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Share, Reuse, Remix —
Legally
N E W S L E T T E R
http://creativecommons.org Issue No. 14 September 2009
“Sitting on my meditation
rock ” by Mizuka CC- BY
2.0 http://www.flickr.com/
photos/joi/477844668/
Dear Creative Commoner,
Over the last year, we have added a broad spectrum of new users such as the US
White House, Wikipedia, Ridley Scott, Merck, Nike, YouTube and Al Jazeera. While
the vast majority of people still don’t know about Creative Commons licenses, the
community of supporters and users has reached a threshold of adoption where we
can now legitimately call CC a global standard.
As custodians of a global standard that continues to add new users in broader
geographies, fields, size and numbers, our responsibility to make sure that everything
works properly and that we are providing sufficient support to the users becomes
our central role. We need to shift the balance of our organization from being mostly
focused on promoting the idea of sharing to becoming custodians of a global
standard which many organizations depend on every day.
In order to properly work with the new range of constituents, we have decided to
flatten the organization. This will serve to increase bandwidth and allow the global
community to be more directly involved in projects as well as participate in the
management of Creative Commons. This flattening will fold the international process,
formally a separate effort spearheaded by International Director Catharina Maracke,
into each project and initiative of Creative Commons, so that jurisdiction porting,
communication, and outreach will now be a central focus of CC’s work in the realms
of science, education, and culture. I have asked every staff member and project within
Creative Commons to become international, rather than relying on an international
spearhead to intermediate every contact.
With the growing responsibility and complexity of our job, I am very happy to have
such a thoughtful and active community of supporters. We need your help more than
ever and hope that you can share in our successes as well as our challenges.
CC Newsletter – Issue No. 14
Sincerely,
Joi Ito
Chief Executive Officer
Creative Commons
This newsletter is licensed under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Please share and remix!
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Breaking News
Google Image Search Wikimedia wikis to take advantage of
this migration opportunity is ongoing,
Implements CC License and one very important milestone was
Filtering reached June 19, when most wikis
hosted by Wikia (there are thousands)
Google has officially launched the ability
converted to CC BY-SA.
to filter search results using Creative
Commons licenses inside their Image Full story:
Search tool. ht tp: //cre ative co m m o n s .o rg /we b lo g /
entry/15411
Creative Commons Network
“A Truly Inspirational
It is now easy to restrict your Image
Approach”
Search results to find images which Have you heard of the Creative
have been tagged with our licenses, Commons Network? It’s a special
so that you can find content from service we offer that includes an
across the web that you can share, use, OpenID profile where you can identify
and even modify. Searches are also your CC-licensed works.
capable of returning content under
other licenses, such as the GNU Free
Documentation License, or images that
are in the public domain. To filter by
CC search, go to Google’s advanced
Image Search page and select the
options you’d like in the “Usage rights”
section. Your results will be restricted
to images marked with CC licenses or
other compatibly licensed photos.
Full story:
Chris Messina recently wrote about
ht tp: //cre ative co m m o n s .o rg /we b l o g /
CC Newsletter – Issue No. 14
the benefits of becoming part of the
entry/15691
CC Network and getting an OpenID,
and we were honored by his kind and
Wikipedia Officially Converts eloquent words. From his post: “What
better way to both support Creative
To CC BY–SA Commons and show off your patronage
The entire English Wikipedia and other than by identifying yourself across the
Wikimedia sites are now licensed under web with your very own unique, secure,
a Creative Commons Attribution Share privacy-protecting creativecommons.net
Alike license (CC BY-SA), following OpenID? For a mere $50 minimum
a community vote and approval by donation ($25 for students), you
the Wikimedia Foundation board can own a limited edition URL and
3
members. The outreach effort to non- profile from Creative Commons that
identifies you to the world and provides The new initiative makes it easy for
a compelling revenue opportunity for the participants in Google Books’ Partner
non-profit foundation. Program to mark their books with one
of the six Creative Commons licenses (or
While companies like SAP become the CC0 waiver). This gives authors and
OpenID providers for pedestrian publishers a simple way to articulate the
reasons like simplifying authentication permissions they have granted to the
across their many different distributed public through a CC license, while giving
web properties, Creative Commons is people a clear indication of the legal
redistributing the brand equity and social rights they have to CC-licensed works
capital their members have accrued over found through Google Books.
the last several years by letting people
show and verify their affiliation to the Full story:
organization. With this simple example, http://creativecommons.org/weblog/
we can start to see the symbiosis of entry/16823
making an intentional choice about
identity: Creative Commons finds a new
revenue opportunity and members of
Anne Wojcicki and Sergey
the community have a way to express Brin Support CC with
their affiliation and promote the brand.”
