In March we hosted the second Institute for Open Leadership. In our summary of the event we mentioned that the Institute fellows would be taking turns to write about their open policy projects. This week’s post is from Fiona MacAlister, OER Specialist at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa.

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I was privileged to attend the second Institute for Open Leadership (IOL2), held in Cape Town, in March of this year. It was an amazing experience, during which I worked with various mentors and a small group of fellow open colleagues from around the world. One of the plusses of the Institute was hearing about the challenges that everyone faced and how they had gone about, or were going about overcoming them albeit, in some cases, with what many would consider relatively small wins. That, however, is the nature of the OER world. Lots of small wins are what ultimately lead to the big wins.

IOL Fellows atop Table Mountain, by bella_velo, CC BY 2.0

One issue that emerged is that there are no quick fixes when it comes to promoting the concept of open educational resources (OER). Tertiary institutions are a particularly difficult nut to crack, as the concept of knowledge sharing is not a popular one in what is, more often than not, an environment in which research ideas are cultivated and jealously guarded in the safe spaces of minds and offices. Not surprisingly, this does not make for fertile ground in which to plant the idea of knowledge sharing, but we persevere.

The fact that the OER movement has not quite taken off has been a cause of frustration for many of us for some time now. To those of us involved in the movement, the benefits of sharing would appear be a ‘no brainer’. However, over the course of my time as an OER Specialist at my current institution, I have had time to reflect on why the concept of OER is such a difficult one to communicate, even on a basic level.

To put things into perspective: We are on the brink of finalizing a joint Open Access/Open Educational Resources policy. We have been working on an internal online OER course and a booklet on Creative Commons licensing and OER, both of which will soon be released. We are also currently in the process of developing a range of courses together with the Office of Student Support in the Faculty of Health Sciences, which are intended to support the first year experience and will be released with an open license. I should be elated by these wins but, in my opinion, the impetus created by them will be difficult to maintain without a larger mindset change—that goes well beyond the reach of our current two-year project.

Many people become rather uncomfortable when you start to talk about openness in this somewhat esoteric vein, which is why I suspect so many OER projects are expected to produce facts, stats, quantity and research. What I think mitigates against the full success of projects which use this sort of approach, and structure, is that the concept of openness is not, at its heart, a purely quantitative or researchable one. True openness, and a willingness to share, will not flourish in an environment that is dominated, primarily, by a production line or microscopic analysis. It seems to me that we have become too cautious about addressing the real face of openness which is, in essence, an altruistic project which should ultimately benefit the world at large. In my opinion, it is the main reason why so many open initiatives disappear into the ether once the funding dries up. We have lost sight of the real spirit of the open movement because we are reluctant to admit that it doesn’t lend itself readily to the commercial, quantitative structures of our world.

We have been conditioned to believe that by being truly open to the world and people around us that we will lose something of ourselves and gain nothing in return. In some circumstances this may be true but, in reality, the world will gain something from us and something of our unique perspective on the world. All of us have knowledge to share, openly and freely, that will be of benefit to others and that can be repurposed in a way that will communicate that benefit across a range of cultures.

Openness and trust go hand-in-glove. Trust can only come from a willingness to share which, in the final analysis, stems from a concern for the common good. It really is as simple as that. That, in my opinion, is the foundation upon which the future of the open movement lies. If we don’t come from that starting point, we will remain trapped in theoretical frameworks, and the initial impetus of the movement will eventually be relegated to the world of academic research. Is that something we really want, or do we still believe that the open movement will ultimately be of benefit to the world at large?

The post Cultivating a Culture of Knowledge Sharing appeared first on Creative Commons.

The shiny glass and metal world of the average technology stock photo too often displays a homogenous representation of tech workers. When the Women of Color in Tech chat (#wocintechchat) began last year, its founders, the NYC-based technologists Stephanie Morillo and Christina Morillo (no relation) knew that they needed to widen that lens.

In the last year, #wocintechchat has provided Twitter chats, community dialogue, scholarships, and partnerships to provide more opportunities for women of color working in technology. The nearly 500 CC licensed photos have been used in a variety of media, providing positive representations of women of color working in tech.

The widespread acclaim and adoption of the photos has been exciting, though not entirely surprising to Morillo and Morillo, who credit the CC license as one of the reasons for its success. The photos can be found on Flickr, and the #wocintechchat organization welcomes women and non-binary people of color to join their community.

The #wocintechchat and stock photos grew out of a need for better representation of women of color working in tech. How do you feel that CC-licensed stock photos can help meet that need?
Our main goal was to get these photos disseminated and used as widely as possible. Accessibility was our number one priority, and we knew by making these photos available under a CC license, people would be more inclined to use them. We felt that a CC license helped accomplish our goal to make these photos free while ensuring that our organization would be acknowledged as the creators of these photos.

