Today, we’ve released a significant update to our working beta of the CC Search product. We launched the project in February 2017 to provide a new “front door” to the Commons with the ultimate goal to find and index all 1.4 billion+ CC licensed works on the web. Since then, our newly formed tech team – myself, Alden Page, Sophine Clachar, and Steven Bellamy – have been working to move this project toward its next iteration, which I am proud to share today.

More providers, better metadata

This is a work in progress — it has great new features, and also has a few bugs, which we’re working on as we go (you can leave feedback here or file issues at Github). This iteration of CC Search integrates access to more than 10 million images across 13 content providers. The data was obtained by processing 36 months of web crawl data from the Common Crawl corpus (an open repository of web crawl data maintained by the Common Crawl Foundation).

The full list of providers:

Provider	Domain	# CC Licensed Works
Animal Diversity Web	https://animaldiversity.org/	14,839
Behance	https://www.behance.net/	5,245,785
Deviantart	https://www.deviantart.com/	206,506
Digitalt Museum	https://digitaltmuseum.org/	88,970
Encyclopedia of Life	http://eol.org/	547,488
Flickr	https://www.flickr.com/	426,214
Flora-On	http://flora-on.pt/	26,498
Geograph UK	http://www.geograph.org.uk/	1,018,560
IHA Holiday Ads	http://www.iha.com/	2,058,272
McCord Museum	http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/en/	108,800
The Metropolitan Museum of Art	https://www.metmuseum.org/	96,260
Museums Victoria	https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/	64,719
Science Museum – UK	https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/	14,280

In addition, the new release contains several new features, including AI image tags generated from our collaborator, Clarifai. Clarifai is a best in class image classification software that provides tagging support and visual recognition. Clarifai’s API was integrated in the process-flow as a means to automatically generate tags for the new and existing images. This means that CC search has machine generated tags, user-defined tags, and platform-defined tags that were obtained from the web crawl data. Collectively, these will enhance the user’s search experience and improve the quality of the results. Currently, 10.3 million images have their respective Clarifai tags and the outstanding images will be integrated on an ongoing basis. Thank you to Clarifai for their support.

A New Look

The new design allows users to search by category, see popular images, and search more accurately across a wide range of content.

Users can also now share content and create public lists of images without an account using an anonymous authentication scheme. Shares.cc is a new a link shortening system that makes it easy to share cool stuff you find on our platform to social media – users can share both images and lists, no login required. In addition, the new platform provides the ability to filter by provider, license, creator, tag (including those generated by Clarifai), or title.

(Please note: If you made private lists in the previous system, they will not carry over to this release. We’re sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. If there is a list you would like us to recover, please email us at info@creativecommons.org.)

With gratitude

CC Search is made possible by a number of institutional and individual sponsors. Specifically, we would like to thank Arcadia – a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, Mozilla, and the Brin Wojcicki Foundation for their support. With the generous support of our funders, Creative Commons is able to significantly advance its work in pursuit of a more open and sharing world that illuminates the Commons and recognizes the major potential of transformative human knowledge.

Full release notes available here.

 

The post Big changes for CC Search beta: updates released today! appeared first on Creative Commons.

CC licenses and public domain tools help individuals, organisations, and public institutions better disseminate digital resources and data, breaking down the typical barriers associated with traditional “all rights reserved” copyright. At the same time, CC licenses can’t do everything for everyone. First, the licenses operate in the sphere of copyright and similar rights. They do not attempt to license, say, personality rights, trademark, or patent rights. Also, the CC community recognizes that voluntary licensing schemes will never be a comprehensive solution for access to and reuse of knowledge and creativity around the world. This is one reason why CC works on international copyright reform issues, including the protection and expansion of user rights.

Another dimension of openness that could be better understood from the perspective of the “open” community is the sharing of cultural works related to indigenous communities. This has been talked about with terms such as “traditional knowledge”. Traditional knowledge consists of a wide range of skills, cultural works, and practices that have been sustained and developed over generations by indigenous communities around the world. These communities hold entitlement over this knowledge as well as responsibility for the preservation of their knowledge, but haven’t always had the autonomy to decide what can be done with their knowledge. International and national instruments have attempted to codify the value of traditional knowledge and rights of indigenous peoples, but the place of such knowledge within conventional intellectual property structures remains  deeply contested and uncertain.