$500,000 Gift
You can also check out Read Write
Web’s take on CC Network, following Creative Commons is honored to have
up on Messina’s post: http://www. received an incredibly generous gift of
readwriteweb.com/archives/creative_ $500,000 from 23andMe co-founder
commons_launches_cc_openid_profile. Anne Wojcicki and Google co-founder
Sergey Brin. We are delighted that the
Full story: couple recognizes the importance of
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/ Creative Commons and has decided to
entry/16609 invest in our work to support sharing,
collaboration, and the spread of
Creative Commons Network: knowledge and creativity. This gift –
made in addition to the financial support
CC Newsletter – Issue No. 14
https://creativecommons.net/
that Google offers CC annually – will
Chris Messina’s full post: be used to support Creative Commons
http://factoryjoe.com/blog/2009/08/05/ generally, with a focus on developing
openid-the-unseen-branded-revenue- our Science Commons project, which
opportunity/ Wojcicki and Brin are particularly excited
about.
Google Books Adds Creative Full story:
Commons License Options http://creativecommons.org/weblog/
entry/17209
On August 13, Google launched a
program to enable rights holders to make
4 their Creative Commons-licensed books
available for the public to download, use,
remix, and share via Google Books.
CC News / Arts & Culture
WisconsinView Dedicates Picasa Adds CC Search One of Creative Commons’
core goals is to expand
6+ Terabytes of Data to The Picasa Web Albums, Google’s photo
the body of open and free
album service, now allows you to narrow
Public Domain your search to include only CC-licensed
cultural works available to the
public. This is accomplished
WisconsinView, an effort to make photos, making it easier to find photos
through outreach,
available a variety of types of imagery to share and remix. It’s one thing to
advisement, and specific
for the state of Wisconsin, will now enable your community to select a CC
project-based initiatives with
make their data available in the public license for their work, but it’s another
individuals and communities
domain via CC0 (CC Zero). From the thing entirely to help the rest of the web
that promote a similar
press release: discover that content. Picasa’s commons
emphasis on community,
“Since 2004, WisconsinView has community will surely benefit from this
sharing, and innovation. This
made aerial photography and satellite kind of exposure, so thanks to Picasa for
effort is headed by Creative
imagery of Wisconsin available to enabling such a valuable feature.
Director Eric Steuer.
the public for free over the web. As
part of the AmericaView consortium, Full story:
WisconsinView supports access and use ht tp: //cre ative co m m o n s .o rg /we b l o g /
of these imagery collections through entry/15130
education, workforce development,
and research. Starting June 30, 2009,
WisconsinView is making available all
GOOD: “We Like To Share”
of its more than 6 Terabytes of imagery Interview Series
data under the new CC0 Protocol
provided by Creative Commons.”
Learn more about CC0 at http://
This past December, Creative Director
creativecommons.org/publicdomain
Eric Steuer conducted a series of
interviews with people about the value
Ridley Scott To Use CC BY– of sharing information and resources
in their respective fields of work. The
SA For Blade Runner Web interviews were edited into a podcast
Series for GOOD entitled “We Like to Share”
that was made available to people who
CC Newsletter – Issue No. 14
Ridley Scott, the famed SciFi director
attended the GOOD December series of
of the classic Blade Runner will be
events in Los Angeles. Last week, GOOD
producing a new web series based
began posting CC BY-licensed text
on the film, released under our free
versions of the interviews on its website
copyleft license, Attribution-ShareAlike
and will roll out one a week over the next
(CC BY-SA). The series is initially slated
few months. The first interview is with
for web release with the possibility of
Chris Hughes, one of the co-founders of
television syndication, and will be a
Facebook, who was the online strategist
project by Ag8.
for the Barack Obama campaign. Check
back at “We Like to Share” each Thursday
Full story:
to read interviews with iconic sharers
ht tp: //cre ative co m m o n s .o rg /we b l o g /
like Jimmy Wales, Chris DiBona, Frances
entry/14940
Pinter, Jesse Dylan, and Curt Smith. 5
http://www.good.is/series/we-like-to-share
International News
Creative Commons works Vietnam Opens National allow interoperability between different
to “port” the core Creative flexible content copyright licenses. This
Commons Licenses
License Draft for Discussion structure has opened doors for important
to different copyright CC Vietnam has released its first license adopters, such as the Wikipedia
legislations around the draft and is inviting the Vietnamese community and Wikimedia Foundation,
world. The porting process and international community to join who recently approved the adoption
involves both linguistically in reviewing it. The goal of the license of the Creative Commons Attribution-
translating the licenses and porting, coordinated by Creative ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY-SA) license as the
legally adapting them to Commons International, is to legally and main content license for Wikipedia and
particular jurisdictions. linguistically adapt the CC licensing suite other Wikimedia sites.
