Update: Please be sure to apply at the Google Policy Fellowship website.

For the fifth year, Creative Commons will take part in the Google Policy Fellowship program. It’s fantastic to see that Google has expanded the number and diversity of groups involved in the fellowship program. This year there are participating organizations from Africa, Latin America, Europe and North America.

The Google Policy Fellowship program offers undergraduate, graduate, and law students interested in Internet and technology policy the opportunity to spend the summer contributing to the public dialogue on these issues, and exploring future academic and professional interests. Fellows will have the opportunity to work at public interest organizations at the forefront of debates on broadband and access policy, content regulation, copyright and trademark reform, consumer privacy, open government, and more.

The 2013 Google Policy Fellow will receive a grant to work at Creative Commons’ office in Mountain View, California.

Past CC Google Policy Fellows have worked on a wide variety of projects. These have included surveying intellectual property and licensing policies of philanthropic foundations, research on the welfare impact of Creative Commons across various fields, and an investigation of the characterization of Creative Commons within U.S. legal scholarship.

We look for motivated candidates with partially-developed ideas in exploring a particular interest/expertise area, short research project, or related activity within the broad spectrum of open licensing and the commons. In 2013 we are particularly interested in working with fellows interested in supporting education and advocacy efforts around open policies so that publicly funded resources are openly licensed resources. One specific project we are looking for assistance on is the development of an Open Policy Network. We are very flexible in accommodating project ideas that will be mutually beneficial to the candidate and CC. The project work with CC will not be supervised by an attorney.

Please be sure to apply before March 15, 2013, and good luck.

A quick introduction: I’m currently a graduate student in Management Science & Engineering at Stanford University. Before moving to Northern California, I lived in the Boston area where I worked at the Learning Games Network (LGN), a nonprofit spin-off of the MIT Education Arcade. While helping to develop a foundation-funded Open Educational Resource (OER) project at LGN, I came to appreciate the possibilities that open licensing can offer innovators in the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors.

The project I’m working on during my ten weeks here focuses on the use of Creative Commons licenses in the world of philanthropy. Our goal is to provide best practices that will help foundation leaders implement open licensing policies and ensure that the work they fund is available for others to build upon. This follows in the footsteps of last year’s Foundation Funding: Open Licenses, Greater Impact, published by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society as an updated version of its 2009 report, An Evaluation of Private Foundation Copyright Licensing Policies, Practices and Opportunities.

As the title of the Berkman Center’s update suggests, open licensing can be thought of as a force multiplier in the context of grant-making. Sharing the digital outputs of philanthropic investments under open licenses makes their reuse easier and increases their potential impact. If grantees produce documents, materials, or other content that could be applied in different settings or remixed in unanticipated ways that offer further social benefits, why not lower the barriers to these possibilities by automatically granting others permission (i.e., open licensing) to pursue these additional uses?

While a few foundations require or encourage their grantees to use open licenses in their work, this is not yet a standard practice. Some highlight their philosophies regarding open licensing, like the Shuttleworth Foundation and the Open Society Foundations, while others mandate specific licenses for selected programs or projects, like the Next Generation Learning Challenges initiative that’s funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Creative Commons encourages philanthropic funders to help lead the way for greater use of open licensing within the nonprofit sector. To learn what works and develop best practices, we’re reaching out to foundations that have already incorporated open licensing into their grant-making processes, analyzing existing policies and the documents used to communicate them, and talking with others in the field to better understand the challenges to broader adoption. Our final output will be sample copyright licensing policies for foundations that want to establish new expectations for sharing the intellectual works they fund, while also preserving flexibility for those instances where reserving more rights might still make sense.

If you’re a staff member at a grant-making foundation and would like to learn more about this project, please contact us at info@creativecommons.org.

We’re happy to announce that for the fourth year Creative Commons will take part in the Google Policy Fellowship program. Submit your application by February 3, 2012.

The Google Policy Fellowship program offers undergraduate, graduate, and law students interested in Internet and technology policy the opportunity to spend the summer contributing to the public dialogue on these issues, and exploring future academic and professional interests. Fellows will have the opportunity to work at public interest organizations at the forefront of debates on broadband and access policy, content regulation, copyright and trademark reform, consumer privacy, open government, and more.

The 2012 Google Policy Fellow will receive a substantial grant to work at Creative Commons’ office in Mountain View, California. We are looking for motivated candidates with partially-developed ideas in exploring a particular interest/expertise area, short research project, or related activity within the broad spectrum of open licensing and the commons. Past Google Policy Fellowship projects have included an analysis of the WIPO development agenda in relation to its effect on access to public domain materials, crucial research on the welfare impact of Creative Commons across various fields, and an investigation of the characterization of Creative Commons within U.S. legal scholarship over the past 10 years. We are very flexible in accommodating project ideas that will be mutually beneficial to the candidate and CC. We are interested in a wide range of activities, which could include conducting original research, researching and developing educational materials, or assisting in the development of activities/projects useful to our wide-ranging global community. Potential topics may include, but are certainly not limited to:

Encapsulated research within our CC contribution-study project. Examples include:

