With exactly one month to go until the 2021 CC Global Summit (September 20-24), we are launching our ‘Meet the CC Summit Presenter’ series to introduce the CC community to some of our amazing presenters from this year’s event. First up, we have Primavera De Filippi. Primavera is a Researcher at the National Center of Scientific Research in Paris, and Faculty Associate at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard. Her research focuses on the legal challenges and opportunities of blockchain technology and artificial intelligence, with specific focus on governance and trust. She is the co-author of the book “Blockchain and the Law,” published in 2018 by Harvard University Press, and she was recently awarded a €2M grant from the European Research Council (ERC) to investigate how blockchain technology can help improve institutional governance through greater confidence and trust.

: Paris, France
Summit Session: Creative NFTs: Using Blockchain Technology and NFTs to Support Creative Commons (access the program here).

How did you get involved with Creative Commons?
I joined Creative Commons France in 2010 as a legal expert.

How many times have you been to CC Global Summit?
Three

In the future, what is something you would like to see at the CC Summit?More NFT related stuff .

Why are you an advocate for Open?
I believe that information should remain open and accessible to all, in order to foster creativity through incremental innovation. The model of artificial scarcity established by copyright law is not ideal for all types of works, especially with the Internet, which is characterized by digital abundance.

“Blockchain can be used for creating digital scarcity and exclusivity, but also to foster creativity and promote digital abundance, we just need more commons-oriented people to work on it!”

What is your proudest achievement?
Bringing my Plantoid art project at Burning Man (www.plantoid.org): Plantoids are blockchain-based life-forms, or mechanical plants using cryptocurrency to reproduce themselves by hiring artists to create replicas of themselves. The goal is to eliminate the figure of the author, by enabling people to fund the art-pieces themselves, rather than their creators, to facilitate their reproduction.

What is the best part of what you do? What is the most difficult part of what you do?
The best part of what I do is exploring the new opportunities that blockchain technology provides, and how they can foster new economic models for artists and creators. The most difficult part is actually getting these opportunities to be implemented in the real world, and adopted by creators.

What is your favorite GIF?

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What tool/platform/app are you loving right now?
Notion — a new editor that blends notes, tasks, wikis in one app. 

What is the biggest setback you have experienced? How did you overcome it?
Getting people to understand that not all NFTs are ridiculously energy-consuming, and that different blockchain platforms can be used to provide environmental friendly solutions for NFTs. I am still struggling to overcome it, but it’s all about information and education.

If you could only leave people with one message from your summit presentation, what would it be?
Blockchain can be used for creating digital scarcity and exclusivity, but also to foster creativity and promote digital abundance, we just need more commons-oriented people to work on it!

What was the best career advice you ever received? What was the worst career advice you ever received?
I think the best and worst career advice I ever received were essentially the same: ‘Like what you do, and you’ll never work a day in your life’ — very true and very false at the same time .

What would you like to say to Creative Commons on our 20th anniversary?Thank you for all the work and inspiration you’ve brought to the world .

What does ‘Better Sharing, Brighter Future’ mean to you?
Sharing is a skill set that needs to be learned in order to build a more sustainable and cooperative future.

Haven’t had a chance to register for the 2021 Global Summit yet? Register here >>

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This month, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) shared its new open access policy. This new policy is a welcome initiative that will increase opportunities for the findings of publicly funded research to be accessed, shared and reused.

As part of our work supporting efforts in the creation, adoption and implementation of open access policies with various institutions, Creative Commons (CC) was pleased to lend its knowledge to assist UKRI in developing its open access policy as part of the Open Access Review last year. Generally, CC is committed to the goal of ensuring that the public is able to access immediately, free of charge, and without restriction, the peer-reviewed research articles and academic books resulting from publicly funded research. We are pleased to see that the comments we provided back in May 2020 have been taken into account in the review process. We are especially glad to see that key requirements of the new policy include immediate open access for research articles and the release of publications under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY) (CC BY ND by exception only).

CC licenses and tools have become the standard in research publication open licensing. They are free, easy-to-use, simple and standardized licenses that enable researchers to share the articles or monographs they wrote with everyone, worldwide, on the conditions that they determine. In practice, this means research articles and data can be freely reused by others, thereby enhancing collaboration among researchers, accelerating the pace of scientific discovery, and facilitating the dissemination of reliable, practical information to the public.

For guidance on implementing an open access policy or using the CC License Suite, please contact us at info@creativecommons.org—we’re here to help.

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Today marks my first year anniversary at CC. It is such an honour and a privilege to lead this organization whose relevance could not be more important at this time.

However, as I sit and write this reflection, I know for so many in our global community and network that our thoughts and prayers are with the women and girls in Afghanistan with whom I want to express my solidarity. I sincerely hope the international community will do all that it can to support women and girls in Afghanistan to exercise their basic human rights against a backdrop of chaos, violence and uncertainty. 

As for CC, I would like to take this moment of a year as CEO to reflect on all that we have achieved together during this extraordinary time. The global pandemic has meant that no one from this global, virtual organization has met in-person since February 2020. In fact, I’ve yet to meet a single Creative Commoner in-person since joining as CEO. However, we have not let this hamper our ambitions or restrict our achievements.

