Wikimedia Office in Berlin / Hari Prasad Nadig / CC BY-SA

On March 2nd, the Creative Commons & P2PU School of Open will join forces with Wikimedia at the Wikimedia Germany offices in Berlin! As part of Open Education Week, CC Germany and Wikimedia Germany are kicking things off early with a workshop to introduce P2PU and the School of Open, and to create and translate School of Open courses in German, in addition to brainstorming ideas for new courses about Wikipedia as part of the School.

Event details

What: School of Open workshop
When: 2nd of March, 11 – 16:00
Where: Wikimedia Germany Offices, Obentrautstr. 72, 10963 Berlin
Who: Wikimedia Germany, Creative Commons Germany, P2PU community, all enthusiastic promoters of free knowledge with the desire to share their knowledge
RSVP: Space will accommodate up to 25 participants; please send an email to legal@creativecommons.de by Feb 27th so that we can keep track of who’s coming.
Language: Likely German

From Wikimedia Germany’s blog (and via Google translate),

“We want to start the year with a workshop with Creative Commons and the initiative “School of Open”! The initiative of Creative Commons and the Peer-2-Peer University (P2PU) aims to develop online courses that help you create free content and tools to use and develop. There are English courses on Wikipedia and the use of free content, but as of yet nothing in German. Also, the subject of “free educational content” is not yet represented in courses. So there is still much to do. As part of Open Education Week further work is required.

Together, we want to work intensively on the expansion of the existing courses. It will focus on tools and topics related to free access to knowledge. Anyone can create courses and remix existing courses on their own — but it’s best to share. After some brief input from Creative Commons, we will start working. So bring your ideas, and let’s share our knowledge!”

To participate, please RSVP to legal@creativecommons.de by February 27th!

I’m very happy that CC’s policy coordinator, Timothy Vollmer, will be co-presenting with the OKF’s Jordan Hatcher on Open Data Licensing. This follows up on my and Jordan‘s presentations at the Share-PSI workshop in May.

I would also like to highlight sessions by CC project leads from France, Guatemala, and Poland:

• Communia, the international association on the digital public domain (Melanie Dulong de Rosnay)
• Taking the pulse of global Initiatives using technology to promote transparency and accountability (Renata Avila)
• On the road to open data in Poland – where are we now? (Alek Tarkowski)

Go if you can!

It’s here again. Our monthly CC Salon + Open Everything Berlin event is on for this Thursday, June 25, and this time we’re talking about Open Governance.

How do open concepts translate into the political sphere? To what extent is democracy fueled by values such as transparency, access, and participation? What do open source projects teach us about other fields of governance?

The fifth CC Salon + Open Everything Berlin takes place within Seitensprünge, a Berliner event series about political communication. Speaking at the salon is CC Germany‘s Public Project Lead Markus Beckedahl, whose seasoned blog coverage is keeping the public abreast of Germany’s dawning internet censorship and other pressing political topics. Also joining us is Klas Roggenkamp from the German political discussion forum Wahl.de and media expert Ute Pannen, who will share commentary on open strategies used during the Obama’s campaign. We’ll also be hearing from Sebastian Sooth, who is reporting on open.nysenate.gov, a project with the New York State to give users direct access to its government data through APIs and original software.

Looks like we’ve got a lot of good topics ahead. Hope to see you there!

When: Thursday, 25.06.09, 20:00h

Where: newthinking store, Tucholskystr. 48, 10117 Berlin Mitte

Another month, another topic to tackle at the CC Salon / Openeverything Berlin. This time we’ll be talking about Open Workspaces in emerging forms of coworking, collaboration, and office sharing.

Joining us:

• Hallenprojekt (Berlin) – Sebastian Sooth (Twitter: sebaso)
• Station C (Montreal) – Patrick Tanguay (Identica: patrick, Twitter: inevernu)
• Betahaus (Berlin) – Jan Tanner (Twitter: betahaus)

Where:  newthinking store, Tucholskystr. 48, 10117 Berlin Mitte
When: Thurs, 23.04.09, 19:30

The following day we’ll be at Ballhaus Ost for a production of (c)opyme, a solo performance by artist Rahel Savoldelli. The theater piece, with its innovative uses of video, invites the audience into the complex world of creation and copyright laws, and asks: is it possible to feel satisfaction from someone else’s success?

