People
Alumni
Grace Armstrong, Intern
Originally from Iowa, Grace is now a senior at Middlebury College in Vermont, where she created her own major to study information politics and economics. During her junior year abroad at the University of Buenos Aires, she became interested in the relationship between copyright and political, economic, and social development in MERCOSUR. She is currently researching and writing her undergraduate thesis on copyright trends in Brazil and Argentina, and in her spare time she enjoys traveling (especially in Latin America), reading, and teaching snowboarding.
Fred Benenson, Intern
Fred Benenson graduated in May of 2005 from New York University’s College of Arts and Science with a major in Philosophy and a minor in Computer Science. In the 2004-5 school year he founded the official NYU chapter of the national student organization FreeCulture.org. He has worked professionally as a graphic designer, web programmer, and IT technician. In his free time he likes to take pictures for his photoblog f as in photoblog.com, solve the Rubik’s cube, and listen to music.
Glenn Otis Brown, Executive Director
Glenn Otis Brown was Executive Director of Creative Commons from Summer 2002 until spring 2005. Before that, he served as Assistant Director. Glenn is also a lecturer at Stanford Law School, where he teaches a class on Creative Commons and free and open-source software licensing with Lawrence Lessig.
Before coming to Creative Commons, Glenn clerked for the Honorable Stanley Marcus on the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Miami, where he worked on the Wind Done Gone copyright appeal, among other cases. Glenn has also worked stints at The Economist’s Washington D.C. bureau, reporting on general U.S. news during the 2000 elections, and at Digital Age, a New York public TV show hosted by Andrew Shapiro, where he was assistant producer for a season.
Glenn graduated from the University of Texas at Austin (B.A. 1996, summa) and Harvard Law School (JD, 2000, magna). In college, Glenn was awarded a national Harry S. Truman Scholarship for graduate study towards a career in public service. At Harvard, Glenn was a member of the Harvard Law Review and worked at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, where he organized Signal or Noise?, a digital music conference and concert, in cooperation with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
John Buckman
John Buckman is founder and CEO of Magnatune.com, an online record label that strives to be fair to both recording artists and customers alike, and which was recently named as one of the “Top 20 Music Download Sites” by Time Magazine. Considered a solid example of a Creative Commons-backed business model, Magnatune provides international web-based distribution to hundreds of recording artists and features an innovative on-demand licensing tool for commercial music licensing. In 2006, John founded Bookmooch.com, an online community for exchanging used books. His past accomplishments as a programmer and entrepreneur include having founded email software company Lyris in 1994 which was sold to JL Halsey in 2005. He also created Tile.net, an early web site directory that was sold to Internet.com in 2001. Buckman was born in London, raised in Paris, France until the age of 10, and currently divides his time between London and Berkeley, California. He is married to musician Jan Hanford Buckman, who runs the JS Bach home page, as well as several other web sites.
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Danny Colligan, Tech Intern
Started: June 2007
Danny Colligan is a Technology Intern at Creative Commons. Danny has held previous intern positions at Google and Gamespot.com and also teaching assistant and software developer positions at Georgetown University. Immediately prior to joining, he graduated from The Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, majoring in Science, Technology and International Affairs. His hobbies include using and contributing to free software, listening to innovative music, imbibing provocative literature, staying healthy and dancing logical circles around people in passionate debate.
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Parijat Desai, Editor
Parijat Desai is a choreographer and editor. She has a B.A. in anthropology from Stanford University and an M.F.A. in choreography from UCLA. Her choreography draws on Indian classical and modern/postmodern dance, as well as movement traditions like yoga. Venues that have presented her work include the J. Paul Getty Center, P.S. 122, and the Bangalore Biennial; and she has received support from the Durfee Foundation, California Arts Council, and Arts International. As an editor, she has worked with scholarly writing, nonprofit publications, Web content, and PR/marketing text. She will be based in New York as of this May.
Paula Le Dieu, Director of iCommons
Started: Apr 2005
Paula Le Dieu is the Director of iCommons. With more than 70 countries currently in the process of establishing local language and jurisdictional versions of Creative Commons licences and Science Commons projects, Paula’s role is to ensure that the global creative and innovation domain grows and thrives.
Prior to joining Creative Commons, Paula worked for the BBC in the role of Project Director for the Creative Archive. This is a public service initiative to provide the fuel for digital creativity by opening up access to, and allowing for re-use of Britain’s cultural heritage starting with the BBC’s radio and television archive.
