intentions? As valuable that this decision allows anyone, e.g., non-incumbent
as such signaling may be, it can be abused. I would argue search engines, to publish and extend the protocol,
that it is primarily useful for facilitating ongoing collaboration without asking for permission from the incumbents.
on the specification itself, extensions of the specification, and
instructional materials and other non-software works around In other words, using a public license (CC BY-SA[11] in this
the specification — in other words, precisely the works and case) for the specification solves one — even if just one
activities impacted by the copyright status of the text.
— of what must be a laundry list of issues that must face
such a collaboration, and that’s valuable. However, I should Endnotes
1 http://tieguy.org/blog/2008/03/27/brief-cc-licensed-
have been more clear that this enables anyone to publish
specification-rant/
and extend the protocol specification, at least insofar as
2 http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/8051
copyright is concerned.
3 http://endsoftpatents.org/
4 http://www.w3.org/TR/patent-practice
The most recent development concerning a significant
5 http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/8109
specification under a CC license is also the most interesting
6 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
so far, in that the parties involved seem to have made a effort
7 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/
to address all of the known barriers to uses of a protocol
8 http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx
(whether they’ve succeeded is presumably an open question).
9 http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/6154
Tim Vollmer beat me to blogging about OpenSocial,[12] so I’ll
10 http://www.sitemaps.org/
expand a bit here.
11 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/
12 http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/8162
The OpenSocial Foundation Intent Agreement[13] covers
13 http://sites.google.com/a/opensocial.org/opensocial/
copyright in the specification, a patent non-assertion OpenSocial-Foundation-Proposal/Intent-Agreement
covenant, a patent right in joint development, and a license 14 http://incubator.apache.org/shindig/
to the OpenSocial trademark. There’s also a reference 15 http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/osp-gpl.
implementation[14] under the Apache 2.0 license. Of course html
this appears to be just a proposal, and it is not clear to 16 http://www.softwarefreedom.org/
me whether non-members of the proposed foundation would
have any patent or trademark rights with regard to the
specification or implementations thereof. But at least they’re
looking at all of the elements.
Luis again:
CC Points of Interest
8.5 GB of CC-Licensed Samples
for the OLPC
by Cameron Parkins their sound collections to the children of the world,” said
27 March 2008 Dr. Richard Boulanger, professor of music synthesis at
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/8163 the Berklee College of Music and the organizer of the
Berklee collection being donated to OLPC. “By providing
extraordinary access to the resources to play, mix,
Great news from the OLPC project[1] - 8.5 GB worth of sound transform, imitate and create sounds, sound effects, music
library samples have been donated to the project by the and audio art works, this donation will enable children
Berklee College of Music,[2] Berklee Music Synthesis alumni with XO laptops to learn about music and sound, and to
(including electronic musician BT[3] and the international learn about themselves and their world. This collection
Csound Developer community),[4] M-Audio,[5] Digidesign,[6] will inspire and promote incredible music-making on the
and the Open Path Music group! The samples are being XO laptop and will invigorate the creative audio work of
released under a CC BY license and while they are intended all computer musicians.”
for (and facilitated by) the OLPC project, they are available
publicly, making this a a huge contribution not only to the Endnotes
1 http://laptop.org/
OLPC but also to those looking for free, high quality, samples
2 http://www.berklee.edu/
in general.
3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_(musician)
4 http://www.csounds.com/
You can check out all the samples on the OLPC wiki[7] as
5 http://www.m-audio.com/
well as see a breakdown of the OLPC’s music making
6 http://www.digidesign.com/intl_selector.cfm?
capabilities over at Create Digital Music.[8] The OLPC is
7 http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sound_samples
paving a new road for contemporary music education with
8 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/03/26/85-gb-of-free-cc-
this announcement and it will be absolutely fascinating to
licensed-samples-from-the-olpc-project-and-olpc-music-tools/
see how these samples are put to use by their intended
9 http://csounds.com/OLPC_SoundSampleArchive.doc.zip
practitioners. From OLPC:[9]
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Creative Commons was built with and is sustained by the under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
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