to national law. That way, creators enjoy
This work is led by CC additional legal certainty while better Full story:
General Counsel Diane understanding the license terms in their ht tp: //cre ative co m m o n s .o rg /we b lo g /
Peters with Project own language. National CC projects rely entry/15990
Manager Michelle Thorne on content creators and license users
and volunteer teams in worldwide to give feedback to improve
each jurisdiction who are local legal tools and build a strong
CC Ireland Discusses Version
committed to introducing community. Please consider weighing 3.0 of CC Licenses
CC to their country and who in on CC Vietnam’s drafting efforts by
On behalf of CC Ireland, we are pleased
consult extensively with subscribing to their mailing list.
to announce that the draft of CC BY-
members of the public and
NC-SA adapted to Irish law is now in
key stakeholders in an effort Full story:
public discussion. The CC Ireland team,
to adapt the CC licenses to ht tp: //cre ative co m m o n s .o rg /we b lo g /
lead by Dr. Darius Whelan and Louise
their jurisdiction. entry/15740
Crowley and hosted at the University
College Cork, has been working with
Creative Commons to port the licenses
Poland’s Version 3.0 Licenses to local copyright legislation. The public
Now Online discussion is a key part of Creative
Commons’ license porting project. It is
an opportunity for you, content creators
and license users, to engage in the
drafting process and give your input on
this collaborative effort.
CC Newsletter – Issue No. 14
We invite you to join CC Ireland’s
discussion list: http://lists.ibiblio.org/
mailman/listinfo/cc-ie/ or visit their
website and share your comments with
local and international legal experts:
CC Poland, one of the earliest jurisdictions
h t t p : // w w w. u c c . i e / l a w/ i r i s h l a w/
to found a national Creative Commons
creativecommons/
project, has released its set of Poland-
specific licenses at Version 3.0, Creative
Full story:
Commons’ most current license version.
ht tp: //cre ative co m m o n s .o rg /we b lo g /
6 entry/14958
The upgrade is significant for several
reasons, one being that Version 3.0
encompasses our long-held vision of
establishing a compatibility structure to
CC News in Science
Sage Launched In July How Can IP Help Spread Creative Commons works
to advance CC in the field
Sage, the non-profit entity formed out Green Technology? of science by designing
of Merck & Co, Inc, formally launched in
A recent feature in SEED Magazine strategies and tools for
July. Through Sage, Merck will donate a
asks the question: How can intellectual faster, more efficient web-
large amount of data and software to the
property – and more specifically the enabled scientific research
commons, the body of work available to
current patent system – spread green in the hope of speeding
the public for free and legal sharing, use,
technology? The article, “Who Owns the translation of data into
repurposing, and remixing.
Green Tech?” features replies from five discovery. The wing of
leading thinkers on the matter. Our own Creative Commons dedicated
John Wilbanks, Creative Commons’ VP to making the web work for
of Science, was one of those panelists. science is called Science
In his response, Wilbanks challenges Commons and is led by Vice
the public to not view this conversation President John Wilbanks.
of innovation as a black and white
Sage is the home of an open access
situation, but to make room for new
disease biology platform based on
forms of innovation in the discussion
the work previously done at Rosetta
(ie., user-driven innovation, open
Inpharmatics and will be led by Stephen
innovation). This idea is at the core of
Friend and Eric Schadt, two leading
the GreenXchange project, a venture by
thinkers in biotechnology. Sage is
Creative Commons, Nike and Best Buy
hosted at a set of major US research
to create a marketplace for invention.
universities, including UCSF, University
of Washington, and Yale University.
Full story:
Science Commons, the science wing of
h t t p: //s c i e n ce co m m o n s . o r g /we b l o g /
CC, is working with Sage on its sharing
archives/2009/07/31/how-can-ip-help-
strategies and governance plans. Stay
spread-green-technology/
tuned, as great things are sure to come
out of Sage in the coming months!
http://www.sagebase.org/
“Making the Web Work for
CC Newsletter – Issue No. 14
Science” Video Now Online
John Wilbanks, CC’s Vice President,
Science, appeared as a panelist at a San
Francisco Commonwealth Club event in
July, along with Stephen Friend (Sage)
and Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia); the
panel was moderated by Tim O’Reilly
and focused on the theme “Making the
Web Work for Science,” exploring ideas
of how to bring Web efficiencies to
scientific research, a core theme seen in
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the work of Science Commons.