Cory Doctorow, Creative Commons International Evangelist
Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is the UK Liason for Creative Commons, working with institutional British rightsholders on open content licensing projects. He is an award-winning science fiction writer, author of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Eastern Standard Tribe and A Place So Foreign and Eight More. He is a Contributing Writer to Wired Magazine and is the co-editor of the weblog Boing Boing. Born and raised in Toronto, he now lives in London, England.
Eric Eldred
Eric Eldred is editor and publisher of Eldritch Press, a free online book website at http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch. He is better known as lead plaintiff in Eldred v. Ashcroft, a suit to overturn the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. He is best known as father of triplet girls. A former Unix systems administrator, he is now disabled. As a computer hobbyist and early adopter since about 1980, he led computer user groups and wrote articles for various computer magazines. He worked 19 years at Massachusetts General Hospital before entering the computer field with Apollo Computer.
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Daniela Faris, Assistant to the Executive Director, iCommons
Started: APR 2006
Daniela Faris joined iCommons after graduating with a Bachelor of Journalism degree from Rhodes University in South Africa. As part of her studies she undertook an intensive course in ‘New Media’, at the Rhodes School of Journalism and Media Studies’ New Media Lab.
Daniela has experience in design and layout, photography, basic web development and online publishing. She has also specialized in ICT and economics writing. She has reported on various conferences and events, including the Creative Commons South Africa launch and the Grahamstown National Arts Festival, as part of her practical training in multimedia journalism. Daniela has completed short internships at a locally based newspaper and magazine; and at the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa), a politically focused NGO in Pretoria.
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Heather Ford, Executive Director, iCommons
Started: Mar 2006
Heather Ford is a South African who has worked in the fields of internet policy, law and management in South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. Heather graduated from Rhodes University with a Bachelor of Journalism degree and has a certificate in Telecommunications Policy, Law and Management from the University of the Witwatersrand Link Centre. After working in the United Kingdom for Greennet and Privacy International, she went on to Stanford University in 2003 where she worked as a fellow in the Reuters Digital Vision Fellowship Program. Volunteering for Creative Commons while she was at Stanford, she decided to go back to South Africa at the end of her studies to start Creative Commons South Africa and a programme entitled ‘Commons-sense: Towards an African Digital Information Commons’ at the Wits University Link Centre. Recently appointed Acting Executive Director of iCommons, Heather is also helping to help establish an Intellectual Property Research Unit at the Link Centre and a new NGO called ‘The African Commons Project’.
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Will Frank, Intern
Will Frank is a rising senior at the University of Pennsylvania, where he majors in Computer Science, minors in the History and Sociology of Science, and lives in the STWing residential program. He is a geek in the modern sense and his hobbies include fencing and reading. He’s planning to go on to law school after graduation unless his family and friends can talk him out of it.
Mia Garlick, General Counsel
Started: Mar 2005
As General Counsel, Mia oversees implementation of the domestic and international legal strategy for Creative Commons and advises on ongoing legal issues that arise in relation to Creative Commons licenses and activities.
Mia joined Creative Commons after working in the Silicon Valley office of the law firm Simpson Thatcher and Bartlett on a range of shareholder and securities, antitrust and intellectual property litigation matters. Prior this, Mia completed a Masters of Law at Stanford, specializing in Law, Science, and Technology, to deepen her knowledge of IP and technology issues. Before her Stanford studies, Mia worked as an IP associate in the Sydney office of Gilbert & Tobin Lawyers. Throughout her legal career, Mia has regularly acted on a pro bono basis for individual creators, giving them legal advice on IP and related issues. Mia has also written numerous articles on current issues in IP and technology law and presented frequently on these issues.
Mia received a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of New South Wales in 1998 and her Masters of Law from Stanford Law School in 2003. She is admitted to practice in New South Wales, Australia, and in California, US.
James Grimmelmann
James Grimmelmann is a student at Yale Law School, where he works with the Information Society Project and edits LawMeme, Yale’s law and technology weblog. He is a graduate of Harvard College, an occasional programmer, and a former intern with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. His personal blog is the Laboratorium.
Matthew Haughey, Creative Director
Started: Mar 2002
Equal parts designer and programmer, Matt has been building web interfaces and applications for the past ten years. He runs the popular community site MetaFilter, writes daily on his weblog, takes daily photos, and keeps track of it all on his personal site. His previous work includes projects involving universities, non-profit groups, startups, and media companies and his work has appeared in numerous major media outlets. He has helped author three books on the subjects of usability, web design, and weblogs. He holds a M.S. in Environmental Chemistry from the University of California, Riverside.
