Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

cc-info - [cc-info] ccNewsletter #12

cc-info AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: The Creative Commons monthly newsletter.

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Melissa Reeder <melissa AT creativecommons.org>
  • To: cc-info AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [cc-info] ccNewsletter #12
  • Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 11:51:31 -0700

Dear Creative Commoner,

In this newsletter, you will find the latest news updates on Creative Commons internationally and in science, education, and arts & culture. As you will see, there is a lot going on for CC - and all thanks to you, our community of advocates, users, creators, volunteers, and supporters. The stories below are your stories, the stories of everyone working around the world to build a more participatory culture. We couldn't possibly include as many highlights and success stories as we'd like to, so if you'd like to stay up to date with more CC news, I encourage you to subscribe to our weblog: http://creativecommons.org/weblog

Each newsletter we produce is also available in beautifully-designed PDF format, thanks to our CC Philippines team. Be sure to check out this and past months' newsletters:
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CCNewsletter

Best,

Melissa Reeder

Development Manager
Creative Commons


Breaking News

Esther Wojcicki, New CC Board Chair
We’re very pleased to announce that effective April 1, noted educator, education innovator and journalist Esther Wojcicki is the new chair of the Creative Commons board of directors. From the press release:

"I am thrilled to take on this new role," said Wojcicki. "I strongly believe that the Creative Commons approach to sharing, reuse, and innovation has the power to totally reshape the worlds of education, science, technology, and culture at large. My main goal as chair is to make average Internet users worldwide aware of Creative Commons and to continue building the organization’s governance and financial resources. I am also very eager to help CC’s education push at high school and college journalism programs worldwide."

Outgoing chair James Boyle, a founder of the modern movement for the intellectual commons and CC itself, will remain deeply engaged in the movement. There remains no better in depth explanation of the
intellectual commons than Boyle’s book, The Public Domain.

Thank you and congratulations to both Wojcicki and Boyle!

Launch of CC Zero - no rights reserved
We are pleased to formally introduce CC0 (read "CC Zero"), a universal waiver that may be used by anyone wishing to permanently surrender the copyright and database rights they may have in a work, thereby placing it as nearly as possible into the public domain; essentially, it is a "no rights reserved" option. CC0 is universal in form and may be used throughout the world for any kind of content, without adaptation to account for laws in different jurisdictions. Like all other CC licenses, CC0 has the benefit of being expressed in three ways – legal code, a human readable deed, and machine-readable code that allows works distributed under CC0 to be easily found. To learn more, read our CC0 FAQ <http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CC0_FAQ>

CC recognized with Free Software Award for Projects of Social Benefit
At the Free Software Foundation's annual conference, Libre Planet, FSF founder and president Richard  Stallman presented CC with an annual award given to a project that applies the ideas of the free software
movement in ways that intentionally and significantly benefit society in other aspects of life. This is a great honor for CC, as free software blazed the path forward for us.

20x200 Benefit Edition: Buy Art, Support CC
On Tuesday, April 7th, 20×200, a project started by Jen Bekman that produces affordable, exhibition quality art prints and sells them exclusively online, will release a special benefit edition by designer Matt Jones with proceeds to benefit Creative Commons. This is an incredible way to support CC, so be sure to sign up for the twice-weekly 20×200 newsletter to to be among the first to collect Matt’s print for as little as $20. Popular editions often sell out via the mailing list before they’re even available on the 20×200 homepage, so add yourself to the list for your best shot at getting one of Matt’s prints and supporting CC in this unique way.
To sign up: http://www.20x200.com/mailinglist


CC News - International
Creative Commons works internationally to "port" the core Creative Commons Licenses to different copyright legislations around the world, involving both linguistically translating the licenses and legally adapting them to particular jurisdictions. This work is lead by International Director Catharina Maracke and volunteer teams in each jurisdiction who are committed to introducing CC to their country.

RiP: A remix manifesto
CC Canada is thrilled to announce the premiere of RiP: A remix manifesto, written and directed by Canadian Web activist and filmmaker Brett Gaylor and produced by the National Film Board of Canada. RiP explores issues of copyright in the information age, mashing up the media landscape of the 20th century and shattering the wall between users and producers.  A participatory media experiment from day one, Brett shares his raw footage at opensourcecinema.org for anyone to remix.
<http://www.creativecommons.ca/blog/2009/03/09/rip-a-remix-manifesto-toronto/>

New excitement, new energy, and new face for CC Korea
As of January 23, Creative Commons Korea restarted as an independent legal association under the title of Creative Commons Korea Association and welcomed 17 new volunteers with an orientation session to gain a better understanding of CC values and ongoing domestic projects. As an organization run entirely by a community of volunteers, their new energy is expected to bring a a renewed vitality to CC Korea's future projects.
<http://www.creativecommons.or.kr/>