In the first four months of coming to CC, we led a virtual strategic process, which resulted in the creation of our new 5 year strategy. The theme of Better Sharing resonates now more than ever. This theme forms the central message of our 20th Anniversary Capital Campaign. It has been a privilege to support our 20th Anniversary Committee and to see the launch of the campaign in May this year. A huge thank you must go to the 20th anniversary co-chairs, Paul Brest and Ruth Okediji, whose wisdom and thoughtfulness shine through in their dedication to Creative Commons.

Our 20th Anniversary Capital Campaign was launched to a flying start, thanks to the generous support of Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin. Their $5 million multi-year gift to launch a program focused on Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (GLAMs) is a phenomenal investment in supporting openness in cultural heritage. Brigitte Vézina, who is leading CC’s work on GLAM, presented the new program at Wikimania earlier this week.

This generous gift will help us achieve our ambitious goal of raising $15 million by the end of next year. Thank you to all those who support our work – without you, we could not free knowledge and culture around the world for everyone, everywhere. 

Our strategy is our guiding map over the next 5 years, and it is great to see our priorities of advocacy, legal innovation, and capacity building start to take shape. Last week, our legal team, composed of Sarah Pearson and Kat Walsh, published an open consultation on how we will be addressing the issue of aggressive license enforcement. This has long been a topic in the open licensing community, and we are now seeing real action coming together to address this critical area of concern.

Our work in Open Education led by Dr. Cable Green continues, and it was a real success story to see California adopt what we have been advocating for in open textbooks. We hope that over the coming months, as the world looks to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), we will have something more to share with you on our open climate ambitions – watch this space. It has been exciting to watch our work with Grant for the Web mature in the second year of the collaboration. The program is thriving under the strong leadership of the Interledger Foundation.

Over the past year, we have also seen the successful transition of CC Search to Automattic, and our stewardship of the Open COVID pledge transferred to American University. It is a testament to CC to see projects which began here grow and prosper under the leadership of organizations that share our values. We have also seen staff too move onto new and exciting opportunities, and I want to thank each and every one of them for their tireless efforts at CC. It has been great to welcome Kat Drew, Kat Walsh, Marlena Reimer, Brylie Oxley and Ony Anukem to CC. Our global community remains a strength that no matter where you are in the world you will find people who share our values over the importance of sharing knowledge and culture. I am excited about our 20th Anniversary Summit, which is now just a month away. I invite you all to join the Creative Commons team, global network, and broader open community to discuss key issues and learn together, the week of September 20th.

And so for the next year, my key priorities remain the 20th Anniversary Campaign, to meet our goal of $15 million by the end of next year, implementing our strategy of Better Sharing, and continuing to raise the profile and awareness of Creative Commons across our world. I look forward to the year ahead and thank you again for your support, friendship and commitment to the powerful cause of sharing knowledge and culture.

The post Reflections from my first year as Creative Commons’ CEO appeared first on Creative Commons.

At Creative Commons, openness, diversity, inclusion, and democratization are at the heart of everything we do. We strive to create an inclusive experience at each CC Global Summit, ensuring that each event is as accessible as possible and that underrepresented groups feel welcome in the CC community.

 Over the years, Creative Commons has built a diverse and globally representative Summit audience by dedicating resources to increasing diversity and accessibility. This year being virtual is no different – we are pleased to offer the Summit Access Fund to tackle accessibility issues in the virtual space. 

The Summit Access Fund will support community members and presenters who need financial support to access our tools and platforms, including reliable internet, in order to meaningfully participate in the event. Haven’t had a chance to register yet? Register here >>

We will be offering small dollar amounts of $50 and $100USD, and all applications will be reviewed by a volunteer committee from around the globe.

Whether you don’t have access to home internet, lack bandwidth due to living in a multiple occupant household, or live in an area with connection issues, we hope this funding will help make access to the summit more equitable. Priority will be given to delegates who are CC Global Network Members and those residing in the global south, but applications are welcome and encouraged from all participants.

Timeline:

• 10 – 24 August Applications Open
• 25 – 30 August Application Evaluation
• Early September Acceptance letters sent out
  

APPLY FOR THE SUMMIT ACCESS FUND HERE

If you can, please consider donating to the Summit Access Fund to help ensure reliable internet access for CC Summit participants who may need it, as well as translation and live language support. Donate here >>

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For several years, Creative Commons has been monitoring an alarming increase in enforcement actions relating to CC licenses. Today, we are announcing the next phase of our evolving response to this complex issue, and we would like your input.

There are several elements to our plans, but the centerpiece today is a draft Statement of Principles Around License Enforcement. We recognize that these principles have limited legal “bite,” given that CC does not hold the copyright to community works. However, we believe there is value in articulating what CC believes is license enforcement that upholds the spirit and intent of the licenses. We also foresee other possible mechanisms for these principles to be useful, including integration of the principles into community codes of conduct and adoption by major rights holders. 

We want to hear from you. Do these principles reflect your own values? Why or why not? How can we adapt them to better meet community expectations? You can read the principles and our wider plans on this front on the CC site, and you can leave comments on the text of the principles in this google doc. We will be improving this draft in the coming weeks, and engaging in a public conversation around them at the CC Summit in September.

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