Creative Commons Launches CC0 and CC+ Programs

Eric Steuer, December 17th, 2007

San Francisco — December 17, 2007

Today, Creative Commons announced the launch of CC0 (aka CC Zero) and CC+ (aka CC Plus). These programs are major additions to CC’s array of free legal tools.

CC+

CC+ is a protocol to enable a simple way for users to get rights beyond the rights granted by a CC license. For example, a Creative Commons license might offer noncommercial rights. With CC+, the license can also provide a link to enter into transactions beyond access to noncommercial rights — most obviously commercial rights, but also services of use such as warranty and ability to use without attribution, or even access to physical media.

“Imagine you have all of your photos on Flickr, offered to the world under the CC Attribution-NonCommercial license,” said Lawrence Lessig, CEO of Creative Commons. “CC+ will enable you to continue offering your work to the public for noncommercial use, but will also give you an easy way to sell commercial licensing rights to those who want to use your work for profit.”

The CC+ architecture was pioneered by early adopter CC-enabled businesses such as Magnatune.com and is effectively implemented by numerous creators and intermediaries who enable a simple way to move between the sharing and commercial economies. CC+ provides a lightweight standard around these best practices and is available for implementation immediately.

Creative Commons will collaborate with commercial rights agencies and other companies to build upon CC’s metadata architecture and give the public simple “click-through” access to commercial rights and other opportunities beyond the scope of a public CC license. Companies and organizations announcing support for CC+ include Yahoo!, Blip.tv, Beatpick, Jamendo, RightsAgent, Youlicense, Strayform, Cloakx, and Copyright Clearance Center.

“The CC+ initiative adds an exciting new dimension that enables a commercial element to co-exist within the Creative Commons framework,” said Rudy Rouhana, co-founder of RightsAgent, Inc — provider of a new service that automates licensing to permit re-use and monetization of user-generated content. “RightsAgent is delighted to be one of the first companies to implement the CC+ standard. The working relationship between RightsAgent and Creative Commons now provides both a transactional and commercial layer that will help further the success of Creative Commons and the success of this initiative,” said Rouhana.

CC0

CC0 is a protocol that enables people to either (a) ASSERT that a work has no legal restrictions attached to it, or (b) WAIVE any rights associated with a work so it has no legal restrictions attached to it, and (c) SIGN the assertion or waiver.

“In some ways, CC0 is similar to what our public domain dedication does now,” said Lessig. “But with CC0, the waiver of rights will be more robust internationally, and both the waiver and assertion will be vouched for, so that there is a platform for reputation systems to develop. People will then be able to judge the reliability of content’s copyright status based on who has done the certifying.”

CC0 was previewed at Creative Commons’ 5th birthday event this past weekend in San Francisco. A beta version of the protocol will be released for public discussion on January 15, 2008. This will include the traditional components of the CC architecture — legal code, human-readable explanation, machine-readable metadata, and tools. The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School will collaborate with Creative Commons on drafting the legal code for CC0.

In conjunction with the CC0 announcement, Creative Commons’ project Science Commons launched the “Protocol for Implementing Open Access Data” — a method for ensuring that scientific databases can be legally integrated with one another. The protocol is built on the public domain status of data in many countries (including the United States) and provides legal certainty to both data deposit and data use. Science Commons has worked with data licensing thought leaders and is pleased to announce partnerships with Jordan Hatcher and Dr. Charlotte Waelde, the legal team behind the Open Database License; Talis, the company behind the Open Database License process; and the Open Knowledge Foundation, creators of the Open Knowledge Definition.

“The ‘freedom to integrate’ is one of the fundamental freedoms for data on the Web, and in one stroke, the Science Commons protocol integrates the primary legal options around data into a single Open Access regime,” said John Wilbanks, Vice President for Science Commons. Data in the sciences is most useful when it’s in the public domain, like the human genome and all the information at the US National Center for Biotechnology Information. This protocol, and its implementation by Talis and the Open Database License, creates a legal tool for data creators to put their data into the same legal zone as the genome and other key fundamental research resources.”