Guatemala's first BarCamp a success
Guatemala held its first-ever BarCamp on March 14. It was a huge success, bringing together many of the most active members of the iCommunity in Guatemala, in addition to members of the ccGuatemala team, who helped organize the event. Widespread support for Creative Commons in the country is growing, and many of the event's sponsors and speakers are advocates and users of CC, such as Interactiva Web and Maestros del Web - two firm supporters for the creation of a Guatemalan shared culture.
<http://gt.creativecommons.org/>

CC and free culture continue to gain momentum in the Arab world
As CC Jordan continues to publicly discuss the first Version 3.0 draft of CC licenses in Arabic, and with the release of Al Jazeera’s Gaza footage under CC BY, the Arab World is poised for greater adoption of open ideals. In Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah created the Initiative for Arabic Digital Content, which earlier this year held a two-day workshop on "Open Arabic Content" in Riyadh, with CC legal expert Rami Olwan from Jordan in attendance to discuss the licensing system. Ziad Maraqa, co-Project Lead from CC Jordan, spoke in early February in Damascus at the iCommunity FOSS Workshop, a notable gathering for the Syrian Free Software community. The Creative Commons Al Jazeera Forum held on March 14 in Doha, Qatar was also a great success at spreading awareness and dialogue about CC. The forum was broadcast live on the Al Jazeera version of C-SPAN, and CEO Joi Ito moderated a panel about Creative Commons. With initiatives like these, and given the upcoming launch of the Jordan CC licenses, other jurisdictions are ready to follow suit. There is still much translation and outreach to be done, so if you would like to get involved, send an email to <info AT creativecommongs.org> addressed to Donatella Della Ratta, our Arab World Media and Development Manager.

CC Case Studies Book: Remix, Reuse and Recycle
Many of you will already have seen Building an Australasian Commons: Creative Commons Case Studies Volume I, the stunning publication launched late last year by Creative Commons Australia (CCau). The book, edited by Rachel Cobcroft, highlights 60 exemplary CC-licensed users in Australasia and worldwide, discussing their motivations and licensing business models - all under an an Attribution (CC BY) license.

The exciting news is that Building an Australasian Commons is now available from the CCau website (http://creativecommons.org.au/casestudiesvol1) in digestible booklets, each focusing on a specific field: visual arts, audio, text, moving images, government, education, and research. This makes it simple for people to print off and distribute those parts of the publication that interest them, or that are relevant to their meeting, conference, workshop, etc. CCau has also made the source files of the entire publication available for download -- prime for remixing. So why not make your own booklets, fact sheets or hand outs tailored to your region, industry or event? If you do, let CCau know at info AT creativecommons.org.au and they'll be added to the official CC case studies collection.

You can also contribute new case studies and improve existing ones on the CC case studies wiki at
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Casestudies

New online resources available from Creative Commons Greece (CC-GR)
The Greek Research & Technology Network s.a. has published an eloquently illustrated four-page brochure for CC licenses in Greece. The brochure was created by legal and technical experts Marinos Papadopoulos (Legal Lead, CC-GR), Galatia Kapellakou, and Theodoros Karounos. Soft copies of the brochure are also available online (in Greek) on the CC GR site: http://www.creativecommons.gr 

Also available online: presentations from "Open Access Infrastructures: The Future of Scientific Communication," a conference held last December in Athens and organized by the National Documentation Centre (NDC) of Greece and the National Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF). CC Board Member Michael Carroll’s is in English; Dionysia Kallinikou's, Marinos Papadopoulos' & Theodoros Karounos’  are available in Greek:  <http://www.openaccess.gr/conference2008/speakers/index.dot>
<http://www.marinos.com.gr/bbpdf/pdfs/EIE_15.Dec.08_Dionysia.pdf>
<http://www.marinos.com.gr/bbpdf/pdfs/EIE_15.Dec.08_Marinos.pdf>

The latest from Creative Commons Puerto Rico
CC Puerto Rico (CC PR), under the supervision of Co-Project Lead Chloé S. Georas, recently developed a CC PR section for the Pro Bono Program of the University of Puerto Rico Law School, wherein students prepared educational materials (e.g. CD tutorials, brochures, PowerPoint) and gave presentations at "Gráfica del Caribe" on March 13-14, 2009, the most important graphic arts commercial fair in the Caribbean, attracting over 3,000 participants. Chloé S. Georas been actively spreading the word about CC by giving over a dozen presentations to various institutions and writing the script of a one-hour episode about CC PR for Emmy Award-winning public television program on Spanish language arts and culture, "En la punta de la lengua," released on October 16, 2008.  In addition, two articles on Creative Commons, one by Project Lead Hiram Meléndez and the other by Chloé S. Georas, have appeared in two of Puerto Rico's legal publications.


