Throughout 2021, four working groups of the Creative Commons Copyright Platform are undertaking an exploration of policy issues affecting the open ecosystem, in line with the Creative Commons 2021-2026 strategy. In this blog post, we present the four working groups and introduce you to their leads. 

Generally, the Platform is a space for copyright and open movement advocates and practitioners to identify, plan and coordinate policy-related activities. The Platform acts as: 

• a forum to exchange good practices, case studies and practical examples;
• a network of contacts, local focal points and experts;
• a place to collaborate on projects and activities.

This year, the Platform created four working groups to address four policy themes and find solutions to problems affecting the open ecosystem from a global perspective: (1) artificial intelligence and open content; (2) platform liability; (3) copyright exceptions and limitations; and (4) the ethics of open sharing. 

Each working group will publish an article encapsulating its outcomes in the CC Medium Publication in Fall 2021. Each of them will also present their work at a public webinar on November 9, 2021, in order to inform CC Global Network members, practitioners, policymakers and the general public of any proposed solutions so as to contribute to and influence wider policy discussions. I’m very excited to introduce you to our fantastic leads. Over to you, Mahmoud, Emine, André and Coraline!

Working Group 1 — Artificial Intelligence and Open Content — Max Mahmoud Wardeh 

I’m deeply interested in the ways technology impacts the world. My work includes building digital technology platforms as well as teaching about them as a part-time lecturer in digital technologies at Loughborough University in London. I’m also interested in exploring different ways of creating and sharing knowledge. Over the years (my first open source contribution was last century!) I’ve been involved in various open knowledge projects and have been a member of the Creative Commons community for over a decade. This Working Group intersects with many areas of my professional and personal interests and I’m very excited to be leading it. I’m particularly grateful for the opportunity to work with the members of the group and eager to see how their ideas and contributions to the WG’s topics will develop. As well as authoring the position paper, we’re aiming to create a wider set of resources related to the topics we’ll be exploring. These will include the use of CC/openly licensed material in training AI, the copyrightability of algorithmically generated content, and more. Our hope, and goal, is that the community will find these resources useful to learn from, build on, and contribute to.

Working Group 2 — Internet Platform Liability — Emine Yildirim 

I’m a doctoral researcher at a prominent Belgian institute, working at the intersection of freedom of expression and thought and technology. I hold law degrees both from Turkey and the US. I also had a chance to work for the Wikimedia Foundation as a legal fellow for a while. Working for the WMF further ignited my passion for the access to information and open knowledge movement. As my doctoral research also aims to conduct a comprehensive analysis on how platform liabilities affect freedom of expression and thought, it is quite intriguing for me to lead this working group. I anticipate that this WG’s policy recommendations will add another invaluable resource to the open movement literature by explaining how platform copyright liability legislation intentionally or unintentionally chills the right to freedom to share, especially concerning open licenses, such as CC licenses. I’m honored to be a part of this great WG, which has members joining from different parts of the world with rich and valuable experiences.

Working Group 3 — Exceptions and Limitations to address Global Challenges — André Houang 

I am a researcher at InternetLab, a Brazilian independent research center focused on internet policy and an institutional member of the Creative Commons Global Network. I am currently a master’s student at the University of São Paulo, where I studied law. My research is focused on copyright reform at the Brazilian national level. I am especially interested in studying how interest groups try to influence Congress into importing foreign copyright legislation. I was attracted to lead this Working Group because I believe exceptions and limitations can serve as important instruments for promoting access to knowledge and culture worldwide. At a global level, they can help us achieve a more just society, one in which access to the world’s intellectual creations and knowledge is not contingent on wealth or nationality. I hope our WG will help Creative Commons in setting up references on how exceptions and limitations can be drafted so as to achieve this goal. 

Working Group 4 — Beyond Copyright: the Ethics of Open Sharing  — Coraline Ada Ehmke 

I am an internationally recognized engineer and activist with extensive experience in the open source commons. I am best known as the creator of Contributor Covenant, the first and most widely adopted code of conduct for open source communities. In 2019 I authored the Hippocratic License, one of the most well-known examples of the emerging body of Ethical Source licenses. I am the co-founder and executive director of the Organization for Ethical Source, a global volunteer-driven community promoting fair, ethical, and sustainable outcomes in open source. I am thrilled to lead this multidisciplinary working group, not only to help Creative Commons responsibly promote open sharing, but also to foster collaboration with leaders of other digital commons communities. 

