This is part of a series of posts introducing the projects built by open source contributors mentored by Creative Commons during Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2019. Maria Belen Guaranda was one of those contributors and we are grateful for her work on this project.

“By visualizing information, we turn it into a landscape that you can explore with your eyes.” David McCandless

The landscape of openly licensed content is wide and varied. Millions of web pages host and share CC-licensed works—in fact, we estimate that there are over 1.6 billion across the web! With this growth of CC-licensed works, Creative Commons (CC) is increasingly interested in learning how hosts and users of CC-licensed materials are connected, as well as the types of content published under a CC license and how this content is shared. Each month, CC uses Common Crawl data to find all domains that contain CC-licensed content. This dataset contains information about the URL of the websites and the licenses used.

Using the Linked Commons

In order to draw conclusions and insights from this dataset, we created the Linked Commons: a visualization that shows how the Commons is digitally connected.

In the Linked Commons, nodes (units in a data structure) represent websites of an organization, person, academic institution, etc. A link between nodes exists if one website hosts CC-licensed content that belongs to or is hosted by another website (as indicated by a URL link). A community represents a group of websites that are closely related to each other because they produce and/or share CC-licensed content between them.

Vast quantities of data make any web browser render elements slowly and may eventually freeze. Due to the 100k nodes included in the Linked Commons, the visualization initially took a long time to render and had a clustered appearance—this was a major concern. 

That’s why we decided to use data from only a single month and chose the top 500 websites containing links to CC-licensed material, as well as all of the other domains those 500 nodes are connected to. In addition to lessening the loading time, we found that this was also more user-friendly because navigating the entire dataset’s graph would be dizzying. Even with this smaller dataset, we were able to gather valuable insights from the graph, including discovering subcommunities of CC license hosts and users. One such subcommunity is shown in the image below.

The subcommunity above is an “educational” community; made up of libraries, universities, and schools. 

Visualizations like these are valuable for CC because they can help guide our outreach efforts and targeted communications. The CC Search team can also use this data to choose which domains to prioritize indexing in the CC Catalog.

The visualization is interactive; users can pan, zoom in and out, hover over a node to see its neighbors, and click on a node to display a pie chart, like the one below. We encourage users to test out the Linked Commons and see what insights they can gather from this information!

What’s next?

We plan to continue working on the Linked Commons. Here are some features we hope to add:

• Live updates—The graph is currently static because it uses a single month’s data file that has already been processed. We would like to automatically update the graph as soon as new data is processed.

• Filtering domains by country—Some domains have suffixes that represent countries, such as domain.au which corresponds to a domain from Australia. We plan to use these suffixes to filter nodes in the visualization by country.

• Filtering domains by name—A user might want to check if a specific domain has CC-licensed content and how that content is used. We plan to add a search bar and provide the user with the ability to search for a specific node given a domain name and/or URL.

Interested? Check out the Linked Commons here!

Give us your feedback!

The Linked Commons is an open source project. The project’s source code is available in the Github repo. Contributions are welcome! For the technical details of how this project was developed, please read this series of posts on the CC Open Source blog.

The post Introducing the Linked Commons appeared first on Creative Commons.

We’re excited to announce that the Call for Proposals and Scholarship Applications for the 2020 CC Global Summit is now open! 

The CC Global Summit gathers those in the open community under the umbrella of learning, sharing, and creating; united by a passion for growing a vibrant, usable commons powered by collaboration and gratitude.

Call for Proposals, Art Submissions, and Research Posters

This year, we invite proposals that address the topics and issues outlined in the tracks below with a focus on actionable insights and outcomes, from case studies to workshops and storytelling sessions. 

• Creators of the Commons—The faces, work, and stories of those building the Commons
• Powering the Commons—Exploring the tools, technology, and communities that power the Commons
• Open Education and Open Scholarship—Supporting communities that practice open access to education and scholarship
• Open Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums—Improving and expanding open access to cultural heritage
  
• Policy and Advocacy Promoting the Commons—Strategies for legal action and copyright reform

We’re also pleased to announce that we’ve added two new ways for you to engage with the CC Summit, these include art submissions and digital research posters! Before submitting a proposal, art submission, or digital research poster idea, please read through the submission guidelines!

CC Summit Scholarship Fund 

Finally, in order to reach the largest number of community members possible, we invest a significant amount of resources into our CC Summit Scholarship Fund and invite community members from around the world to submit an application for a scholarship. Learn more about our scholarship program!

Mark these important deadlines on your calendar! 

• Proposal submissions: 12 February 2020
• Scholarship applications: 12 February 2020
• Art submissions: 19 February 2020
• Research poster submissions: 19 February 2020

Questions? Contact summit@creativecommons.org! Interested in becoming a sponsor for the 2020 CC Global Summit, learn more about our sponsorship opportunities by contacting CC’s Director of Development Jami Vass at jami@creativecommons.org.