Have you seen any particularly cool or creative uses of the photos? Have you been surprised to see them pop up in any unexpected places?
We’ve seen them in more places than we can count! The company InVision uses them frequently in newsletters, and we recently worked with Buffer to make the photos available in their new social image tool, Pablo. Colleagues and friends will usually ping us whenever this image pops up because both of us (Christina and Stephanie) are in the photo and we’re both the founders of the initiative. Our photos have also ended up in places like TechCrunch, in social media images for tech firms, and recently to promote tech scholarships.

Were you expecting the photos to have such wide acclaim and adoption? Do you think that the use of the CC license contributes to this?
We knew this had the potential to be big because the concept was both novel and obvious: of course we need more images of women of color technologists, but no one has done it before. And the use of the CC license was certainly key. It’s not every day that people make stock images free to use and we know that sometimes people don’t use images because they’d have to pay for them.

We wanted the images to be used in creative ways, and having them available with a CC license has meant they’ve been used by large companies, small companies, college professors, conference speakers, bloggers, and journalists.

Why did you choose to use CC for these photos? Did you consider sharing the photos in any other manner?
We were certain that we wanted to use CC for these photos and didn’t consider any other manner. We knew that Flickr was the best platform for both ease of use and searchability, and we also liked that the platform displays the CC license with the photos. So it was a no-brainer for us.

What’s next for #WOCinTechChat? What kinds of future projects are you looking forward to accomplishing?
We have lots of ideas floating around and we’re both still active in the tech scene and frequently use the #WOCinTechChat Twitter handle to share industry opportunities and news. We’re taking things as they come and are just as excited as everyone else to see where we head to next!

The post “This had the potential to be big”: an interview with #wocintechchat appeared first on Creative Commons.

Diane Peters and Michael Carroll
August 30, 2016

Creative Commons has requested permission to file an amicus brief in litigation between Great Minds and FedEx Office and Print Services, Inc.  At the center of the litigation is the proper interpretation of the CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 license, known as BY-NC-SA. The case is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York before Judge Hurley. While we rarely file amicus briefs, we feel strongly that the correct interpretation of the legal code here is essential to the utility of the NC licenses for both licensors and licensees, including those using any of the more than 370 million works that are licensed under one of CC’s NC licenses.

In this case, Great Minds claims that FedEx Office violated the terms of the BY-NC-SA license Great Minds applied to educational materials when FedEx Office copied material at the direction of school districts for non commercial use in classrooms. While it is undisputed that the use of these materials by public school districts is non commercial (as defined in the CC license), the claim against FedEx Office is that it cannot make copies for the school districts—even if it does so at the direction of the school districts and solely in service of that permitted NC use. CC disagrees with this interpretation and has requested permission to explain to the court why the license clearly allows this activity under these circumstances.

Entities using CC-licensed works must be free to act as entities do—including through employees and the contractors they engage in their service. To preclude an entity from using contractors to carry out otherwise-authorized work is not supported by the law, and is not prohibited by the terms and conditions of the NC license. A contrary understanding would mean that in many cases, a bona fide noncommercial licensee could not engage any service that charged a standard fee in the course of the non commercial user’s exercise of its legitimate rights under the license. Instead, only those with the means and resources to own all points in the reproduction and distribution chain could use NC-licensed material.  If that were so, the value of the license would be significantly diminished.

As a result, we believe this litigation is important to the usability of the NC licenses, which feature prominently in the OER ecosystem at present. Moreover, we pledged to our community during the 4.0 versioning process we would do more to clarify how the NC limitation works in the practical world. We will continue to work closely in collaboration with CC United States as this litigation unfolds. Watch here for updates as this case progresses.

The post Defending Noncommercial Uses: Great Minds v Fedex Office appeared first on Creative Commons.

Creative Commons has been actively engaged in efforts to support copyright reforms aligned with the commons and the public interest, including the copyright reform consultations in the European Union. Via the Communia Association, CC Europe affiliates are at the center of this debate, providing education and advocacy for forward-thinking reforms to the copyright framework. We know the CC vision will not be realized through licensing alone, and our experience has reinforced our belief that to ensure the maximum benefits to both culture and the economy in this digital age, the scope and shape of copyright law need to be reviewed.

This is why we’re disappointed in the leaked draft of the Commission’s “impact assessment” of the proposed changes to EU copyright law. The document confirms some of our worst fears about the forthcoming copyright proposal: it introduces few and mostly superficial changes to copyright in support of users and the public interest, while doubling down on policy interventions benefiting rights holders and incumbent industries.

Here’s just a few of the problematic policy options contained in the report.

The impact assessment shows that the Commission is planning on introducing a new copyright-like right for news publishers despite the wide opposition. These types of rights would permit publishers to try to extract fees from search engines for incorporating short snippets of—or even linking to—news articles. The link tax doesn’t work. It would create additional burdens on researchers and educational institutions, it undermines the intention of authors who wish to share without additional strings attached (such as creators who want to share under Creative Commons licenses), and it would have a negative impact on access to information online. This Commission should decide against pursing this policy option.

