[cc-community] PRESS RELEASE: Creative Commons Launches Web and Desktop License Integration Approach with LicenseChooser.js and liblicense Projects

Greg Grossmeier greg at creativecommons.org
Wed Jul 23 22:48:10 EDT 2008


PDF attached; text below

CREATIVE COMMONS REFRESHES WEB AND DESKTOP LICENSE INTEGRATION APPROACH 
WITH LICENSECHOOSER.JS AND LIBLICENSE PROJECTS

SAN FRANCISCO, USA  JULY 24, 2008

Creative Commons announced today the release of liblicense and 
LicenseChooser.js, content licensing tools which make integration of 
Creative Commons license functionality easy for developers building 
modern desktop and web applications.  These tools enable reading and 
writing Creative Commons licensing information to a variety of media 
formats.  Many projects already support the ability to read and write 
content license information through add-ons, including OpenOffice.org, 
Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft Office. Other programs, such as the 
open source vector graphics drawing tool Inkscape, include a default 
capability to read and write CC license information.

For the desktop, Creative Commons has updated the C language-based 
software library called liblicense. This Free Software (licensed under 
GNU LGPL) library provides functionality to read and write license 
information into many supported media files. Along with access to 
license information, the library offers a standard set of icons for 
graphical representation of selected or discovered licenses. As Creative 
Commons' international team refreshes the licenses or adds a new 
jurisdiction, software developers can simply update liblicense to 
receive these changes. Currently, liblicense is distributed with 
development versions of the Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora Linux operating 
systems. The LGPL license permits adding it to both open source and 
proprietary software.

"LicenseChooser.js and liblicense will make open content licensing more 
valuable for developers, publishers, and users, by making such content 
more discoverable and manageable" said Mike Linksvayer, Vice President 
of Creative Commons.

One prominent project incorporating the use of liblicense in an upcoming 
release is One Laptop Per Child (OLPC). While the OLPC project wiki 
already uses Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licenses for 
contributions, Creative Commons has introduced licensing functionality 
for the XO laptops through the development of liblicense and a series of 
patches to be integrated. Once it is installed, it allows software 
interfacing with media on the device to be content license aware.  Also, 
to explain Creative Commons licensing and the basics of copyright law, 
Creative Commons has created an educational licensing activity that 
anyone may install onto an OLPC XO laptop.  This activity uses the 
previously released "Sharing Creative Works" comics.

For web applications, Creative Commons has developed LicenseChooser.js, 
which allows developers to add similar functionality into any web-based 
project. Creative Commons already provided an XML-based web services 
API. LicenseChooser.js provides an additional, lightweight method for 
integrating license selection into web applications. The widget is used 
by SixApart's TypePad as well as the WordPress plugin WpLicense.

Today, liblicense will be demonstrated at this year's Open Source 
Conference (OSCON) in Portland, OR. Integration with two Open Source 
applications will be showcased: the file viewer Eye of GNOME and media 
player Rhythmbox. The presentation will be given by Nathan Yergler, CTO 
of Creative Commons, and Asheesh Laroia, Software Engineer, on Thursday 
July 24th in room F150.


Links

Desktop Integration Software: liblicense
http://creativecommons.org/projects/liblicense

OSCON "Rights on the Desktop with liblicense" Presentation
http://en.oreilly.com/oscon2008/public/schedule/detail/2857

Web Integration Software: LicenseChooser.js
http://creativecommons.org/projects/LicenseChooser.js

OLPC Creative Commons Page
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Creative_Commons

Creative Commons Sharing Creative Works Public Domain Released Comics
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Sharing_Creative_Works


About Creative Commons


Creative Commons is a not-for-profit organization, founded in 2001, that 
promotes the creative re-use of intellectual and artistic works, whether 
owned or in the public domain. Through its free copyright licenses, 
Creative Commons offers authors, artists, scientists, and educators the 
choice of a flexible range of protections and freedoms that build upon 
the “all rights reserved” concept of traditional copyright to enable a 
voluntary “some rights reserved” approach. Creative Commons was built 
with and is sustained by the generous support of organizations including 
the Center for the Public Domain, Omidyar Network, The Rockefeller 
Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and The 
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, as well as members of the public. 
For more information about Creative Commons, visit 
http://creativecommons.org.


Contact

Jon Phillips
Community and Business
Development Manager
Creative Commons
jon at creativecommons.org
+1.510.499.0894


Press Kit

http://creativecommons.org/presskit

--
Greg Grossmeier
Community Development - Creative Commons
greg at creativecommons.org
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