The post CC Global Summit: Call for Proposals and Scholarship Applications appeared first on Creative Commons.

Creative Commons is pleased to be a part of the second annual Public Domain Day (PDD) celebration held in Washington D.C. on January 30, in collaboration with the Internet Archive, the Institute for Intellectual Property & Social Justice, the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, and SPARC.

In order to celebrate the public domain and highlight the work of artists around the world who contribute to the global commons, we are excited to showcase the creative works of six artists during the PDD celebration in Washington, D.C. Following the event, these works will be made available under a CC License or released into the public domain. 

Meet the artists below! 

• Darnell Gardner

Darnell Gardner is a photographer from Detroit. He explores how our senses of self form, fall, and form again.

Connect with Darnell on Instagram @dgardnerjr.

• David Amoroso

David Amoroso shows his admiration for Latin culture through his artwork. Although the majority of his work is dedicated to painting portraits of everyday people, he also represents Mexican pop culture through his work. David has exhibited and worked in the D.C. Metro Area, New York, California, Arizona, North Carolina, and Mexico, as well as Central and South America.

Connect with David on Instagram @amorosoart.

• Laci Jordan 

Laci Jordan is a multidisciplinary designer, illustrator, Creative Director, and the true definition of a modern-day renaissance woman. Laci’s work concentrates on color, pop culture, the representation of marginalized people, and the intersectionality that exists amongst all of these spheres.

Connect with Laci on Twitter @SoLaciLike or on Instagram @solacilike.

• Naturel 

Naturel is a celebrated artist and leader in the creative community and we are excited that he will be showcasing some of his works during our event. Naturel’s influence in the art world and pop culture demonstrates the power creators of color have to shift culture once they are given direct access to their audiences and the power to build their own platforms. 

Connect with Naturel on Twitter @therealnaturel or on Instagram @naturel.

• Rikasso

Rikasso’s work is best described as a collage of various components that work in tandem to create one cohesive picture. Viewing the various components becomes an engaging game of look-and-find. By using various relatable references, Rikasso gives viewers a sense of themselves in the work. 

Connect with Rikasso on Twitter @Big_Rikassi or on Instagram @rikasso.

• Tenbeete Solomon

Tenbeete Solomon, aka Trap Bob, is a visual artist, illustrator, and animator based in the D.C. Metro Area. She is known for her use of bold colors and gestures to convey both the humor and struggles of everyday life. Her work is socially conscious and frequently inspired by activism and community issues, with an aim to bridge the gap between her audience and her message. As the founder of Trap Bob World, LLC, a freelance design and product company, Tenbeete has worked with leading corporations, brands, and organizations—including Giphy, Pabst Blue Ribbon, the Elizabeth Warren Campaign, Apple, and Refinery 29. 

Connect with Tenbeete on Twitter @trapbob or on Instagram @trapxbob.

Stay tuned for a follow-up post showcasing these artists’ final works!

Interested in attending the event? Register here! If you’re not able to join us, there will be a webcast available here, starting from 6:30 PM EST on January 30, 2020!

The post Meet the Artists Commissioned for the Public Domain Day Celebration appeared first on Creative Commons.

Creative Commons is pleased to be a part of the second annual Public Domain Day celebration held in Washington D.C. on January 30, 2020! 

In collaboration with the Internet Archive, the Institute for Intellectual Property & Social Justice, the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, and SPARC, this event will “bring together a diverse group of organizations, musicians, artists, activists, and thinkers” to celebrate the works entering the public domain in 2020 as well as highlight the “elements of knowledge and creativity that are too important to a healthy society to lock down with copyright law.”

The program includes lightning talks on a variety of topics, such as bias in artificial intelligence (AI), shared cultural resources, and technological innovation. There will also be a panel discussion on “how the freedom to build upon creative works can inspire and move culture” and live performances by the Bob Schwartz Quartet! 

Location 

January 30, 2020 | 5:30-9:00pm
American University Washington College of Law, Grossman Hall
4300 Nebraska Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20016

Program

• 5:15 – Registration Opens
• 5:30 – Facets of the Public Domain – Public Interest Organization Showcase and Reception (featuring the Bob Schwartz Quartet)
• 6:30 – Realizing Access to the Public Domain 
• 6:50 – Remixing the Public Domain
• 7:15 – Too Important to be Protected: Limits on Copyright for a Healthy Society – Presentation by former MEP Julia Reda, followed by Lighting Talks
• 8:30 – Reception: featuring the Bob Schwartz Quartet

Interested in joining us? Register here!