A salon discussion will be held afterward to explore CC and “open source strategies” in the performing arts.

Where:  Ballhaus Ost, Pappelallee 15, Berlin Prenzlauerberg
When: Fri, 24.04.09, 20:00
Other (c)opyme performances: 23.04 and 25.04

Image: Gutestun / CC BY

Join us tonight for the second installment of Openeverything Focus in Berlin. We’ll be talking with designers about how openness can augment their work — from publishing, design tools, community building, customization, and more.

We’ll be hearing from Open Design pioneer Ronen Kadushin, whose work was recently featured in WIRED Magazine’s Mod That Table: High-End Furniture Goes Open Source. Also joining us is Fabbing expert Susanne Stauch and CC’s own senior designer Alex Roberts. A huge thank you to Linda Löser (Fragement Store), Cecilia Palmer (Pamoyo), and the rest of the #oefb team for putting together this outstanding program. See you there!

When: Thursday, 26.03.09, 19:30h

Where: newthinking store, Tucholskystr. 48, 10117 Berlin Mitte

Image: “Flat Knot – stainless” by Ronen Kadushin available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license.

Encouraged by the resonance of openeverything camp in December 2008, we’re helping put on a regular series of events about “openness.” This Thursday, Feb. 26, kicks off the first openeverything focus, in tandem with the CC Salon in Berlin.

This month we’re focusing on Open Knowledge, delving into project like OKFN‘s Open Knowledge Definition and learning more about the 100,000 CC BY-SA images donated to Wikimedia Commons by the German Federal Archives.

Each focus event draws on theory and praxis to inform the discussion. If you have a project you’d like to share, or are just curious to join the conversation, please stop by!

When: Thursday, 26.02.09, 19:30 Uhr

Where: newthinking store, Tucholskystr. 48, 10117 Berlin Mitte

CC Birthday Party in Manila

The globe lit up last week to celebrate the birthday of a community and organization now in its sixth year. Creative Commons, as demonstrated by these events, is about more than just free legal tools — it’s a powerful idea that has spread the world over.

In Chennai the CC Birthday Party merged with the launch of the Wikipedia Academy on Dec. 12, coinciding with a visit from Jimmy Wales and Sue Gardener from the Wikimedia Foundation. Chennai’s Free Culture House, a co-working space founded by party planner Kiruba Shankar, hosted the celebration. Seoul joined in with a Birthday Party on the same day, organized by CC Korea.

An award ceremony for the second CC photography contest impressed guests at the Beijing party on Dec. 14, featuring a live remix of the photos. The next day Belgrade conducted a panel on the legal framework of Free Culture with presentations by CC Serbia, Wikimedia Serbia, and Free Software groups.

Entry for 2nd CC Photography Contest in Mainland China

On Dec. 16, seven cities held CC Birthday Parties. In Guatemala writers released a special gift: 10 Christmas stories compiled in Aguinaldo Narrable, which will be illustrated by six award-winning photographs from CC Guatemala‘s Fiesta Callejera Contest.

Ann Arbor, Michigan organized a CC Birthday Happy Hour at a local bar, and guests at the party in Washington, D.C. contributed to a CC multimedia potluck coordinated by Public Knowledge.

The first anniversary of the ported 3.0 Licenses in the Philippines was commemorated in Manila, following a planning meeting for the upcoming CC Asia Pacific Conference. In Yuletide tradition and CC’s spirit of sharing, CC Philippines concluded the day by walking through Manila’s streets and sharing food and gifts to children.

CC Australia screened CC films and raised contributions for our annual fundraising campaign at the Brisbane CC Christmas Birthday Movie Night. New York City recounts that Happy Birthday may or may not have been sung at their Dec. 16 party in FYI, and Los Angeles teamed up LA’s Geek Dinner for an evening of free culture and internets in uWink.

Berlin‘s Content Sprint & Birthday Party invited guests to vie for a Goopymart T-shirt in a competition to document CC Case Studies in Germany.