• Studying changing license adoption patterns in a specific community (can be quantitative, qualitative or comparative, with analysis depending on relevant applicant background)
• Studying changing license adoption patterns within a specific platform
• Studying the contribution of the platform in a specific context (applicant choice or our direction)
• Studying the contribution of the CC network in a specific context
• Studying CC’s contribution to the movement (with or without a human rights perspective; along the lines of expanding creation/data contribution to otherwise “distant” communities/persons/places/domains)
• Studying CC’s contribution to novel cultural fields
• For all the former: design DB (data gathering)

CC and the School of Open

• Help design challenges/courses around CC licenses, with a particular focus on how to certify and assess expertise on CC licenses and topics.
• Work would involve testing/evaluation with a user/creator community to measure effectiveness of courses.
• Develop documentation/case studies for different user/creator communities.

Research and development of CC related toolkits and guides

• Researching trends in CC usage, messaging around trends, development of high quality case studies and toolkits.
• Depending on applicant interest and CC needs, could create for CC in government adoption/public sector information, CC and innovative business models, etc.

International activities

• Translation projects (requires familiarity/experience with CC community)
• Community management projects (requires familiarity/experience in community management skills; applicant could usefully work on volunteers or team-model working groups projects)

Copyright and related rights waived via CC0

Casey Fiesler is this year’s Google Policy Fellow. A PhD candidate at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Casey also attended Vanderbilt University Law School. Casey’s PhD work is in the area of Human-Centered Computing. Her work at Creative Commons this summer will involve intense research into how remix artists create and interact with copyright law and technology and how Creative Commons has changed the discourse around copyright law.

Copyright and related rights waived via CC0

Jorge Vargas comes to us from Bogota, Colombia where he has been an active member of the CC Colombia team. He is in his fourth year of law school at Universidad de Los Andes in Bogota and also interns with the Colombian office of an international law firm. As this year’s legal intern, Jorge will be working on a variety of research projects and coordinating with our international Affiliate Network.

A huge welcome to both Casey and Jorge! And if you’re interested in an internship next year (2012), keep in mind that we’ll post a call for applications around February. Get your resumes into shape starting now!

Reg lives in Sydney where he is completing his combined BSc and LLB degree at the University of New South Wales. On the completion of his degree, he will commence as a graduate clerk at the Sydney law firm, Freehills, where he has been working as a paralegal in their IP division.

Alessandra is a second year law student at UC Hastings College of the Law. She is currently completing the Intellectual Property concentration and will be the editor-in-chief of Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal this coming year.

Tal is a PhD student at UC Berkeley law school’s Jurisprudence and Social Policy program. Her research and interest revolves around copyright and collaborative works of authorship, cyber-policy and innovation.

We are looking forward to kicking off another productive with the addition of these great minds in a few short weeks!

The application deadline for the Summer 2010 internships is 11:59 p.m. PDT, Friday, March 26, 2010. Please submit your cover letter and resume (portfolio, as well, for design students) to apply soon!

We’ve heard fantastic feedback about our internships over the years. Here’s what a few students had to say about their San Franciscan summers in the CC office:

“I wanted to spend my summer doing something important and socially responsible, so interning at Creative Commons was an obvious choice for me. What wasn’t obvious until I started working was just how much I would learn about copyright law, software development, and how effective nonprofits operate. With just a handful of staff in the San Francisco office, all of them friendly and welcoming, I quickly felt like a valued member of the team. I was given ample opportunity to meet and chat with CC staff as well as with staff and interns at peer organizations such as the Electronic Frontiers Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology. The people that I met that summer continue to be great friends and valuable resources who generously offer their mentorship in my post-CC work.”
— Parker Phinney, Tech Intern 2009

“Working at CC provided a complete immersion into how the organization operates, and made clear why CC has become such an important part of the online licensing landscape. In addition to specific projects and tasks, I had plenty of autonomy and opportunity to get involved in other projects or just chat about new ideas. The staff were accessible and encouraging. I’m grateful for the opportunity to participate in such a challenging and rewarding environment. In addition to legal research and project development, there were many opportunities to meet other organizations in the area, visit their offices, and interact with a range of students and professionals. I can’t think of a better way to spend the summer.”
— Joe Merante, Legal Intern 2009

“My internship with Creative Commons was probably the most fruitful and definitely the most enjoyable of my student career. I spent my time in a close-knit small-office environment, with a bunch of passionate people working on interesting real-world problems. At CC everyone is a little bit techie, a little bit law geek, a little bit free culture activist, and a whole lot of awesome. It’s an amazing place to be, and as internships go, I can’t recommend any other more highly.”
— Frank Tobia, Tech Intern 2008

Creative Commons is once again seeking bright, enthusiastic students to work at the San Francisco office for ten weeks this summer. Students have the opportunity to work with CC staff and international volunteers on various real-time projects. Assigned tasks and projects will vary depending on interns’ skill & experience, as well as organization needs. If you are a currently enrolled student (College, Graduate levels, or somewhere in between) interested in applying, please read the descriptions carefully and follow the instructions below.