If you’re not able to attend, there will be a webcast available here starting from 6:30 PM EST on January 30, 2020!

The post Join Us in Washington D.C. to Celebrate Culture and Heritage on Public Domain Day appeared first on Creative Commons.

Broken Hill Wall Mural-07= by Sheba_Also 43,000 photos is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

This post was co-authored by Diane Peters (CC’s General Counsel) and Alexis Muscat (CC’s 2019 legal intern)

For the past year or so, CC has been tracking and thinking about strict, less than-amicable enforcement activities involving CC licenses. These activities present a complex situation for our organization. CC licenses must be enforceable; they are designed to allow sharing while protecting a creator’s rights. At the same time, they are meant to be flexible in what attribution is required, which only need be “reasonable” based on the means, medium, and context of the re-sharing. Further, CC has always strongly encouraged amicable resolution of attribution disputes, an important value within the CC community, and one that has been dominant for quite some time. 

Not all licensors support the ideal of amicable resolution. Some feel that strict enforcement is important. Others view license infringement as an opportunity to “catch” a failure to earn compensation for work that is otherwise being shared for free. Complicating this dynamic is that in some countries such as the United States, statutory damages exist that impose minimum amounts for violations. This is a function of copyright law and creates opportunity for what some may think is inequitable enforcement, a problem that goes far beyond CC licenses. 

With a growth in online services offering reverse image search technology to quickly locate re-uses of a photographer’s image, it is becoming easier and more streamlined for licensors to pursue enforcement when they suspect infringement. In most cases, the service will pursue enforcement on the photographer’s behalf. While many people find value in these services, we think it is important to acknowledge that by using them the licensor seems to forgo the opportunity to resolve the dispute amicably through direct engagement with the licensee. 

Oftentimes, when a license infringement is innocent, the mistake can be easily rectified and the relationship between licensor and licensee can be repaired. Relying on a third party service fractures the opportunity for connection between the creator and the re-user that allows this reparation to occur. This fracture can result in a missed opportunity for both licensor and licensee, most especially when those are both individuals as opposed to large institutions, to connect and learn how works are being used and re-shared. It makes the licensing under a CC license strictly a transaction, precluding what some feel can also be a community experience. As an organization that values openness and generosity, we think it is important for users and re-users to have the opportunity to build direct relationships and work together when possible. 

Ultimately, CC does not take a position on these types of enforcement activities. We steward the licenses. We do not police them, nor are we a party to them. When a creator decides to license their work under a CC license they are entitled to enforce its terms. That said, strict enforcement may be contrary to norms that have developed and will continue to develop within communities that view licensing as an opportunity to openly share their creativity and contribute to the commons. 

Creative Commons is committed to investigating options that allow us to further encourage amicable resolution while at the same time ensuring that the licenses are enforceable. These options include continued education efforts and technological solutions that make compliance easier. If users of CC licenses can easily and clearly understand the terms connected to their use, then infringement can be avoided and consequently so can resolution efforts—be them amicable or otherwise. At the end of the day, we value the relationship between creator and re-user; a relationship that is open, direct, and amicable allows productive problem resolution and an opportunity to express gratitude.

This complex situation provides us with a valuable opportunity to share suggestions for how to avoid infringement and resolve disputes amicably: 

• Always remember to provide attribution when you reuse a CC work. This is the source of most disputes between a creator and re-users. While flexible and easy to comply with, many re-users mistakenly think that attribution is optional. It isn’t unless the licensor tells you otherwise.
• You may always reach out to the licensor to attempt to resolve the dispute amicably. Most of the time, problems with attribution can be quickly remedied without the dispute being elevated to legal action. 
• CC licenses do not limit fair use or other exceptions or limitations to copyright. So, if your use falls within one of those exceptions, you do not need permission under the license and are, therefore, not liable for a license violation.
• CC licenses are flexible and require “reasonable” attribution in the circumstances. When an individual is using someone else’s content under a CC license, it is important to understand the license terms and follow them carefully. This is especially important considering the rise in online services that make it extremely easy for a licensor to locate reuses and possible infringements. Information about how to properly provide attribution can be found here. 
• In the future, look for CC licensed works under a 4.0 license. While incorrect attribution may still be a violation of the license, after being informed of it there is a 30 day period in which to correct the violation. While a re-user may remain liable for damages prior to fixing the violation, if cured the damages are cut off. Plus, the attribution requirements in 4.0 are even more flexible than in previous versions. You can find content under 4.0 licenses through CC Search. 

EFF is working to provide resources to individuals who are on the receiving end of strict enforcement actions. You can reach out to info@eff.org for more information about the legal services it provides.

The post Thoughts on “Non-Amicable” Enforcement of CC Licenses appeared first on Creative Commons.