These issues and more were brought up at the 2018 Creative Commons Global Summit as well, and has since started an important conversation within the CC community. I’m an attorney and doctoral candidate at UC-Berkeley Law, and over the summer I worked as a research fellow for Creative Commons to conduct an investigation into the current issues regarding traditional knowledge and its intersection with the open movement. A draft of the paper is complete, and we welcome your thoughts and suggestions to it.

In addition, we’ll be hosting a session on the topic on Thursday, September 27 at 3:00p at the 5th Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest in Washington, D.C.

The tension between traditional knowledge protection and IP frameworks is exacerbated by digital technologies that have made the creation, dissemination, appropriation and remixing of knowledge and cultural artifacts easier than ever before. Indigenous communities’ preservation efforts and control over traditional knowledge sometimes also seem to conflict with the ‘open’ ecosystem, which consists of organizations, communities, and individuals supporting open and free culture, open licensing and access to knowledge. This is because traditional knowledge is often perceived as being part of the public domain by default, when it is not. 

There is a colonial history of this perception. The doctrine of discovery, which was used to legitimize and expand colonization, held the assumption that indigenous peoples were “uncivilized,” and hence could not own property like European settlers. Therefore, the land and knowledge of indigenous peoples were seen as part of the commons, open for ‘discovery’ and appropriation. Another oft repeated concern that traditional community representatives have voiced at global venues like WIPO is the misuse and appropriation of their knowledge. Appropriation refers not just to taking something of value to a community, but also reaping economic benefit from it. For these reasons, the public domain may be perceived as detrimental to the interests of indigenous communities. It’s important to recognize this because it affects how these communities might perceive open and free culture movements.

Copyright law in particular is based on a number of assumptions that are sometimes at odds with the protection of indigenous knowledge. For instance, sometimes it can be difficult to identify an author of a cultural work because “ownership” might vest in a community, is sometimes continually being invented, or might be passed from generation to generation. The categories of copyright law may not encompass the kinds of expressions found in traditional knowledge. For example, a dance could be manifested in several ways and may have a sequential unique style over several performances. One sequence might be removed and placed in a western song or performance. Not only would there be no protection for this disparate piece, any social or spiritual meaning that might be attached to that dance would also be lost. Furthermore, some traditions are conveyed and preserved orally, and this might not be ‘fixed’ in a tangible form to receive conventional copyright protection.

This perceived disconnect with copyright law in particular puts Creative Commons in a challenging position with regards to indigenous knowledge. On the one hand, Creative Commons strives to make knowledge and information as widely and freely accessible as possible. It seeks to empower individuals who want to define the terms of access to their works. On the other hand, Creative Commons must grapple with ownership structures of traditional knowledge, its position within copyright law, and the terms of access of different kinds of traditional knowledge online. The CC licenses were never meant to be applied to content that is not meant to be shared broadly — so to the extent such content is not intended to be shared broadly or if open licenses do not adequately meet the needs of these communities for reasons described above, then it makes sense not to expect acceptance or use of open licenses as currently available.

Despite these challenges, digital technologies also represent an opportunity to help resolve some of the tensions between IP structures and traditional knowledge and have been used by indigenous communities. Projects like Mukurtu and Local Contexts help preserve and label traditional works while giving indigenous communities autonomy to set the terms for sharing. Local Contexts also provides guidance to indigenous communities about controlling access and preservation of their knowledge. There are flexibilities within CC licenses that could be used in empowering ways by communities that want to make their works open. The conversation needs to involve more communities, policymakers and scholars and the Creative Commons team is exploring the possibilities of working with other projects and involving indigenous communities more closely to understand the role CC licenses could play in the protection and dissemination of traditional knowledge.

The post Traditional Knowledge and the Commons: The Open Movement, Listening, and Learning appeared first on Creative Commons.

Today the European Parliament voted 438-226 (with 39 abstentions) to approve drastic changes to copyright law that, if ultimately enacted, would negatively affect creativity, freedom of expression, research, and sharing across the EU.

The Parliament voted in favor of almost all provisions that extend more rights to the establishment copyright industries while failing to protect users and new creators online.

The Parliament voted in favor of Article 13, which will essentially force online platforms to install expensive content filters to police user uploads and remove content if there’s any whiff of unauthorized sharing of copyrighted materials. The rule covers all types of content, from music to video to images. If platforms don’t take action, they assume liability for what their uses publish online. Upload filters will limit freedom of expression, as the technologies can’t tell the difference between copyright infringement and permitted uses of copyrighted works, such as memes shared as parody, or the incidental capture of an advertisement in the background of a selfie.