In addition to contributing to real-time work projects, interns will be invited to participate in external meetings, staff meetings, inter-organization competitions & discussions, and potential evening events. Staff will encourage interns to also self-organize visits to local organizations, and to find ways to connect with various community members.

Eligibility

• Internships are open to students enrolled across the spectrum of disciplines;
• Internships are open to students at different levels of academic study including undergraduate, graduate and PhD. programs.
• Internships are open to international students who are eligible to work abroad from an accredited university and/or through a third-party work-study program.

Internship terms

• The internship will last for ten weeks from June 7 to August 13.
• The internships are full-time, temporary positions.
• Applicants should plan on spending the summer in San Francisco.
• Please also be ready to assist with general office tasks in addition to focused projects.

Compensation

Creative Commons offers a stipend of $4,000, if not otherwise covered by grant funding. If your school offers a stipend for work-study or internships, this factor is figured into the compensation.
This stipend may not be sufficient to cover living expenses in the bay area. No other benefits are provided. Interns must make their own housing, insurance, and transportation arrangements.

Internships Available

Technology Internship
This internship position will focus on aiding the Chief Technology Officer and Software Engineers with the development of software and maintenance of services. Knowledge of Linux, PHP, and Python is a must. Prefer applicants who have contributed to open source projects.

Legal Internships
These internships, geared towards law students who have completed their second year of study, will focus on intellectual property and copyright as relates to creative works shared on the internet. Applicants should have completed their second year of study at a top tier law school, two courses on intellectual property, including fundamentals of copyright, and provide ideally have significant interest in and experience with IP, including experience at a law firm or other legal organization. Interns may be asked to provide a writing sample on a topic chosen by CC.

Graphic Design and Media Development Internship
This internship will be geared toward second or third year design students. The design intern will work closely with the Creative Commons senior designer and development team to create and improve online assets, with possible promotional and marketing material development. Must have Photoshop, Illustrator, HTML and CSS skills. Javascript and UI/UX design experience is encouraged. Prefer applicants who are interested in open source or free culture issues. Please include portfolio with application.

How to apply

If you are a college or graduate student interested in our internship program, please send us your:

• Cover Letter explaining your interest in Creative Commons, in the position, and any other relevant experience not covered in your resumé.
• Resumé
• Two References: Please include email and phone number.
• Indicate open source or other CC/open licensed projects to which you have contributed.
• Indicate which position(s) you are interested in applying.
• Design students: Please include portfolio.

Applications and questions can be sent to:

Jennifer Yip
Operations Director
jennifer[at]creativecommons.org
fax: 415.278.9419

The application deadline for Summer 2010 is 11:59 p.m. PST, Friday, March 26, 2010.

Thank you for your interest in our organization. Please NO phone calls.

“The internships, introduced this year by open textbook provider Flat World Knowledge, let sophomore and junior business students earn college credit and a little spending cash if their sales pitch convinces a professor to use web-based texts that can be reorganized and modified by chapter, sentence, or word…

The company has grown in the past year as the open-content movement has gained traction in higher education, buttressed by the Creative Commons license [CC BY-NC-SA]—which doesn’t require permission from authors to change parts of a book—and the rising cost of textbooks.”

The press release states FWK’s intent to change “the college textbook market” by “taking a counter approach to the usual adversarial relationship between textbook publishers and college students.” By using CC licenses, Flat World Knowledge is exploring a business model that builds on open content by offering free digital textbooks via CC BY-NC-SA, but charging for the prints and supplementary materials. Their textbooks have been used at over 400 colleges, and they received $8 million in investments last year.

For more on Flat World Knowledge, swing by CC Salon NYC on March 3 where Eric Frank, the company’s founder and Chief Marketing Officer, will be talking in depth about what they do. If you’re not in the area, stay tuned for some Flip camera action, which I’ll link to here after the event.

We’re very excited to announce that Creative Commons will once again be part of Google’s Policy Fellowship for the summer of 2010, and we’re looking forward to filling the big shoes of our 2009 policy fellow, Aurelia Schultz.  Just like last year, the Google Policy Fellow will receive a substantial grant to work at Creative Commons’ San Francisco Office on the following issues (but this is certainly not an exhaustive list of the things we’ll have you thinking about):

• Synthesize statistics garnered from recent studies focusing on international license adoption. Fellow will be expected to generate and investigate diverse theses relating to license choice, adoption, and use.
• Coordinate with counsel to critically analyze the current state of public domain policy in US and abroad. Develop a framework to help Creative Commons’ deploy messaging regarding public domain policy in US and abroad.
• Research and analysis of how the contemporary discourse of copyright, sharing, reuse, and remix has been shaped over the last six years as a result of the Creative Commons project.
• Investigate new opportunities for Creative Commons implementation in ‘uncontacted’ communities, institutions, artists, and mediums.
• Work with Creative Commons’ international community and jurisdiction project leads on projects, research, and outreach.

Check out more details and the application, which is due by December 28th, 2009.

UPDATE: Google has extended the application deadline to January 25th, 2010, allowing you an extra month to get your application together!