CC News in Science
Creative Commons works to advance CC in the field of science by designing strategies and tools for faster, more efficient web-enabled scientific research in the hope of speeding the translation of data into discovery. The wing of Creative Commons dedicated to making the web work for science is called Science Commons and is led by Vice President John Wilbanks.  

GreenXchange - a project of Creative Commons, Nike and Best Buy
On February 10, 2009, Creative Commons, in collaboration with Nike and Best Buy, announced a new project - GreenXchange - exploring how the digital commons can help holders of patents collaborate for sustainability. GreenXchange will be hosted inside Science Commons.

GreenXchange draws on the experience of Creative Commons in creating "some rights reserved" regimes for artists, musicians, scientists, and educators, but also on the hard-won successes of patent "commons" projects like the Linux Patent Commons, the BIOS project, FreePatentsOnline and the Eco-Patent Commons. We will examine how best to reconstruct the academic research exemption eliminated in the United States in the Madey v. Duke case, how to extend that exemption to corporate research, how private contract systems can be used to construct a commons for use in sustainability. There is also a technical component - we are very interested in how tools like ccMixter and the semantic web will allow for new methods of tracking use and re-use of patents and integration of shared patents into climate and sustainability model.

GreenXchange is very much an exploratory project. Our goal is to stimulate innovation in the operational space by increasing research use and rights through the "some rights reserved" model, and to extend the model itself all the way into standard commercial patent licensing for sustainability purposes. Our model is open innovation, our methods are those of the digital commons, and we are very excited to be working with our new partners to help them overcome "failed sharing" to help us all work towards a sustainable world. For more information on the project, we invite you to check out the informational video over at Science Commons <http://sciencecommons.org/projects/greenxchange>

Sage: a new nonprofit dedicated to growing the commons
Merck & Co., Inc., a global research-driven pharmaceutical company, recently announced the formation of Sage, a non-profit entity through which it will donate a large amount of data and software to the commons, the body of work available to the public for free and legal sharing, use, repurposing, and remixing. Sage will be the home of an open access disease biology platform based on the work previously done at Rosetta Inpharmatics and will be led by Stephen Friend and Eric Schadt, two leading thinkers in biotechnology. Sage will be hosted at a set of major US research universities, including UCSF, University of Washington, and Yale University. Science Commons is working with Sage on its sharing strategies and governance plans. John Wilbanks, Vice President of Science, has joined the Sage Board of Directors at the founding of the organization.

CC Zero and scientific data: opening up possibilities
Two early adopters of the CC0 waiver related to scientific databases are Tranche and the Personal Genome Project ("PGP"). Tranche is a free and open source data sharing tool for sharing large sets of scientific data. PGP is an effort to sequence and interpret genes at an individual level ("personal genomics") to help individuals better understand their personal disease risk profiles, biological characteristics, and ancestry. Tranche will offer CC0 as a default option for sharing scientific data sets. PGP, in addition to releasing a significant data set at the launch of CC0, is planning to release all future genomic data under CC0. This is great news for scientific and medical research, and we feel confident that the future will bring even more initiatives like these to adopt CC0.


CC News in Education
ccLearn, the education wing of Creative Commons led by Executive Director Ahrash Bissell, works with an international community of open education advocates and supporters to improve open learning on the internet. Truly open learning happens when learners (you, me and everyone else we know) can not only access educational materials but improve upon them, adapting the resources to our individual needs and local contexts, without the restrictions imposed by standard copyright laws. Through openly licensed educational materials, also known as open educational resources (OER), we can collaborate across state lines and country borders, discovering opportunities for partnerships we never knew existed.

Hewlett OER Grantees Meeting
We were thrilled that the ccLearn team was able to attend the Hewlett OER Grantees Meeting in beautiful Monterey, California, in early March. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation is not only our biggest supporter, but one of OER's boldest advocates. They fund an impressive number of OER projects and programs, the leads of which were all present as we came together to share ideas and to fill each other in on what we had been up to for the past year.

ccLearn's Executive Director, Ahrash Bissell, presented on Licensing and OER, espousing the idea that open licenses are critical for defining open educational resources. You can read more about licensing for OER in his recent paper, "Permission granted: open licensing for educational resources," available in the OER issue of Open Learning: The Journal of Open and Distance Learning:
<www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a909092757~db=all~order=page>

Open Ed Community Site
We also had a chance to demo the new Open Ed Community Site during the OER Showcase at the start of the conference. The Open Ed site was built in the hope that it will serve as the landing space for everyone interested in open education, from the experienced OER community at large to teachers, learners, and those who simply want to find out more. The site will feature events, news, projects, persons, and more. We encourage you to check out the beta version, online now: <http://opened.creativecommons.org>

ccLearn Productions
<http://learn.creativecommons.org/productions/>
Check out these three productions meant to give brief overviews and instructions about open education topics:
1. ccLearn Explanations: Open Educational Resources and Creative Commons Licensing. If you are a teacher or creator of educational resources, this primer gives you an introduction to the concepts of open education, Creative Commons licensing, and other issues pertinent to putting your educational materials on the Internet.
2. ccLearn Recommendations: Increase Funding Impact. Recommendations for organizations that fund the production of OER.
3. ccLearn Recommendations: Publishing Your Open Educational Resources on the Internet. These are best practices for properly specifying terms of use (TOU) and copyright licenses for any site hosting OER.