————

We really look forward to seeing what the working groups will achieve and to welcoming you to our public webinar on November 9, 2021 — mark your calendars, more information will follow soon! 

Interested in joining the Copyright Platform? You can: 

• Join the #cc-copyrightreform Slack channel; and/or
• Join the Copyright platform mailing list.

The post Four Creative Commons Working Groups Will Explore Policy Issues. Meet Their Leads! appeared first on Creative Commons.

Creative Commons is turning 20!

We are celebrating with a special Better Sharing campaign, honoring 20 years of commitment to open access and better sharing.

We invite you to join us. We have an ambitious goal to raise over $15 million in support. 

When Creative Commons was founded in 2001, the internet was a budding universe with high potential, and platforms widely used today like Wikipedia and Google were only just getting started. CC’s founders were keen to hit the ground running, building on their work to ensure that, as the internet continued to grow, safeguards to knowledge, culture, and creativity were firmly in place. 

While those familiar with Creative Commons may know about our CC licenses that form the backbone of open and accessible sharing, they may be less tuned into our larger portfolio of work, spanning Open Education, Open GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums), advocacy and global network building. 

In celebration of 20 years of CC, we are excited to shed light on these endeavors, sharing our major accomplishments, and highlighting, too, some noteworthy appearances of CC in popular culture.

Some of CC’s Big Wins

• Today, over 2 billion works are licensed under the various CC licenses. The very first set of Creative Commons licenses were released in 2002, giving everyone from individual creators to large institutions a standardized way to grant the public permission to use their creative work under copyright law; and in 2017, CC launched CC Search, making this content easier to discover and use.
• CC licenses are behind the widely used online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Since 2009, all Wikipedia content, in every language, has been under CC license, which means that annually billions of people around the world are interacting with CC licensed content. 
• CC’s Global Network has been critical to the growth of the Open Movement, and the development of accessible CC licenses available in many languages. Today, CC spans 86 countries, and continues to expand its reach with annual events like the CC Global Summit. 
• The first CC Global Summit was originally called iCommons Summit and was held at Harvard Law School in 2005 followed by a 2006 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil that brought over 250 participants and high profile presenters like Brazilian music icon (and Brazil’s then-Minister of Culture) Gilberto Gil and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. Fast forward, today’s CC Global Summit is an annual event that brings together over 1,300 educators, artists, technologists, legal experts, and activists from more than 60 countries to promote the power of open licensing and global access.
• CC has sustained a 20-year commitment to Open Education. In 2017, we launched the CC Open Education Platform, welcoming over 1000 open education advocates and practitioners from 90+ countries to collaborate in identifying, planning and coordinating multi-national open education content, practices and policy activities.
• The Creative Commons Certificate helps educators, librarians and GLAM leaders to become experts in creating, engaging, and advocating for openly licensed content, offering in-depth courses on open licensing, copyright and the commons.  Since its launch in 2018, we’ve registered over 980 people with 889 graduates from 56 countries. 
• CC continues to work with multinational institutions, governments, foundations, and institutions to create, adopt, and implement open licensing policies. We have engaged collaborations with over 30 countries, and institutions like the Smithsonian, UNESCO, US Government Departments, World Bank, European Union, philanthropic foundations, and many more with numerous successes to date. For example, the Smithsonian recently introduced Smithsonian Open Access, releasing 2.8 million images and data into the public domain using Creative Commons Zero.
• Creative Commons licensed content is everywhere. Platforms and tools like Wikipedia, Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo, SoundCloud, Google Search, the Free Music Archive, Bandcamp, Thingiverse, DeviantArt and many others use CC licensing to make hundreds of millions of images, articles, videos and other content openly accessible to the world. Many popular educational resources; science and research publishers; news sources; and arts, games, and creative projects around the world use Creative Commons licenses as well.

These examples offer a glimpse of the impact Creative Commons has had on the world in our first twenty years. You can help us celebrate, and help to ensure bigger and better sharing in the decades to come by supporting our 20th Anniversary campaign.

