One of the larger and more interesting questions arising in connection with Creative Commons’s global expansion is the question of whether the various iCommons licences are internationally compatible.

The question arises because porting / transposing the CC licenses into diffferent jurisdictions involves a process of both translation and legal adapation. The latter is made necessary by the specific requirements of the respective national legal orders, e.g. with regard to language used or with regard to the particular limitations created by droit d’auteur copyright regimes.

In this context, how can we best make sure international versions of the CC licenses are compatible with each other?

Part of our discussion at the Wissenschaftskolleg conference, held on 17 June in Berlin, focussed precisely on this question.

Here you’ll find a talk given by Dr A. Metzger for more thoughts on this.