In addition, we are working on a very basic ccLearn Step by Step Guide: Applying Creative Commons Licenses to Your Educational Resources.

These productions are available on our website for you to view, print, and disseminate. What's more, we encourage you to improve, alter, or translate them, as they are all licensed under the permissive Attribution license (CC BY). Please check the ccLearn site periodically for new resources and job opportunities, or subscribe to the ccLearn blog, mailing list, or twitter/identi.ca feeds!

<http://learn.creativecommons.org/communicate>


CC News in Arts and Culture
One of Creative Commons' core goals is to expand the body of open and free cultural works available to the public. This is accomplished through outreach, advisement, and specific project based initiatives with individuals and communities that promote a similar emphasis on community, sharing, and innovation. This effort is headed by Creative Director Eric Steuer.

Attributor launches FairShare
On March 4, Attributor launched FairShare, a CC-aware self service platform for tracking the spread of your works around the web, building on their index of 35 billion web pages. FairShare encourages choosing a CC license to make clear the terms under which you want your works to be spread, then gives you feeds showing exactly where all or parts of your works have been used, with or without attribution to you. This should be useful for both requesting proper use of your work under the terms of the CC license you’ve chosen, but perhaps more interestingly, for quantifying the spread and impact your works are having in a way that has previously not been possible using only keyword and link searches.
<http://www.fairshare.cc/fairshare/>

YouTube now testing CC Licenses
YouTube, the popular video sharing website, is now testing an option that gives video owners the ability to allow downloads and share their work under Creative Commons licenses. The test is being launched with a handful of partners, including Stanford University, Duke University, UC Berkeley, UC Los Angeles, and UCTV. Stay tuned for more information on YouTube's possible further integration of CC licenses.

Uncensored Interview releases 1000+ Creative Commons Theora videos
Uncensored Interview, a video producer and licensor of musician interviews, is releasing thousands of videos from its interview footage archive under our most permissive license, Attribution (CC BY). Previously, Uncensored Interview’s library consisted of premium content available for commercial licensing, but it now includes videos available via download in Ogg Theora, a free and open video compression format. Under CC-BY, users of the content are required only to give attribution to Uncensored Interview as the content source. The site is also creatively using our CC+ protocol to help users purchase permissions outside the scope of the Attribution license, such as the right to use the video unaccredited or for endorsement of a commercial product.
<http://www.uncensoredinterview.com/>

CC Portal now available from CASH Music
CASH Music, the CC license using music label/creative community, recently launched a wonderful new Creative Commons Portal for understanding how CC licenses can be utilized by record labels and artists. The portal is beautifully designed with an emphasis on simplicity: it gives an introduction to CC, hypothetical uses, and real world examples. Meant to grow and expand overtime, the portal is a great resource for record labels looking into how they can adopt CC. As CASH expands upon its mission to "develop open source tools for artists and promote best practices in the music industry," resources like the CC Portal will become increasingly more valuable.
<http://creativecommons.cashmusic.org/>

Sita Sings the Blues, CC-licensed animated film
Talented animator, writer and producer Nina Paley has freely released her animated film, Sita Sings the Blues under our copyleft license, Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA). Nina’s film retells the classic Indian myth Ramayana and it has already received critical acclaim, including the New York Times and Roger Ebert (who gave it two thumbs up). To watch, download, or share the film, visit <http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/>


=============
We rely on our supporters to continue our work enabling
stories like those listed above. Check it out --

Donate:
http://support.creativecommons.org/join

CC Store:
http://support.creativecommons.org/store

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

This newsletter is licensed under
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ -- please share
and remix!

Creative Commons was built with and is sustained by the
generous support of organizations including the Center for the
Public Domain, the 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.

To unsubscribe visit
http://creativecommons.org/about/newsletter#unsubscribe

Or send an email with "unsubscribe" as the subject to cc-info-request AT lists.ibiblio.org

Creative Commons newsletters are also posted in PDF format to the CC Weblog.  For back issues please visit http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CCNewsletter


--
[cc newsletter list] http://creativecommons.org/about/newsletter
[cc events list] http://creativecommons.org/events
[cc network] http://creativecommons.net


  • [cc-info] ccNewsletter #12, Melissa Reeder, 04/02/2009

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page