 

The post We’re Turning 20! What’s Happened Since 2001? appeared first on Creative Commons.

Creative Commons is turning 20! We are delighted to be celebrating this milestone with our global community, honoring our commitment as a nonprofit to creating a world where everyone has access to knowledge and creativity. 

As we considered CC’s goals for the next 20 years, we kept returning to a simple idea: 

Better Sharing for a Brighter Future

In the last two decades, we’ve helped shape the culture around sharing,  increasing access to valuable information, historic images, scientific articles, educational resources, cultural artifacts, and so much more. 

Now we’re looking forward to putting the tools to accessing, using, and resharing content in the hands of everyone, everywhere. We know that greater access to information means a stronger global community, more innovation, and increased capacity to solve the challenges the world faces today and in the years to come. 

To make this happen, CC has set an ambitious goal to raise $15 million. 

These funds will ensure we can continue to build accessible, equitable Open Infrastructure that truly responds to community needs and start new projects in Open GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) and Open Science.  

Alongside our community of creators, partners, and users, Creative Commons is grateful for the donors who power our work from all corners of the world. 

Whether it’s $1 or $1,000, your gift makes everything we do possible. We hope you’ll consider supporting our Better Sharing campaign.

We’ve come a long way since 2001. 

When Creative Commons first started, there was no Facebook or Twitter, and Wikipedia was only just getting off the ground. The internet was a newer landscape full of potential, while older institutions like libraries and museums offered a blueprint for how we might open up educational materials, journal articles and more to regular people. We were excited by the prospect of a world where everyone has access to knowledge and creativity and Creative Commons was an opening to start creating that. 

Thanks to supporters like you, since those early days, we’ve made a significant impact. Our licenses have been used to openly share nearly two billion works globally, from historic images to scientific data to cultural artifacts. Moreover, we’ve steadily built up a global movement of over 86 countries all united by a belief in the power of Open Access.

We still have so much work to do.

As we look toward the next 20 years, we are committed to building a world where everyone, everywhere has access to free and open knowledge. For us, this means doubling down on our efforts to develop clear license and legal tools that are easy to understand and available in many languages; ensure access for all to open information and materials, not only those with privilege; and empower easy to use platforms, where free content can be accessed by anyone regardless of skill level with technology. 

It also means we must expand existing efforts like Open GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums), building the tools necessary for these institutions to more openly share their collections, and launch new ventures in Open Science to remove unnecessary barriers to addressing key issues like COVID-19, future public health crises, and the Climate Emergency. 

Please join us in our pursuit of Better Sharing that serves the public interest and creates the world the internet promised, one where everyone has access to culture, science, and knowledge. 

20 years is a huge milestone, and all of us here at Creative Commons are committed to 20 more. 

Here are some ways you can support the Better Sharing campaign:  

Donate

• Make a donation on our 20th Anniversary page (consider becoming a monthly donor!) 
• Fundraise for us by creating your own campaign on our 20th Anniversary page  
• Would you prefer to send a check? See our Donor FAQ [link needed] for other ways to make a donation. 

Share

• Share why you support the open movement or how CC has impacted your work on social media, with the hashtags #CCTurns20 and/or #BetterSharing and tagging @creativecommons
• Share our Creative Commons’ Open Minds podcast 

Stay Informed 

• Sign up for CC’s Monthly Newsletter
• Save the date for the 2021 CC Global Summit
• Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn

The post Announcing Our 20th Anniversary “Better Sharing” Campaign appeared first on Creative Commons.

It’s International Museum Day and at Creative Commons (CC) we are thrilled to once again  celebrate the institutions that acquire, conserve, research, communicate, and exhibit the world’s heritage for education, study, and enjoyment. This year’s theme is The Future of Museums: Recover and Reimagine and in this blog post, we imagine a future where museums are empowered to freely and openly share their collections online in participatory, interactive, sustainable, ethical, and equitable ways —  we imagine a world of better sharing for a brighter future for all museums and the communities that they serve.

—————— 

2020 was a really challenging year for museums alongside other GLAMs (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) and for the cultural sector as a whole. The COVID-19 pandemic forced many institutions to close their doors, lay off staff, and draw deep on their resources to find resilience in the face of abrupt and unsettling changes. An April 2021 UNESCO report states that: “in 2020, museums were closed for an average of 155 days, and since the beginning of 2021, many of them have again had to shut their doors, resulting, on average, in a 70% drop in attendance and a 40-60% decline in revenue compared to 2019.”

