Creative Commons - Belgium

[Severine Dusollier <severine.dusollier AT fundp.ac.be>]

Belgium was amongst the first countries having 
adapted the Creative Commons licenses into 
Belgium law. The Belgian CC Licenses were indeed 
launched in 2004. Many people in Belgium use 
Creative Commons Licenses to disseminate their 
creative works to the public.

From the beginning, the Belgium public lead for 
the creative commons project is Séverine 
Dusollier, Professor at the University of Namur 
and, more exactly a team of researchers of the 
CRID (Centre de Recherche Informatique et Droit, 
University of Namur). Other persons have been 
active in the launch of the licenses (Constant 
asbl, Digitaal Platform van de steunpunten IAK en 
IBK) and in the Dutch translation (CIR, 
University of Leuven)

In the last years, the Belgium chapter of 
Creative Commons has not been inactive, as we are 
currently working on the version 3 of the 
licenses, but has not done much on the promotion 
of licenses and other activities related to the 
use of Creative Commons licenses in Belgium.
Creative Commons Belgium deserves better : the 
lead of the project should be restructured and 
entrusted with new people. The CRID would 
continue however to ensure the legal tasks of 
porting the licenses.

The main tasks of the Public Lead would be:

- set up a new website for Creative Commons Belgium
- monitor the creative commons Belgium mailing list
- answer to the demands of information or 
assistance regarding the use of the licenses
- be involved in iCommons and CC-Europe mailing lists
- be the middle-wo-man between Belgian users of 
the license, CC Belgium and Creative Commons 
international

Other tasks can be imagined (organise public 
events around the licenses, ...) but are not 
mandatory.
Being a Creative Commons Public Lead also means 
to belong to an international network and to the 
overall Creative Commons initiative. Each year, 
this network gathers to discuss the licenses 
(this year, in Japan, see 
http://icommonssummit.org/). Every three months, 
the European Public Leads also meet to discuss 
issues around the licences.
Financial resources can be provided to enable travels to such events.
Leading a national chapter of Creative Commons is 
not paid and is a completely voluntary job, 
except if you can find funding on your own.

If you feel interested in jumping in this amazing 
project or know someone who would be, send an 
email to severine.dusollier AT fundp.ac.be, 
explaining your motivation and your experience 
with Creative Commons licenses or more generally 
with open access...
Being a legal association would help, namely to be able to ask for funding.
If you feel like taking the responsibility of 
some limited tasks, such as the website, it is 
also possible

We are organising a meeting of CC-Europe on the 
29th of June in Belgium. If you are interested in 
the CC Belgium Lead, that might be a good 
opportunity to see how it works. Contact me 
rapidly then.

Our idea is to announce the new public lead in 
Fall and to release simultaneously the version 3 
of the licenses for Belgium.

I am staying at your disposal if you have further questions.

Séverine Dusollier
Creative Commons Public Lead
on behalf of the CC Belgium team


--

Severine Dusollier
Professor at the University of Namur
Director of research at the Research Center in IT and Law (CRID)

Rempart de la Vierge 5          Tél: +32 81 72 47 60
5000 NAMUR                      Fax: +32 81 72 52 02
BELGIUM                         severine.dusollier AT fundp.ac.be

http://www.crid.be