They approved Article 11, which provides extra copyright-like rights to press publishers. Article 11 would force news aggregators to pay publishers for linking to their stories. The rule covers links and snippet over a single word. The Parliament’s vote also included giveaways to other groups, such as a new right for sporting event producers to lock down the sharing of fan photography and short videos at sporting events.

The Parliament refused to make much needed changes to the text that would help ensure that Europe can remain a relevant player for research and innovation. It approved only a limited copyright exception for text and data mining that restricts its use only for approved non-profit research organisations, instead of providing a blanket exception supported by libraries, research organisations, and the EU startup community that would make “the right to read is the right to mine.” As a result, investment and innovation in this space will move to outside of Europe where there’s a more conducive legal environment for text and data mining, such as the United States.

Not only does the plan approved by the Parliament fail to produce benefits for its intended frame, the digital single market, it also does almost nothing to protect user rights, improve the ability to share remixes and other user-generated content (UGC), or protect the public domain. The commonsense amendments in support of UGC, freedom of panorama, and calling for support of the public domain were all voted down.

Ryan Merkley, CEO of Creative Commons, appeared on BBC Radio this afternoon for an interview on the copyright directive vote. He reiterated that artists should be able to receive fair and appropriate compensation for their work, and that Creative Commons was formed in order to provide alternative choices for creators in how they share creativity online. But he said that most of the provisions passed in today’s EU Parliament vote only benefited major rights holders like TV networks or music labels:

If you’re a regular person or an independent artist who needs the internet for your every day life or for work or for fun, if you’re somebody who reads articles online or makes your own music or has an idea for a startup, or you’re a scientist who wants to cure a disease, you lose in this proposal. The EU is a less good place to make your art, to make your music, or to drive innovation or discovery.

What’s next?

Now the Parliament enters into closed-door three-way negotiations with the Council of the European Union (the EU Member State governments) and the European Commission (the EU executive body which proposed the original text of the copyright directive). These three bodies will work to reconcile their versions of the directive text, and the final text will again be voted on in the European Parliament probably early in 2019.

The European Parliament was given the chance to fix copyright for 500 million Europeans, and signal to the world that progressive changes to law can empower new creators and champion creativity and the open web. Instead, they chose to side with the most powerful corporate rights holders whose sole objective is to minimize the impact brought about by digital technologies and the internet on their legacy business models.

The fight for the future of the internet is far from over. While today’s Parliament vote was a major setback, it’s up to all of us to continue to organize and advocate for the free and open web we want and need, in the EU and beyond.

The post With the European Parliament vote on the copyright directive, the internet lost – for now appeared first on Creative Commons.

CC licenses reach 1/2 billion more creators and users!

After more than three years and many rounds of consultation with legal experts throughout Latin America and Europe, including Spain, Creative Commons is proud to announce the release of the Spanish language translation of the CC 4.0 license suite. This process included standardizing legal terms across multiple Spanish speaking-countries with differing legal systems, and involved the active participation of dozens of community members from different countries. Check out the CC Attribution license (CC BY) in Spanish.

Spanish is the second most-spoken language in the world, with approximately 447 million native speakers and an estimated 570 million total speakers worldwide. It is also one of the most geographically widespread languages, reaching a vast number of countries that recognize Spanish as an official language. This brings the total number of people who are able to understand our 4.0 licenses in their first language to more than 2.2 billion.

Spanish speaking communities have been active ever since the launch of Creative Commons in 2001 and some of the oldest chapters were formed in Latin America and Spain. Under the new structure of the CC Global Network, we’re seeing an increase in the number of Spanish-speaking chapters. As more chapters are formed to promote the licenses and the communities that depend on them for sharing, we expect that the Spanish license suite will help more institutions, creators and artists in these countries embrace CC licensing.

We would like to thank the incredible leadership of María Juliana Soto (CC Colombia) and Ignasi Labastida (CC Spain) in drafting the first versions of the translation, and the work of several contributors around the CC Community, including: María Paz Canales (CC Chile); Claudia Cristiani (CC El Salvador); Evelin Heidel (a.k.a. Scann, CC Argentina), as well as the support of CC Staff to bring this forward.

¡Felicitaciones por el trabajo realizado, equipo!

En Español:

La traducción al castellano de la versión 4.0 de las licencias está ahora disponible
¡Las licencias CC ahora alcanzan a medio billón más de usuarios y creadores!