At the same time, this crisis was a spark that (re)kindled the fire of open access to cultural heritage. Lockdown measures meant that when the world swiftly moved online, so too did museums. According to an ICOM survey published in November 2020, many museums started or continued to enhance their digital activities and to engage with the public remotely. More than a year into this global health crisis, museums are at a pivotal moment and must lead the change to recover and reimagine our common future. 

At CC, the future we envision for museums is one where the public has greater and better access to museums’ collections on a global level. 

Where the public can experience and interpret those collections in order to enrich and bring new perspectives to their contexts and narratives.   

Where museums and their audiences can get closer together online in fresh and innovative ways based on a supportive and sustainable digital infrastructure. 

Where museums move into the post-COVID era, healed, mended, and equipped with the knowledge and know-how to meaningfully share their collections, unencumbered by unnecessary legal, technical, or financial barriers. 

Where the threats of global challenges such as climate change have been addressed and where future generations are continuously able to enjoy our shared cultural heritage. 

At CC, we want to help make that future happen.

Through advocacy for legal and policy change, infrastructure innovation, capacity building to accompany institutions on their digital transformation journey, and community engagement, Creative Commons aims to lead a global effort to ensure access, use, and reuse of cultural heritage is not hampered by unnecessary constraints.

In terms of policy, we want to strengthen the open ecosystem to support GLAMs and their public interest mission, as we did in front of the Mexican senate in September 2020. We will continue to be supportive of museums in the copyright arena, in particular, by pushing for strong, clear, and effective exceptions and limitations for, among others, preservation, research and education, and text-and-data mining. We will also continue to advocate that digitized public domain works must remain in the public domain and generally drive change to ensure the legal framework is apt for the digital environment, especially in areas such as artificial intelligence.  

We want to build a reliable legal, technical, and social infrastructure around our CC licenses and tools, and build capacity within institutions to help them shift from closed to open by releasing their online collections into the public domain. We also want to bring closer together members of the Open GLAM community, whose energy and enthusiasm are poised to unlock the museum sector’s immense potential to create a brighter, more equitable future.

Museums deserve to be celebrated all year round and we’re proud to support them the world over through our Open GLAM efforts. Interested in learning more? Get in touch: info@creativecommons.org!

The post The Future of Museums Is Open! appeared first on Creative Commons.

The news yesterday from US trade Ambassador Katherine Tait that the Biden-Harris administration supports waiving IP protections for COVID vaccines is not just welcome, it is laying a stake in the ground for others to follow. The deafening silence from both the EU and UK to support the US places them on the wrong side of history and will not be forgotten (to be clear, being willing to discuss the US plan is not the same thing as supporting it). 

As we all know, there is a global shortage of vaccines. Taking action to ensure more people get access is the right thing to do. Full stop. It will also benefit all of us. If we do not get the world vaccinated at the same time, new variants of the virus will arise, which the current vaccines will not be able to protect us against. The US Government recognises this reality and does not want to jeopardise their hugely successful vaccine rollout without playing their part to help the rest of the world. As Ambassador Tait’s tweet said; “These extraordinary times and circumstances…call for extraordinary measures. The US supports the waiver of IP protections on COVID-19 vaccines to help end the pandemic and we’ll actively participate in WTO negotiations to make it happen.” Notice the choice of words: end the pandemic. 

COVID knows no boundaries, does not recognise the nationality of its victims and if we do not have a global approach to vaccinations, we will never bring the virus under control and end the pandemic. If the global North gets vaccinated whilst the Global South does not, this is a tragedy of our own making and we will all ultimately suffer. You might be getting tired of the virus, but the virus is not tired of you. 

Tomorrow I will get my first vaccine—my husband too. We are lucky. I want everyone to have the same opportunity to be vaccinated as I have. I hope other countries will follow the US’s lead and make history at the WTO for the sake of all humanity. Thank you, Ambassador Tait.

The post Creative Commons Calls on the EU to Show Clear Support for Waiving COVID Vaccine Patents appeared first on Creative Commons.