Singapore Announces Ported Creative Commons Licenses

Patricia Escalera, July 25th, 2008

San Francisco, CA, USA and Singapore City, Singapore — July 27, 2008

Today Creative Commons Singapore announces the completion of the locally ported Creative Commons licensing suite. In close collaboration with Centre for Asia Pacific Technology Law & Policy (CAPTEL), the Creative Commons team in Singapore, led by Associate Professor Samtani Anil and Assistant Professor Giorgos Cheliotis, adapted the licenses both linguistically and legally to Singaporean national law. The Creative Commons licenses, now ported to 47 jurisdictions, 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 Singaporean Creative Commons licenses, available soon online, will be celebrated today in Singapore City at the International Symposium on Electronic Art. The event will also feature a panel, organized by CAPTEL and Creative Commons Singapore, to introduce the audience to key copyright issues in the digital age and also share tips for creators and users to avoid common pitfalls in the field of copyright law.

The panel will, in addition, explain the aims and philosophy of the Creative Commons initiative and the specific nature and uses of the Creative Commons licensing suite in Singapore. Stanford law professor and Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig will address the audience to commemorate the completion of the licenses.

Following the event, the CC Singapore team hopes to initiate a series of educational talks to explain the philosophy of Creative Commons and the practical ways in which users can implement the licenses.

Project Lead Samtani Anil adds, “We also believe the launch of the Singapore CC licenses will lead to a better appreciation of the ambit, contours, and limits of the existing copyright regime in Singapore in relation to the sharing and dissemination of culture and the advancement of innovation. This, we believe, will sensitize various stakeholders to the avenues that are open to them to share their works in accordance with their wishes and needs.”

The CC Singapore team is supported by team members Assistant Professor Warren Chik, Vinod Sabnani, Tham Kok Leong, Lam Chung Nian, Harish Pillay and Ankit Guglani.

About Centre for Asia Pacific Technology Law & Policy

Please visit http://captel.ntu.edu.sg for more information.

The Centre for Asia Pacific Technology Law & Policy (CAPTEL) is a research center founded to investigate and research issues on how businesses and economies are being affected by the challenges of new technologies on law, regulation and policy. CAPTEL is located at the Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University.

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.

Please visit http://creativecommons.org for more information about Creative Commons.

Contact

Dr. Catharina Maracke
Director
Creative Commons International
catharina@creativecommons.org
+49.30.280.93.909

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

Creative Commons Launches Web and Desktop License Integration Approach with LicenseChooser.js and liblicense Projects

Greg Grossmeier, July 23rd, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO, USA JULY 24, 2008

Creative Commons announced today the release of liblicense and LicenseChooser.js, content licensing tools which make integration of Creative Commons license functionality easy for developers building modern desktop and web applications. These tools enable reading and writing Creative Commons licensing information to a variety of media formats. Many projects already support the ability to read and write content license information through add-ons, including OpenOffice.org, Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft Office. Other programs, such as the open source vector graphics drawing tool Inkscape, include a default capability to read and write CC license information.

For the desktop, Creative Commons has updated the C language-based software library called liblicense. This Free Software (licensed under GNU LGPL) library provides functionality to read and write license information into many supported media files. Along with access to license information, the library offers a standard set of icons for graphical representation of selected or discovered licenses. As Creative Commons’ international team refreshes the licenses or adds a new jurisdiction, software developers can simply update liblicense to receive these changes. Currently, liblicense is distributed with development versions of the Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora Linux operating systems. The LGPL license permits adding it to both open source and proprietary software.

“LicenseChooser.js and liblicense will make open content licensing more valuable for developers, publishers, and users, by making such content more discoverable and manageable” said Mike Linksvayer, Vice President of Creative Commons.