“We’ve recognized the importance of Open Access data at Talis for a number of years, and it was an obvious step for us to work with Jordan Hatcher and Dr. Charlotte Waelde to validate our earlier efforts and to place them in a sound legal framework from which others could also benefit,” said Dr. Paul Miller, Talis’ Technology Evangelist. “Looking at CC0 and the Creative Commons’ Science Commons project, the synergies with our own license development were immediately apparent. We shall now be working together with Creative Commons and the license’s new hosts at the Open Knowledge Foundation to see the pool of remixable data grow, for the benefit of all.”

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 licenses, 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, 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. For more information about Creative Commons, visit http://creativecommons.org.

Contact

Mike Linksvayer
Vice President, Creative Commons
ml@creativecommons.org

Press Kit

http://creativecommons.org/presskit

Serbia announces ported licenses on Creative Commons’ fifth year

Michelle Thorne, December 15th, 2007

December 15, 2007 — San Francisco, CA, USA and Belgrade, Serbia

The much-anticipated global celebration of Creative Commons’ fifth year is amplified today with the announcement of the locally ported Creative Commons licensing suite in Serbia. In close collaboration with slobodnakultura.org, Wikimedia Serbia, and New Media center Kuda_org, the Creative Commons Team in Serbia, lead by Nevenka Antic, has successfully adapted the Creative Commons licenses both linguistically and legally to Serbian national law.

The ported the Serbian licenses, available soon online, will be celebrated today in Belgrade at Dom omladine at 5:00pm CET. Speakers at the event include Slobodan Markovic from ICANN, Ivan Jelic & Desiree Miloshevich of the Free Software Network and the Internet Society, and Marcell Mars from CC Croatia and MAMA.

The festivities will continue at the Cultural Center Magacin, where guests will join the CC Serbia Team in greeting the globally synchronized Creative Commons Birthday Parties via webcast. The international birthday parties are being coordinated by local chapters around the world to commemorate Creative Commons’ fifth year in a series of celebrations culminating in San Francisco on December 15th from 10pm-2am PST.

The party in Belgrade will then head to Club Andergraund at 10pm CET with live acts from artists MistakeMistake, Crobot, Wolfgang S, Ah, Ahilej, and Electric Divine.

CC Serbia’s Public Project Lead Vladimir Jeric thanks the Serbian community for their support, and he expresses the team’s appreciation for the public’s input during the discussion of the Serbian licenses, which he reports “assured us that we are on the right way regarding meeting the demands from the side of both ‘content producers’ and ‘users.’”

The CC Serbia Team hopes to present the first collection of locally-licensed CC works this spring.

About Slobodnakultura.org

Slobodnakultura.org is an non-formal network based in Belgrade. Acting as a kind of meta-organization coordinating different initiatives and actions by different individuals and organizations, it presents a collaborative platform for discussing and conducting various projects. All of it’s projects are formally being conducted trough one or several of it’s member organizations with the formal status. Creativecommons.org.yu is the part of slobodnakultura.org, and it helps in building the tools requested from within the society in order to introduce different social codes. Fundraising and management for the localization of the Creative Commons licenses is being carried out by Bureau for Culture and Communication Beograd (birobeograd.info), a member of slobodnakultura.org network.

For more information, please visit: slobodnakultura.org and creativecommons.org.yu

About Wikimedia Serbia

Wikimedia Serbia, formed in 2005, is a non-profit independent organization, based in Belgrade. It is included in the international network of non-profit and independent organizations sharing the goals of free knowledge issues as well as improving and participating in the global collection of educational content under free licenses or in the public domain. Wikimedia Serbia supports free knowledge Community and free knowledge projects building the Community in Serbia and providing the projects in Serbian language. The projects are coordinated by the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit parent organization of various multilingual free content projects, such as Wikipedia, the famous online encyclopedia, and Wikimedia Commons, the repository for free video, images, music and other media.

More information: rs.vikimedija.org.