Brian Heung, Intern
Brian Heung is an undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley currently working on a degree in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. He was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Hercules, California. He is an amateur musician and is currently playing the tuba in the University of California Marching Band. In the Cal Band, he also served on the computer committee. Previously he worked as a student researcher at Innovative Mobility Research and as a lifeguard and swim instructor. Brian is hoping to find exciting foods to try while in San Francisco.
Herkko Hietanen, Research Associate
Started: Apr 2005
Herkko Hietanen LL.M. (Helsinki) is a researcher at Helsinki Institute for Information Technology and at Lappeenranta University of Technology where he teaches Information and Technology law.
Before starting as a visiting scholar at University of California Berkeley he worked as leader of the Finnish Creative Commons. Herkko has written several papers on open content and Creative Commons and he is especially interested of the business models that open content enables. Herkko is looking to finish his PhD-thesis in economics in couple of years. Herkko helped to start one of the biggest cyber right organizations Electronic Frontier Finland where he is member of the board. Herkko’s law firm Turre Legal has specialized to representing free and open source developers and users. Herkko can also be seen on his webpage and his Copyfraud blog
Roland Honekamp, Creative Commons International
Roland Honekamp is a German internet entrepreneur who served for several years as co-founder and director of Zooplus AG, a successful start-up company. Previously he worked for the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Roland is a graduate of the University of Oxford, England, and holds a postgraduate degree from the London School of Economics.
Ryan Junell, Media Designer
Ryan Junell is the San Francisco-based media designer responsible for the Creative Commons logo and the two flash animations. Ryan graduated from the Plan 2 Honors program at the University of Texas in 1996. Always a student of media, Ryan has worked professionally in radio, television, film, newsprint, and (for the past 8 years) on the internet. He helped found and organize the WEBZINE event series. These annual gatherings (1998/SF, 1999/SF, 2000/SF, 2001/NYC) celebrated independent online media. He is one fourth of the experimental electronic audio/video improvisation group Sagan. He has directed several music videos for independent artists such as Spoon, The Natural History, The Soft Pink Truth, and Gravy Train!!!!. In 1999, he starred in a feature film called Radio Free Steve. More can be learned about him at his personal website Texasmonkey.com.
Leena Kamat, Intern
Leena graduated from UC Berkeley in 2002, having double-majored in Business Administration and South Asian Studies. This year, she will be entering her third year at UC Davis School of Law, where she is active in several student groups, including Intellectual Property & Social Justice. A Bay Area native and avid Bollywood fan, her interests also include critical race feminism, cheese, and laughing yoga.
Margot Kaminski, Freeculture Intern
Margot Kaminski became interested in IP and Creative Commons while working as a contracts manager at The Wylie Agency, a literary agency in New York. She graduated from Harvard with a B.A. in American History and Literature, and has since edited Let’s o NYC 2005, published freelance work in CHOW Magazine and The Vail Daily, and worked as a ski instructor in Vail, CO. She currently lives in Palo Alto.
Thierry Kennes, Tech Intern
Started: June 2007
Thierry Kennes is a student in his 3rd year of a five-year program at EPSI IT School in Montpellier, France. He is a Tahitian native, a small island in the middle of nowhere, where he learned to watch movies and sleep. He spends lots of his free time on the web reading the latest tech news.
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Dave Kim
Dave is a student at Georgetown University Law Center. He was born in Seoul, South Korea, grew up in Long Island, NY, and earned his B.A. in economics at Pomona College in Claremont, California. Upon graduation, he was employed in the entrepreneurial venture and Garage.com company, Struxicon, Inc. in Irvine, California. In the next chapter of his life, Dave studied film and participated in small digital and film productions in Los Angeles and Paris, prior to entering law school. Dave’s interests include cheap eats, film, photography, golf, skiing, and his rock band.
Eva Lutterbuese, Executive Assistant, Creative Commons International
Started: Sept 2005
Eva is the assistant to the CC International team. After a 3-year apprenticeship at a German automotive supplier she started to work as an Assistant at the CDU party headquarter in Bonn. She also worked several years for a member of the German parliament. Her last position was the Executive Assistance to the President of a governmental agency, which tries to attract foreign investors to eastern Germany. She has a lot of experience in administration, data management and communication. Eva also holds a teaching certificate for office administration and time management.
