This week, we’ll be featuring stories from this year’s State of the Commons report, which highlights the impact of our global community by exploring the wide array of creativity and knowledge that is freely available to the world under under CC licenses. Read more about why this report marks our biggest year yet.
In November 2016, we interviewed the Lebanese artist Maya Zankoul about her impact as a CC creator. We were thrilled to feature her work in this year’s State of the Commons.
Zankoul’s first book, Amalgam, was published in 2009 under a CC BY-NC license. The book sprung from her popular web comic exploring life, work, and art in Beirut and beyond.
Zankoul’s work touches on the connections between cultures with illustrations shaped by her rich, artistic world. Her newest book, Beirut – New York, was published this autumn.
“I find that my illustrations allow people to see things differently. It allows them to step outside the status quo.” – Maya Zankoul
We are so pleased to announce that the official translation of CC 4.0 Licenses into Turkish are now available so Turkish speaking communities can use them in their own language.
Public consultation for the translation took place in March 2017 and was coordinated by the Creative Commons Turkey team. Before and after the consultation, intense work has been put into the process including discussions, meetings, cross checking terminologies, proofreading, fine-tuning. Linguists, lawyers, librarians, IT experts and researchers have been involved in the work.
A few people should be named here to thank for special efforts to make this happen. CC Turkey Public Lead Ilkay Holt, Technical Lead Orcun Madran, Legal Partner Serhat Koc (LL.M IT), Legal Partner Selva Kaynak (LL.M IP) lead this work. We would also like to thank to Sirin Tekinay who initiated CC Turkey movement in Turkey and Gultekin Gurdal, Director of IZTECH Library for their great contribution in finalizing the review process.
Creative Commons 4.0 licenses in Turkish is an entry point to a shared, free, and open society in Turkish. Around the world, people are encouraged to produce, share what they produce, reuse, adopt standards and encourage reuse, and open up innovation.
But even more important than using the tools of Creative Commons, adopting open licenses requires a philosophy. “Openness” must be contained every step of the way, from the concept of openness to how we create works, where we keep them, how we allow them to be used, and how we should use the works created by others. In all of these steps, openness, transparency, and openness to sharing and an attitude that supports the re-use of our work is important.
With Creative Commons, we embrace the “some rights reserved” approach to copyright instead of “all rights reserved,” This approach requires copyright reform, in which the conventional-traditional-stereotyped copyright laws leave its place in a structure that will strengthen the creativity of society.
This is an integral part of the cultural, literary, scientific and artistic field we are trying to define through Creative Commons and open license movements and is why the legal texts of Creative Commons licenses are now crucial in Turkish.
This is a milestone achievement for Turkey in the adoption of open licenses, which is an invaluable component of an open society. This will help significantly to improve open policies and share legally. We now invite Turkish commoners to use the CC licenses in Turkish and start sharing.
Diego Gómez, the Colombian student who for the last three years has been prosecuted for sharing an academic paper online, has been cleared of criminal charges. The decision was delivered today by a judge in the Bogotá Circuit Criminal Court.
In 2014 Diego was a student in conservation and wildlife management, with poor access to many of the resources and databases that would help him conduct his research. In conducting his research, Diego found and shared a academic paper online so that others could read and learn from it, just as he did. Gómez was prosecuted for copyright infringement, and faced up to eight years in prison.
The decision to clear Diego of criminal charges is an important move in the interest of the public good. Instead of prosecuting students for sharing knowledge, our societies should be encouraging the free exchange of scientific information by reinforcing positive norms around scholarship and collaboration, promoting open access to research, and toning down out of control copyright remedies that serve no reasonable public interest purpose.
Even with today’s verdict, Diego’s situation is not over. The prosecutor has appealed the ruling, so the case will continue. Gomez’s defense team plans to launch a crowdfunding campaign to support the cost of defending the appeal. Those who wish to help Diego can sign the following petition and will be notified when the crowdfunding campaign launches: http://www.sharingisnotacrime.org
Diego has been supported by individuals and organisations from around the world, with leadership from the Colombian digital rights group Fundación Karisma.
“Alike” was directed by Daniel Martinez Lara and Rafa Cano Mende, and was made in collaboration with ex Pepe-School-Land students. The film was developed using the open source operating system Linux and Blender, a free and open source 3D creation suite. The film has debuted at 120 festivals and won nearly as many awards.
Interview with the filmmakers: Rafa Cano Mende and Daniel Martinez Lara
Alike is a successful film licensed under CC BY-ND made with Blender. What made you decide to license it under CC? How did you work with the Blender community to make your film more successful?
From the beginning, we were clear. After touring for festivals we wanted the short film to be available and free on internet so the message reaches as many people as possible. The CC license is perfect for that reason.
Alike has been our first short film made in Blender entirely, and we are really happy with our decision. It is not the “free” that matters. We have become part of the “Blender Community” due to the strength of users and programmers – they are always willing to solve and come up with ideas.
You chose to license the graphics under ND and the script under BY. Why did you make that decision? Why did you separate the two?
When we were developing the short film, we wanted to protect the script and characters more traditionally because our work was not finished. When we finished it we wanted to share our project with everybody, and its final form was the Alike short film video, which we shared with a more open license.
Alike is a heartwarming story about the special bond between a father and son as well as the perils of being too busy in an overconnected world. How did you come up with the story?
When you are a father, you usually wonder which will be the best way to raise your children. Alike tries to be a reflection and tries to help you to be aware about letting you go by stress and routine, and always trying to find an answer from the calm.
How did you bring the graphics and the script together so seamlessly?
This convergence is because of Rafa Cano, co-director, art director, and animation supervisor of the film. Cano has had the sensitivity of understanding Alike´s story and designed a world and an animation customized to the story.
You’ve won a number of awards with this short! How does the commons play into this? Why is it important to be a part of the global commons?
On the tour festival stage, we don’t know how the commons license has influenced it. But due to the film’s success, we feel confident to continue sharing films under Commons licenses on the internet.
Screenshot from Wikipedia’s #FairCopyrightOz campaign, CC BY-SA 3.0
This week Wikipedia is urging users in Australia to tell their government representatives to champion fair use. The campaign, organised alongside Electronic Frontiers Australia and the Australian Digital Alliance, advocates for policy makers to update copyright law to include fair use, thus providing a progressive legal framework to support creators and remixers, educational activities, and new business opportunities.
Fair use is the legal doctrine already adopted in a few countries that permits use of copyrighted works without permission for purposes such as reporting, criticism, and research. For example, news broadcasts oftentimes use snippets of copyrighted videos in their programs to illustrate a story. They are able to do this without permission and without having to pay a license fee because of fair use. This exception to copyright provides a crucial balance between the interests of copyright holders and the public interest. It promotes creativity and transformative remix and protects freedom of expression.
The issue is important to the Wikipedia community because around 10% of the English Wikipedia’s 5 million articles incorporate some content under fair use.
Over the last 20 years, the Australian government has recommended several times that fair use be adopted into its copyright regime. The campaign launched during the country’s most recent push for incorporating fair use. Last year, Australia’s Productivity Commission provided a strong recommendation for fair use. Not surprisingly, the big rights holders organisations continue to fight against the adoption of a fair use exception. Just last month it was reported that the Copyright Agency, a copyright collective management group that is supposed to collect and disburse copyright royalty payments to authors, diverted millions of dollars to fund lobbying activities to fight against fair use reforms.