About New Media Center_kuda.org

New Media Center_kuda.org is an independent organization which brings together artists, theoreticians, media activists, researchers and the wider public in the field of Information and Communication Technologies. In this respect, kuda.org is dedicated to the research of new cultural relations, contemporary artistic practice, and social issues. Kuda.org’s work focuses on questions concerning the influence of the electronic media on society, on the creative use of new communication technologies, and on contemporary cultural and social policy. Some of the main issues include interpretation and analysis of the history and significance of the information society, the potential of information itself, and the diffusion of its influence on political, economic and cultural relationships in contemporary society. New Media Center_kuda.org opens space for both cultural dialog and alternative methods of education and research.

More information: www.kuda.org.

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 licenses, 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 is sustained by the generous support of organizations including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Omidyar Network, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation, as well as members of the public.

For more information about Creative Commons, please visit http://creativecommons.org.

Contact
Dr. Catharina Maracke
Director
Creative Commons International
catharina@creativecommons.org

Press Kit
http://creativecommons.org/presskit
http://creativecommons.org/international/rs/

Philippines introduces locally ported Creative Commons licenses

Michelle Thorne, December 14th, 2007

December 15, 2007 — San Francisco, CA, USA and Pasay City, Metro Manila, Philippines

Today in Pasay City, the 42nd locally ported Creative Commons licensing suite will be launched for the Philippines. The Creative Commons licenses, now legally adapted to Philippine law, enable authors, artists, scientists, and educators the choice of a flexible range of protections and freedoms in efforts to promote a voluntary “some rights reserved” approach to copyright.

The Creative Commons team members in the Philippines, lead by Atty. Jaime N. Soriano, have worked under the auspices of the e-Law Center at the Arellano University School of Law and in collaboration with Creative Commons to port the licenses to their national jurisdiction.

In a prelude to a larger celebration planned in January 2008, CC Philippines will unveil the licenses today at 2pm PST at an event held in Arellano University’s School of Law. Atty. Michael Vernon M. Guerrero, jurisdiction deputy project lead of CC Philippines, will introduce the licenses, followed by the inauguration of the Philippine Commons, a collaboration fostering alternative licensing, free and open source software, open education, and free culture in the region.

Dr. Catharina Maracke, Director of Creative Commons International, thanks the CC Philippines Team for all their efforts, and she remarks, “The licensing project in the Philippines is a strong step towards strengthening and cultivating the global commons. The Philippines joins neighboring Malaysia, launched two years ago, in offering completed localized CC licenses. With upcoming jurisdictions in Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia, this region within Asia will continue to thrive and enjoy its vibrant remix-reuse community.”

The launch event in Pasay City will continue later in the evening as a birthday party for Creative Commons, as part of a series of synchronized celebrations worldwide to commemorate Creative Commons’ fifth year.

About AUSL

The Arellano University School of Law (AUSL), a non-stock non-profit institution, is named after the First Chief Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court, Cayetano S. Arellano, and established in 1938. Today it boasts more than six decades of providing quality legal education. The foremost objective of the school is to create global lawyers: practitioners who are deeply educated in the law, practice-ready, and devoted to service not only in the local but also the international community. Arellano Law prides itself for being one of the most populous law schools in the Philippines with faculty members who have distinguished themselves in law practice, the judiciary, government service, and the academe. The law school furthermore is one of the few schools in the Philippines that produces the most number of lawyers in the annual bar examinations administered by the Supreme Court.

For more information, please visit http://www.arellanolaw.edu/.

About the e-Law Center at Arellano University School of Law

The e-Law Center was founded in November 2002 under the auspices of the Arellano University School of Law, following the launching of the school’s LAWPHiL Project, which is considered one of the most popular on-line and electronic databases of Philippine law and jurisprudence that is accessible for free to the general public. The Center is pursuing projects in research, publication, policy initiatives and advocacy, capability building, academic support, and linkages in the field of information and communication technology as it affects the Philippine legal system.

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 licenses, 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 is sustained by the generous support of organizations including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Omidyar Network, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation, as well as members of the public.

For more information about Creative Commons, visit http://creativecommons.org.

Contact

Dr. Catharina Maracke
Director
Creative Commons International, Creative Commons
catharina@creativecommons.org

Press Kit
http://creativecommons.org/presskit
http://creativecommons.org/international/ph/