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Laura Lynch, Intern
After graduating from the University of California, San Diego with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature and Writing, and a minor in Biology, Laura began working with Professor Lessig and Creative Commons at Stanford Law School. Inspired by her work experiences at Stanford, she began studying at the University of San Francisco School of Law in the Fall of 2004. During her first year of law school, she was a technical editor for the Journal of Law and Social Challenges, a member of the Women?s Law Association, Public Interest Law Foundation and IP-Cyberlaw Association, and played on the law school intramural volleyball team ? ?Motion to Spike?. Next year, Laura looks forward to sitting on the Board of Directors for the Women?s Law Association, working as a staff editor for the USF Intellectual Property Journal and Case Counselor in the USF Moot Court Program.
Benjamin O’Neil, Intern
Ben O’Neil joins Creative Commons from Washington, D.C. where he just completed his first year at Georgetown University Law Center. After graduating in 2000 from the University of Virginia with a degree in History, Ben spent a year working at the District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan. He also coached a high school lacrosse team while in New York City. Ben hopes to bring the message of Creative Commons with him back to Georgetown this fall and get CC on copyright syllabi at the Law Center.
Neeru Paharia, Executive Director
Started: Aug 2002 Neeru Paharia is Executive Director of Creative Commons. Neeru graduated from the University of California at Davis in 1997 and received a Master of Science in Public Policy and Management with a concentration in Information Systems from Carnegie Mellon University in 2000. Prior to graduate school, Neeru spent a year in the Coro Fellowship Program, a leadership program in public affairs. Neeru comes to Creative Commons from McKinsey and Company, where she worked as an Associate Consultant. Neeru is also a filmmaker, illustrator, and blues guitar player. She has shown her work in various film festivals and publications.
Dana Powers, intern
Dana is originally from Music City, USA, where he attended Vanderbilt University and studied Computer Engineering, Math, and Music. A former free software hacker, Dana is now a rising second year law student at Stanford Law School studying Intellectual Property, Constitutional Law, and Legal Theory. Dana is currently listening to Brad Sucks and enjoying the glorious caffeination of the office hands-free coffee maker.
Lisa Rein, Technical Architect
Lisa Rein is an XML educator and a freelance journalist with extensive publication credits both on-line and off-line including: Wired News, CNET, XML.com, Web Techniques and Web Review. Lisa is a Contributing Editor and Resource Guide Editor for XML.com, the Editor of O’Reilly’s P2P Directory at OpenP2P.com and the XML New Products Editor for the IEEE’s Internet Computing Magazine. She teaches XML for the University of California at Berkeley Extension Online, runs her own educational website, has her own personal weblog and is a singer/musician/songwriter with her own music website.
Lisa also had the honor of being the “Text Editor and Mac Maven” for Timothy Leary’s last published work and only graphic novel, Surfing the Conscious Nets (Last Gasp 1995).
Mark Resch, CEO of Creative Commons
Mark Resch is deeply interested in the mutual interaction of society, business, and technology. He is Chairman and co-founder of interactive system maker Onomy Labs, Inc. Resch was President and CEO of CommerceNet, a nonprofit industry consortium that addressed critical enablers of Internet commerce. At Xerox Corporation, Resch developed new Internet business opportunities and managed xerox.com worldwide. Resch was co-founder and Vice President of Operations at Luna Imaging Inc., a startup that created large interactive photography databases, funded by the Getty Trust and Eastman Kodak. Resch was Vice President and Director of Computer Imaging at CRSS Architects, Inc. As Director of Graphic Arts at Computer Curriculum Corporation, Resch supported the creation of more than 3,000 hours of interactive courseware for students at risk. Resch was assistant professor of Computer Art in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and drafted its MFA degree. Resch served as co-chair for the Association for Computer Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Computer Graphic and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH) in 1993, and has served on numerous non-profit boards.
Mr. Resch is originally from Chicago, Illinois, and holds a BA in History from Grinnell College and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Tessi Rieber
Started: Apr 2005
Tessi Rieber joined the Berlin office as a student intern. After studying in Freiburg, Cologne and Paris, Tessi is now a student of History at the Humboldt University of Berlin.