Regarding access to copyrighted content for teachers, the impact assessment recommends that there be a “mandatory exception with a cross-border effect covering digital and online uses in the context of illustration for teaching, with the option for [Member States] to make it (partially or totally) subject to the availability of licences.” The policy option will cover a broad spectrum of works in the service of teaching and learning, but  it’s disappointing that the proposal would permit member states to continue to push for a licensing approach. This would be in opposition to the intention of the exception—which is to facilitate improved access to education and research materials. Licensing can’t solve all problems—especially when licensing limits what can be done with the content—or when it would impose high access and use fees. It’s also troubling that the exception would only benefit formal educational establishments, and only cover the sharing of copyright-protected works within closed online networks (such as a school’s learning management system). The exception that should be introduced would allow anyone in the service of teaching and learning to use and share content online for educational purposes (at least non-commercially), without the additional burden of having to acquire a license to use it.

The impact assessment describes the possibility of introducing an exception that would enable the practice of text and data mining (TDM) for both noncommercial and commercial activities. However, the policy option described here would only be available to “public interest research organisations”. This would artificially restrict the incredible potential for TDM discoveries and innovation by excluding the private sector. In addition, the recommendation limits the scope of the TDM activity to only “scientific research purposes”. This constraint would decrease the potential impact of novel TDM uses, such as for  journalism-related investigations, market research, or other types of activities not strictly considered scientific research. The exception that should be introduced would allow anyone to undertake text and data mining of all lawfully accessible materials for any purpose.

In addition to the policy options mentioned above, there are several other proposed interventions that would benefit large rights holders over the public. It’s also telling what is not discussed in the impact assessment. For example, the issue of freedom of panorama is not addressed in a similar fashion as the other possible changes. This is a relevant policy area in which the Commission asked for feedback, and the public responded with a resounding call to protect the sharing of photos taken in public places. We support the inclusion of a broad right for freedom of panorama, and it should apply to both commercial and noncommercial uses of images of architecture, sculpture, and other objects in public spaces. The exception should be mandatory across the EU, and should cover both online and offline uses.

The leaked impact assessment clearly shows the Commission’s preference to prop up the rent-seeking interests of entrenched rights holders peddling fading business models. We’re disappointed in the impact assessment—both the anemic policy recommendations as well as the opaque process that has apparently disregarded most of the feedback from the public. It’s not too late for the Commission to include policy proposals that would truly empower users in the digital age. It’s high time the Commission start engaging in transparent, consultative policy making that champions the broad interests of the many instead of the narrow demands of the powerful few.

Screwdriver And Wrench by To Uyen, CC BY 3.0 US
Copyright by Marek Polakovic, CC BY 3.0 US

The post Leaked European Commission Copyright Plans Ignore the Public Interest appeared first on Creative Commons.

This guest post is by Erik Moeller, former Deputy Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, the organization behind Wikipedia, from 2008 to 2015. He co-organized the migration of Wikipedia to the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license, co-authored the Definition of Free Cultural Works, and instigated the world’s largest repository of exclusively freely licensed media, Wikimedia Commons.

Thanks to the free culture movement, vast knowledge repositories like Wikipedia and StackExchange allow content to be re-used freely and built upon, and many major sites offer Creative Commons licensing as part of their user interfaces.

Yet there’s one area in which free culture has made very little progress to date: online reviews. Sites like Yelp, IMDB, Amazon.com, TripAdvisor, Goodreads, and others rely on millions of users to review products and services, but the resulting text and media are licensed only to the operating companies and not available for re-use, which means reviews are stuck in silos.

They may disappear at a moment’s notice. They can’t be translated, remixed or built upon, outside the narrow exemptions granted by fair use. Reviews could be the glue that connects a lot of existing free and open information, including Wikidata and OpenStreetMap if only they were freely licensed.

I believe that we can begin to change the status quo. To that end, I created an open source browser extension, freeyourstuff.cc, which lets you download your reviews for supported sites and, optionally, release them under CC-0, CC-BY or CC-BY-SA, the three Creative Commons licenses consistent with the Definition of Free Cultural Works. freeyourstuff.cc is not limited to reviews and is easy to extend. Here’s a quick video (YouTube version) that shows how it works.

I am also working on a project to build a free and open source community around reviews (of anything!): lib.reviews. We’re still in the early stages (video walkthrough / on YouTube), but if you want to get involved, follow us on Twitter, send us a message, and we’ll send you an invite code to get started.

By building these tools, we hope to go beyond the transactional consumer culture of online review sites, and make it easy to investigate other facets of a product or experience, such as the environmental impact or labor practices associated with it.

Free culture already enriches our world in immeasurable ways. Let’s take a step closer to a world in which sharing freely is the norm, not the exception.

The post Free the Reviews: Why Free Culture Needs Free Opinions appeared first on Creative Commons.