PRESS RELEASE
October 16, 2008,
Hong Kong - As Hong Kong seeks to improve education and
strengthen the territory's creative industries, the University of
Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Studies Centre (JMSC) announced
plans to launch Creative Commons copyright licences in Hong Kong next
week.
In his October 15
Policy Address, Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang pledged "to
enhance students' ability for self-learning and interactive learning,
and to promote the use of e-books rather than printed copies, we will
look into the development of electronic learning resources." He
acknowledged public concern about the financial burden of costly,
frequently-updated textbooks. Mr. Tsang also pledged to enhance Hong
Kong's creativity and cultural diversity, to "realise the vision
of developing Hong Kong into a world-class arts and culture
destination."
Through a new set of
flexible copyright licences, Creative Commons (CC) supports these
aims by making it easier for Hong Kong people to create and share
educational and artistic works. CC licences enable greater
flexibility between full copyright (all rights reserved) and the
public domain (no rights reserved). In other words, they provide a
"some rights reserved" approach to copyright, making it
possible for creators to retain control over their copyright while
inviting certain uses of their works.
Creative Commons Hong
Kong (CCHK), hosted by the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and
Media Studies Centre (JMSC), brings the Creative Commons licences to
Hong Kong by porting them into compliance with Hong Kong's
Copyright Ordinance. These licences represent a new legal alternative
for the Hong Kong people, alongside other existing copyright options.
A launch ceremony and
festival will be held next week on Saturday, October 25, at the Hong
Kong School of Creativity in Kowloon. On Friday October 24 the
founder of Creative Commons, Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig,
will deliver the Inaugural Lee Shu Pui Leung Wai Hing Distinguished
Lecture in Digital Media at the University of Hong Kong, titled:
"Free Culture and Free Society: Can the West Love Both?"
CC licences enable
educational works such as textbooks, worksheets, supplementary course
materials, and presentations to be shared freely and legally by
students and educators. Around the world, educators are embracing CC
licences so that their course materials can be used as easily and
widely as possible via "open courseware." The Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States was the first
major educational institution to launch open courseware in 2001.
Since then, world-class universities around the world have joined the
open courseware movement - including several universities in Mainland
China and Taiwan. Use of open courseware is also expanding to primary
and secondary school districts in many parts of the world. Meanwhile,
Chinese-speaking educators in Mainland China and Taiwan have launched
the Opensource Opencourseware Prototype System, dedicated to
translating open courseware from institutions around the world into
Chinese.
So far, no Hong Kong
educational institutions have joined the global open courseware
movement. CCHK hopes to facilitate Hong Kong's participation is this
movement, and to help make educational materials accessible to people
from all strata of society, regardless of income or geographic
location. "CCHK could not have launched at a better time"
explained Pindar Wong, Chairman of CCHK's Preparatory Executive
Committee. "With the establishment of the Government's Creative
Industry Office, I see CCHK helping to provide a firm foundation on
which to build our creative capital. For example, in education, where
e-books can be developed and shared over the net using our licences."
"It is not too
late for Hong Kong to catch up with this global movement to use more
innovative forms of copyright so that everybody can get an
education... whether they can afford textbooks or not," said
Prof. Ying Chan, Director of the University of Hong Kong's Journalism
and Media Studies Centre (JMSC), official host of the Creative
Commons Hong Kong project.
"Creative Commons
licences are already being used by educators, writers, artists,
musicians, bloggers, and many other people in Mainland China and
Taiwan - where the licences were launched in 2006 and 2004,
respectively," said Rebecca MacKinnon, Assistant Professor at
the JMSC and Public Lead of Creative Commons Hong Kong. "CC
Singapore is also launching its licences this year. We are thrilled
to provide this legal platform so that Hong Kong's people can share
their creativity with the rest of the Chinese-speaking world."
Since August 2007, the
CCHK legal team has worked to draft versions of the Creative Commons
licences that are compatible with Hong Kong copyright law. The CCHK
legal leads are Dr. Yahong Li and Ms. Alice Lee of the University of
Hong Kong's Faculty of Law. The work of CCHK is also supported by a
Preparatory Executive Committee comprised of members from different
sectors in Hong Kong such as the IT sector, education, media, the
arts, and politics. The CCHK launch would not be possible without the
work of many enthusiastic community volunteers.
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 licences, 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:
Velentina Ma, e-mail:
velentinam AT hku.hkThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need _javascript_ enabled to view it
;
phone: +852-2219-4012
More information:
Prof. Lawrence Lessig's
lecture: http://hk.creativecommons.org/2008/09/11/Lessig/
CCHK Launch:
http://hk.creativecommons.org/2008/09/11/launch/
Creative Commons Press
Kit: http://creativecommons.org/presskit
CCHK "Frequently
Asked Questions:" http://hk.creativecommons.org/faq/
Open Courseware
Consortium: http://www.ocwconsortium.org
MyOOPS:
http://www.myoops.org/
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