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Francesca Rodriquez, COO and Project Manager
Started: Jul 2004
Francesca Rodriquez is the Chief Operating Officer and Project Manager at Creative Commons. She has worked at Creative Commons since July 2004. She has worked in museum education at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of International Folk Art, The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum and The Art Institute of Chicago. Francesca holds a BA in Studio Art from the College of Santa Fe, and an MA from the University of Chicago in humanities and art history.
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Rebecca Rojer, Business Development Assistant
Started: June 2007
Rebecca Rojer is an undergraduate at Harvard studying film & animation with a minor in computer science. She is a founding member of Harvard Free Culture. In her free time she enjoys comic books, Linux, and cooperative living.
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Amy Rose, Law Intern
Amy Rose is a third year law student at the Boston University School of Law. Her legal studies focus on copyright law. As an undergraduate at Cornell University, Amy concentrated in comparative literature and art history. Amy is interested in applying her strong interest in the humanities to studying legal issues that relate to the arts.
Scott Shawcroft, Tech Intern
Started: June 2007
Scott Shawcroft is currently a student at the University of Washington studying Computer Engineering. In addition to his studies, he has a personal interest in the convergence of creativity and technology. He enjoys watching movies, rock climbing, skim boarding and working on his numerous projects. His previous projects include Annoamp, Keystroke and the Open Road Trip.
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Derek Slater, Intern
During Summer ‘03, Derek Slater is writing features and developing marketing materials. A junior at Harvard College, Derek is an affiliate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society working on the Digital Media Project. He also writes for the Harvard Political Review and blogs at A Copyfighter’s Musings.
Aaron Swartz, Volunteer Metadata Advisor
Aaron Swartz is a teenage writer, programmer, and hacker. As a Semantic Web developer, he’s a member of the W3C’s RDF Core Working Group and a co-author of RSS 1.0. His latest project is the Plesh, a decentralized network that will provide the platform for the next generation of network applications.
Timothy Vollmer, Business Development Assistant
Started: June 2007
Timothy Vollmer is a graduate student at the University of Michigan School of Information, with a focus of study on technology, law and policy. He is a research investigator for the Michigan Open CourseWare initiative and has helped develop a student-centric OCW publishing pilot there. Timothy was a Community + Media Development intern for Creative Commons from June - August 2007. He studied sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he also helped establish Underground Catering, a farm-to-table food collective and catering business that supports local farmers, sustainable agriculture and community food issues.
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Natalie Walrond, CFO and Treasurer
Started: Aug 2005
Natalie Walrond joined Creative Commons in August 2005 as CFO and Treasurer after a year long sabbatical from the investment industry. Natalie spent four years in on the buy side following and managing publicly traded investments in emerging economies and five years on the sell side as an equity research analyst. She graduated from Trinity University in 1993 with a degree in International Studies and International Business and from the University of Chicago in 1995 with an MBA in Analytic Finance and Policy Studies.
Pete Barr-Watson, Director of Business Development, Creative Commons and iCommons
Started: Jun 2006
Pete is the Director of Business Development at Creative Commons and iCommons and his background is planted firmly in the world of digital creativity. As a founding director (and COO) of one of the UK’s most prestigious new media agencies his award-winning work includes such diversities as a 10 episode cartoon series for TV (still being aired in Europe) and co-authoring technical/creative books such as ‘New Masters of Flash 2002’ (pub: Friend’s of Ed). He has worked extensively as interim CTO/COO and technology consultant for several internet startups on behalf of their VC companies and has been a two-time jury member at the prestigious Prix Ars Electronica arts festival in Austria. Pete is regularly invited to speak at creative events and universities about his work and experiences.
Christiane Henckel von Donnersmarck, Creative Commons International Executive Director
Started: Apr 2003
Christiane Henckel von Donnersmarck studied law at Heidelberg University, where she developed a particualar interest in the phenomenon of the Knowledge Society. In 1994 she organized a 3-day-symposium with 600 participants for the “Heidelberger Club” entitled “Challenges of the Information Society.” When she continued her Law Studies at Humboldt University in Berlin, she became Research Assistant to Professor Tomuschat, Chair of the International Law Department. Upon graduation in 1998 she obtained a scholarship from the Max Planck Institute in Munich to write a doctorate on “Copyright Limitations in the Digital Age.” This allowed her to combine her passion for the Arts with her experience in International Law and her interest in the Information Society. In May of 2002, she was part of a team that helped the Ministry of Justice implement the European InfoSoc Directive into German Law. Christiane has held various teaching assignments and has published widely on copyright law.
