Cc-au mailing list

[Jessica Coates <j2.coates AT qut.edu.au>]

There is a ccUS (http://creativecommons.org/international/us/) - it's just 
not a particularly active office and doesn't have its own website (which a 
lot of the offices don't). Though it does have its own licences and separate 
public leads. Really, only about half of the 50+ offices have a public 
profile.

It's a criticism that has been made before, and there is certainly a US bias 
in CC - a bias it shares with other US-initiated online organisations, like 
Wikimedia, Google etc. It isn't helped by the fact that most of the action 
(and money) in the social media/web 2.0/OA space (both public and private 
sector) is still in the US.

But the CC head office has been working on this over the last few years, 
internationalising the licences, improving communication with its 
jurisdiction offices, adding the international news feed to the front page. 
There's constant discussion within the CC community about how to make the 
focus more international - so we'd love to hear any ideas anyone has.

And I definitely don't think the CC ideals are just cultural colonialism - 
while I agree some of the 'free' rhetoric can be a bit grating, if anything 
the open content ethic tends to favour those in niche markets (ie outside the 
US). Certainly things like open education and open government are very 
popular in South America, Asia and Africa.



Jessica 


-----Original Message-----
From: cc-au-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org 
[mailto:cc-au-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Leigh Blackall
Sent: Tuesday, 20 April 2010 8:20 PM
To: Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand discussion; cc-au AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [ccAustralia] CC parochial

Has anyone on either the NZ or the AU list discussed the US geocentricism to 
Creative Commons? I brought the question up at the Open Education conference 
in Vancouver last year, challenging the CC crew on questions of neo 
colonialism and heavy words like that. 

Its a bit related to how the whole Internet is geared. We have .com .org and 
.net and then we have .com.au, .com.nz and so on. Why isn't there a .com.us?

And Creative Commons.. Why is there no Creative Commons United States? Is 
Creative Commons International a project made up of... everyone else but the 
US?

Is this a non or minor issue worth no discussion? Or is Creative Commons in 
some ways a vehicle of cultural colonisation, after the free trade agreements 
get us all in line with All Rights Reserved, the US lefties come in and save 
us with Creative Commons, swamping us with US centric "free" content, and 
encouraging us to release our minor international voices under CC licenses as 
well.

I know that's not the intent, but it could in many ways be the result.

I'd love to see Creative Commons add United States to their name like all the 
other International sites do... a minor act of solidarity with the 'everyone 
else' out there.

-- 
--
Leigh Blackall
+61(0)404561009
skype - leigh_blackall
leighblackall AT gmail.com
http://leighblackall.blogspot.com



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