You can now watch the video online:
http://www.vimeo.com/6087817
CC News in Education
ccLearn, the education Launch of two new resources OER and CC networks, fostering greater
wing of Creative Commons collaboration among projects as well as
led by Executive Director
for Open Education: OpenEd, greater awareness of their important
Ahrash Bissell, works with an DiscoverEd work. Carolina will also develop reports
international community of about prior regional activities (such as
We are happy to announce the launch
open education advocates the Latam Commons 2008 meeting in
of two new resources for educators
and supporters to improve Chile last year) as well as forward-looking
and learners interested in Open
open learning on the internet. documents about future events and
Educational Resources: OpenEd and
Truly open learning happens opportunities throughout the region.
DiscoverEd. OpenEd is a new open
when learners (you, me, and
education community site, hosted at
everyone else we know) can Full story:
http://opened.creativecommons.org.
not only access educational ht tp: //cre ative co m m o n s .o rg /we b lo g /
It is designed for teachers, learners, or
materials but improve upon entry/15951
anyone looking to get involved, so we
them, adapting the resources
encourage you to check it out and, since
to our individual needs and
local contexts, without the
it is a wiki, to start contributing today! Launch of Inside OER
DiscoverEd is an education search engine
restrictions imposed by
prototype that is now up and running at
and Comic
standard copyright laws.
http://discovered.creativecommons. ccLearn is proud to announce the
Through openly licensed
org. It is designed to provide scalable launch of Inside OER (acronym for Open
educational materials, also
search and discovery for educational Educational Resources), which is a full
known as open educational
resources on the web, but is still in a suite of interviews with movers and
resources (OER), we can
very experimental phase; please help us shakers in the open education world, all
collaborate across state
out by providing your feedback so we available for redistribution and remix.
lines and country borders,
can continue to improve it. The latest Inside OER, an interview with
discovering opportunities for
IssueLab’s Lisa Brooks on opening up
partnerships we never knew
More info on OpenEd: research, has been re-crafted into an
existed.
ht tp: //cre ative co m m o n s .o rg /we b lo g / engaging and entertaining comic, so be
entry/15467 sure to check it out, share, and remix!
More info on DiscoverEd: http://learn.creativecommons.org/projects/
ht tp: //cre ative co m m o n s .o rg /we b lo g / inside-oer
entry/15486
CC Newsletter – Issue No. 14
Open Educational Resources
in Latin America
We are thrilled to welcome Carolina
Botero, project lead for CC Colombia,
as ccLearn’s regional liaison for the
exciting projects in open education in
Latin America and the Spanish-speaking
world. Carolina will be working with
ccLearn (the education wing of Creative
Commons) staff to document existing
8 projects and initiatives related to open
educational resources throughout the
region. We anticipate that this work
will extend the size and impact of the
creativecommons.org
We rely on our supporters to continue our work
enabling stories like those listed above.
Donate
http://support.creativecommons.org/donate
CC Store
http://support.creativecommons.org/store
Join the CC Network
http://support.creativecommons.org/join
Events
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Events
Subscribe to the CC Weblog
http://bloglines.com/sub/http://creativecommons.org/weblog/rss
http://google.com/reader/view/feed/http://creativecommons.org/
weblog/rss
http://add.my.yahoo.com/rss?url=http://creativecommons.org/
weblog/rss
Follow CC
http://facebook.com/creativecommons
http://identi.ca/creativecommons
http://twitter.com/creativecommons
Creative Commons was built with and is sustained
by the generous support of organizations including
the Center for the Public Domain, Google, the John
CC Newsletter – Issue No. 14
D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the
Mozilla Foundation, Omidyar Network, Red Hat,
and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, as
well as members of the public.
To unsubscribe from this newsletter, visit:
http://creativecommons.org/about/newsletter#unsubscribe
Or send an email with “unsubscribe” as the subject to cc-info- Editing
request@lists.ibiblio.org Allison Domicone, Development Assistant
Art Direction
Creative Commons newsletters are also posted in PDF format Alex Roberts, Senior Designer
9
to the CC Weblog. For back issues please visit Cover and Layout
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CCNewsletter Tomas Ashe, Design Intern