[Community_studios] [cc-lessigletter] CC in Review: Lawrence Lessig on iCommons

Lawrence Lessig lessig at pobox.com
Wed Nov 16 22:32:28 EST 2005


This email is part of a weekly series written by Lawrence Lessig and  
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Two weeks ago, I described our first efforts to build CC  
internationally. That was the beginning of the "iCommons Project."  
Directed from Berlin, this project began with a single objective: to  
"port" Creative Commons licenses into the law of local jurisdictions.  
Our aim was to build an infrastructure of free licenses  
internationally so that creative work could move from jurisdiction to  
jurisdiction while preserving the freedoms that the creator chose. In  
less than three years, we have over 70 volunteer projects working to  
port Creative Commons licenses and 25 jurisdictions that have already  
launched their local licenses.

This first effort to build an international Commons has been much  
more successful than I ever imagined. There were many sleepless  
nights when I worried whether we would find any international  
partners  Let's just say the sleeplessness has now moved far from  
that concern. Indeed, if anything, we've seen the iCommons project  
become much more than we imagined.  As CC projects developed around  
the world, they connected with movements  that had the same ideals.  
These ideals of a "Commons" are not American. They are human. And as  
iCommons opened channels of discussions of these ideals, we began to  
recognize that the iCommons Project would have to grow.

Last June, around a hundred of our volunteers from more than 40 of  
our iCommons jurisdictions gathered in Boston for the first iCommons  
Summit. We began a discussion then about how we could best support  
this growing international movement. And as I listened to the  
iCommons participants describe the work that they wanted to do, I  
realized then that iCommons promised to become much more than the  
(relatively) simple project that Creative Commons was. Creative  
Commons was launched to build an infrastructure of freedom; iCommons  
promised to build a global movement that would embrace and extend (in  
the best possible way) that infrastructure of freedom.

So in June, we began to discuss publicly an idea that had been  
suggested by one iCommons participant — that we separate iCommons  
into its own organization, led by the many young leaders of this  
movement from around the world. And with this email, I am very happy  
to announce that we have done just that.

iCommons is now a separate nonprofit, organized under the laws of  
Britain. Its board will comprise a wide range of activists from  
around the world. And while iCommons will continue to support the  
spread of Creative Commons licenses, it will also do much more.  
iCommons will become the core of a federation of movements all  
pushing to enable creativity and the spread of knowledge and culture  
internationally.

Creative Commons will seed this movement with financial and  
organizational support (yet another reason we need your support!).  
But as iCommons becomes its own movement with its own voice, the role  
of Creative Commons in this federation will be just one of many.

What happens then to the project designed to port Creative Commons  
licenses internationally? That work will remain with Creative  
Commons. Christiane Asschenfeldt will continue to lead that part of  
our project. But its work will be focused upon building the legal  
infrastructure that Creative Commons needs internationally.  
Christiane will continue to identify international volunteers to help  
port our licenses in their local jurisdictions. We will continue to  
celebrate as these licenses are locally launched.  And some (we hope  
all) of these local partners of Creative Commons will join iCommons.

So "what more than licenses" is Creative Commons? We're building an  
infrastructure of free licenses internationally. We're working with  
scientists and scholars to extend these ideals to science. And now  
we've helped seed an international movement that will work with  
artists, educators, collecting rights societies, museums, publishers  
and governments, to build upon this infrastructure free cultures.

Creative Commons is all this that these emails have described. More  
importantly, it is all this that needs your support.

In the next two weeks, I'll describe two other new initiatives that  
will define our work over the next year. And then this path of  
missives will turn to consider some criticisms of what we've done and  
where we're going. Stay tuned, but fear not: I promise to be finished  
by Christmas!

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Before I end this week's email, some news from the fundraising-front:  
On November 3 in San Francisco, over 120 supporters and friends of  
Creative Commons attended a cocktail event to celebrate new iCommons  
board member Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia.  The event was sponsored by  
the law firms that first launched Creative Commons, Cooley Godward,  
and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, as well as a new supporter of  
CC – Scharffen Berger Chocolate.  Thanks to everyone who helped make  
that event a success. And after you view some of the photos from the  
event, please feel free to join them in supporting CC today!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/49051714@N00/sets/1383014/


-------

To link to or comment on this message, go to:
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5700

Week 6 - What is Science Commons? By John Wilbanks, Science Commons  
Executive Director
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5695

Week 6 - What is Science Commons? By John Wilbanks, Science Commons  
Executive Director - Spanish Version
http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/translations/lessig-letter-6-es.pdf

Thanks to Maria Cristinia Alvite for translation.

Archive of Lessig Letters
http://creativecommons.org/support/letters

Support the Commons
http://creativecommons.org/support

Learn More
http://creativecommons.org/learnmore

For comics and movies: http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/how1,
http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/





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