One prominent project incorporating the use of liblicense in an upcoming release is One Laptop Per Child (OLPC). While the OLPC project wiki already uses Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licenses for contributions, Creative Commons has introduced licensing functionality for the XO laptops through the development of liblicense and a series of patches to be integrated. Once it is installed, it allows software interfacing with media on the device to be content license aware. Also, to explain Creative Commons licensing and the basics of copyright law, Creative Commons has created an educational licensing activity that anyone may install onto an OLPC XO laptop. This activity uses the previously released “Sharing Creative Works” comics.

For web applications, Creative Commons has developed LicenseChooser.js, which allows developers to add similar functionality into any web-based project. Creative Commons already provided an XML-based web services API. LicenseChooser.js provides an additional, lightweight method for integrating license selection into web applications. The widget is used by SixApart’s TypePad as well as the WordPress plugin WpLicense.

Today, liblicense will be demonstrated at this year’s Open Source Conference (OSCON) in Portland, OR. Integration with two Open Source applications will be showcased: the file viewer Eye of GNOME and media player Rhythmbox. The presentation will be given by Nathan Yergler, CTO of Creative Commons, and Asheesh Laroia, Software Engineer, on Thursday July 24th in room F150.

Links

Desktop Integration Software: liblicense
http://creativecommons.org/projects/liblicense

OSCON “Rights on the Desktop with liblicense” Presentation
http://en.oreilly.com/oscon2008/public/schedule/detail/2857

Web Integration Software: LicenseChooser.js
http://creativecommons.org/projects/LicenseChooser.js

OLPC Creative Commons Page
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Creative_Commons

Creative Commons Sharing Creative Works Public Domain Released Comics
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Sharing_Creative_Works

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, 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

Jon Phillips
Community and Business
Development Manager
Creative Commons
jon@creativecommons.org
+1.510.499.0894

Press Kit

http://creativecommons.org/presskit

Education Innovator Esther Wojcicki Joins Creative Commons Board

Tim Hwang, July 10th, 2008

San Francisco, CA – July 10, 2008

Creative Commons (CC), a global non-profit focused on the preservation and growth of a openly shareable and remixable media landscape, officially announced today that education innovator Esther Wojcicki has joined its Board of Directors.

Wojcicki has been a prominent figure in American education. As the leading mind behind the creation of the country’s largest high school journalism program, she has won numerous awards, including the prestigious title of Teacher of the Year from the California State Teacher Credentialing Commission. Most recently, she received special recognition for her work from the National Scholastic Press Association.

“We’re truly excited to have Esther on board. Her presence marks an important step in the developing role Creative Commons seeks to play in supporting open educational content” commented Joi Ito, CEO of CC, “Her experience and advice will be an invaluable part of shaping our future in that arena.

Esther Wojcicki said, “I am thrilled to be joining the talented team of directors, advisors, and staff at Creative Commons, whose collaborative efforts are supporting the expansion of the public domain. I look forward to applying my experience in education and technology, and am eager to work closely with the Board as this pioneering organization continues to grow.”

Wojcicki has also been a key pioneer in exploring the emerging interface between education and technology. She helped lay the groundwork for the design of the Google Teacher Outreach Program and Google Teacher Academy, a professional development event which trains teachers to leverage innovative technologies to enhance their classrooms.

Wojcicki joins a board of directors that includes technologist Joi Ito, cyberlaw and intellectual property experts James Boyle, Michael Carroll, Molly Shaffer Van Houweling, Eric Saltzman, and Lawrence Lessig, MIT computer science professor Hal Abelson, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, documentary filmmaker Davis Guggenheim, and Public Knowledge founder Laurie Racine.