California hosted the last CC Birthday Parties of the year, with co-housing and co-working community organizers initiating a round of discussions about Free Culture, free speech, and sustainable communities in Berkeley.

San Francisco wrapped up the global parties in 111 Minna Gallery with music by Ripley and Kid Kameleon and an improv performance from dublab as part of the Into Infinity installation.

With 14 host cities and a stellar range of events, the CC community is demonstrating tremendous support for Creative Commons. A heartfelt thank you to all the party planners and guests!

Please take a moment and help make another year of CC possible!

Images: (Ann Arbor) “Long table full of revellers” and “Garin, Ted, and CC swag” by mollyali under CC BY NC; (Chennai) “121220082360” and “121220082330” by Kiruba Shankar under CC NC SA; (Beijing) 舞在山乡 优秀奖 under 作者：秦启胜  CC BY ; (Manila) “CC-PH Technical/Documentation / AUSL-ITC“ and “Outreach / Sharing” by CC Philippines under CC BY NC; (DC) “CC 6th birthday party Washington DC” by tvol under CC BY; (Education Network Australia) “Sparklers and cake to celebrate“ by edna-photos under CC NC; (CC Cupcakes) “P1070155“ by creativecommoners under CC BY; (LA) “Happy 6th Birthday Creative Commons!“ posted by felicity redwell from netZoo/revolute under CC NC ND; (Guatemala) “MBosque” by Renata Avila under CC BY.

It is our hope that the office share will build bridges across projects, people, and resources. As reported last month, the Wikimedia/Wikipedia community is now deciding whether to offer wiki content under CC BY-SA 3.0. These discussions follow the Free Software Foundation’s release of version 1.3 of its Free Documentation License containing language which allows FDL-licensed wikis to republish FDL content under the CC Attribution-ShareAlike license until August 1, 2009.

Read more about the move in our press release.

100,000 Attribution-ShareAlike Images for Wikimedia Commons

Good news reaches another Wikimedia project, Wikimedia Commons, which hosts hundreds of thousands of freely licensed Creative Commons media and serves as the multimedia back-end of Wikipedia. Everyone is encouraged to upload as much educational free media as they can in order to benefit the commons, and this is exactly what the German Federal Archive has decided to do.

Since December 4th, the archive is uploading around 100,000 photos to Wikimedia Commons, all licensed under our Attribution-ShareAlike license. The subject matter varies from not-so-ordinary street scenes to famous German sights, but all of the photos are high quality and offer great snapshots of modern German history. Check out the contributions from BArchBot to keep an eye as the uploads progress over the next couple of weeks.

A very warm congratulations to our new office mates, Wikimedia Germany, and to the German Federal Archive for organizing such a significant and valuable contribution to the commons!

Image: “Schwerin, Neujahr, Feuerwerk” by Ralf Pätzold, made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Germany License by the Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive), Bild 183-Z1228-001.

Open-Design is an alternative way of designing art. In his M.A. thesis, Ronen Kadushin felt there was a problem with realizing creativity in industrial designs. Ronen, an Israeli designer that also lectures at the Universität der Künste in Berlin, saw that while in fields like music, graphic design, video, etc., creating became inclusive for all and also independent of publishers or producers — all thanks to the digital technology and the internet. But according to Ronen, it isn’t like that for industrial design. It is being left behind because it has material output that needs marketing investment and support from producers.

To solve all that he came up with Open-Design, which combines CNC production and CC design information for publication and distribution. “It is an alternative method to design and production that in my view, is in touch with the realities of information technology and economics,” noted Ronen. He added that while doing his research, he liked the flexibility, clarity, and simplicity of CC.

According to Ronen’s thesis, consumers today are design aware and often look for products with attribution to the designer, as an added value to the designer’s fees. Ronen sees Open-Design as a way in which the designer is also at the center of the customer-base, not only th producer or product. For him, Open-Design is an adventure, an experiment involving his profession and life.

CC-Israel wants to thank Ronen Kadushin for answering our questions and sharing with us his work.

“Flat Knot – stainless” by Ronen Kadushin available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license.