Luego de más de tres años y varias rondas de consulta con expertos legales a lo largo de América Latina y España, Creative Commons se enorgullece en anunciar el lanzamiento de la traducción al español de las licencias CC 4.0. Este proceso incluyó estandarizar el conjunto de las licencias a lo largo de múltiples países hispano-parlantes, con la participación activa de decenas de miembros de la comunidad de varios países. Pueden ver la licencia CC Atribución (CC BY) en español.

El español es la segunda lengua más hablada en el mundo, con alrededor de 442 millones de hablantes nativos y un estimado de 570 millones de hablantes en el mundo. También es uno de los idiomas más difundidos geográficamente, alcanzando un gran número de países que lo reconocen como su idioma oficial. Esto lleva a que más de 2.2 billones de personas puedan entender nuestras licencias 4.0 en su idioma materno.

Las comunidades hispano-parlantes han estado muy activas desde el lanzamiento de Creative Commons en 2001. Algunos de los capítulos más antiguos fueron formados en América Latina y España. Bajo la nueva estructura de la Red Global de CC, estamos viendo un incremento de capítulos hispano-parlantes. A medida que se forman más capítulos para promover las licencias y las comunidades que dependen de ellas para compartir, esperamos que las licencias en español ayudarán a más instituciones, creadores y artistas a adoptar CC en estos países.

Nos gustaría agradecer el increíble liderazgo de María Juliana Soto (CC Colombia) e Ignasi Labastida (CC Spain) en armar los primeros borradores de la traducción, y el trabajo de varios colaboradores en la comunidad de CC: María Paz Canales (CC Chile); Claudia Cristiani (CC El Salvador); Evelin Heidel (a.k.a. Scann, CC Argentina), así como el apoyo del staff de CC para completar esta tarea.

¡Felicitaciones por el trabajo realizado, equipo!

The post Spanish Translation of 4.0 now available (La traducción al castellano de la versión 4.0 de las licencias está ahora disponible) appeared first on Creative Commons.

We’re coming up on a crucial decision on changes to copyright in the European Union that will govern how creativity is accessed and shared for years to come. On 12 September the European Parliament will vote on the draft Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market.

If you’re in the EU, go to https://saveyourinternet.eu/ and tell your MEPs to stop the harmful Article 13 upload filters and support a balanced copyright reform

MEPs should vote against Article 13 upload filters, which would scan all content uploaded to online platforms for any copyrighted works and prevent those works from going online if a match is discovered. It will limit freedom of expression, as the required upload filters won’t be able to tell the difference between copyright infringement and permitted uses of copyrighted works under limitations and exceptions. It puts into jeopardy the sharing of video remixes, memes, parody, and code, even works that incorporate openly licensed content.

MEPs should vote against Article 11, the unnecessary and counterproductive press publishers right that would require anyone using snippets of journalistic content to first get a license or pay a fee to the publisher for its use online.

MEPs should support amendments that expand Article 4, the copyright exception for education, and Article 3, the exception for text and data mining, which needs to be broadened so that the “right to read is the right to mine.” There’s also some last minute amendments that should be supported, such as the exception that would improve the ability to share remixes and other user-generated content, as well as an exception to enable the commonsense practice of being able to take and share photographs of works of art in public spaces, called “freedom of panorama.”

Even though the Parliament’s Legal Affairs committee approved some of the most harmful measures on the docket back in June, the 5 July plenary vote opened up the debate on the directive to the full Parliament. Hundreds of thousands of people made their voices heard, urging for a better and more progressive copyright that will stop the backward proposals like the content filters suggested by Article 13.  

Much of the copyright directive has been narrowly tailored to serve the interests of the most powerful rights holders from the entertainment and publishing sectors. These powerful actors wish to prevent any deviation from their bottom line profits by the revolutionary changes brought about by digital technologies and the internet.

These voices do not represent the incredible diversity of creativity online. On the internet, everyone is a creator, and we want to share knowledge, artistic and political expression, photos and home movies, news, and even code with others in the global commons, on platforms from Wikipedia to YouTube to open access journals to online learning websites. We need progressive policies that support this type of sharing and access if we want to achieve our vision of universal access to research and education and full participation in culture to drive a new era of development, growth, and productivity.

Now is the time for Europe to secure progressive rules on copyright that will truly protect all creators and users, not just special interests. MEPs need to listen to the countless voices that represent the future of creativity, innovation, and online sharing.

Tell them now before it’s too late.

The post It’s now or never: EU copyright must protect access to knowledge and the commons appeared first on Creative Commons.