More About Esther Wojcicki

Esther Wojcicki has been teaching Journalism and English at Palo Alto High School, Palo Alto, California for the past 25 years, where she has been the driving force behind the development of its award-winning journalism program. It is now the largest high school journalism program in the U.S involving 400 students. All the publications can be found at http://voice.paly.net which is the school publication website. In the spring of 2008, she was recognized for inspiration and excellence in scholastic journalism advising by the National Scholastic Press Association. She has won multiple awards throughout the years. A couple of others included the 1990 Northern California Journalism teacher of the year in 1990 and California State Teacher Credentialing Commission Teacher of the Year in 2002. She served on the University of California Office of the President Curriculum Committee where she helped revise the beginning and advanced journalism curriculum for the state of California. In 2005–6 she worked as the Google educational consultant and helped design the Google Teacher Outreach program, which includes the website www.google.com/educators and the Google Teacher Academy. She holds a B.A. degree from UC Berkeley in English and Political Science, a general secondary teaching credential from UC Berkeley, a graduate degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at Berkeley, an advanced degree in French and French History from the Sorbonne, Paris, a Secondary School Administrative Credential from San Jose State University, and a M.A. in Educational Technology from San Jose State University. She has also worked as a professional journalist for multiple publications and now blogs regularly for HuffingtonPost and HotChalk.

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, 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

Ahrash Bissell

Executive Director, ccLearn

Creative Commons

ahrash@creativecommons.org

PRESS KIT

http://creativecommons.org/presskit

Creative Commons Launches Metrics Research Project

Tim Hwang, July 9th, 2008

San Francisco, CA – July 9, 2008

Today Creative Commons (CC) announced the official launch of the Metrics project, a broad-based open web-based initiative to encourage and collect research efforts on the adoption of CC licenses worldwide. With the launch of the Creative Commons Case Studies project last month, CC expanded the qualitative information available about license usage. The release of the Metrics project today extends the quantitative data available for further exploration and understanding of how Creative Commons licenses are spreading globally. The project wiki also extends an open invitation for users to join the research community to participate in analyzing data about Creative Commons licenses.

Nathan Yergler, CC’s CTO commented, “We’re extremely excited about the possibilities of opening up research on this topic to the public. Semantic Mediawiki, an extension that adds database-like capabilities to wikis, is a huge help in building a community around these issues.” Anyone is able to review the research aggregated at the Metrics portal, contribute information on existing works, or add their own original research. While it is impossible to do an authoritative search and calculation of the number of licensed works on the entire Internet, this project’s intent is to lower the barrier for participation in discovering more accurate statistics on CC licensing collaboratively.

Creative Commons license use is growing. As of June 2008, Creative Commons estimates that a minimum of 130 million creative works are licensed by creators opting to provide clear expression of how their works may be used. The Metrics project aims to facilitate understanding of how this mass adoption is shaping business and culture at-large. As Mike Linksvayer, Vice-President of CC, stated, “If we’re doing our job well, Creative Commons is enabling more creativity, innovation, and participation in culture. Metrics are vital to understanding how CC is transforming the creative ecosystem.”

Linksvayer added, “The Metrics project complements existing collaboration between CC and research groups internationally.” This includes the work by Giorgos Cheliotis and Warren Chik at the Participatory Media Lab, a research center based in Singapore, that is working with CC to tackle some of the analytical questions surrounding its progress worldwide. Cheliotis recently launched the Commons-Research website and mailing list which supports interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers studying commons-based peer production.

The release of the Metrics project is set to coincide with the First Interdisciplinary Research Workshop on Free Culture being held in Sapporo, Japan from July 30th to August 1st. This workshop, spearheaded by Cheliotis with Tyng-Ruey Chuang and Jonathan Zittrain, will bring together researchers and scholars from around the world to discuss commons-based peer production research and present their latest works in progress publicly. More information on how to participate in the Metrics project and relevant upcoming events are available on the Creative Commons Metrics project website.

LINKS

CC Metrics Project

Commons-Research Website and Conference

Commons-Research Mailing List

CC Case Studies Project

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, 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.

CONTACTS

Jon Phillips
Community and Business Development Manager
Creative Commons
jon@creativecommons.org
+1.510.499.0894

PRESS KIT

http://creativecommons.org/presskit