Over the last few days, I had the honor of attending the Creative Commons Australia launch which was celebrated by a two-day Creative Commons conference at the Queensland University of Technology Law School. The conference, entitled Open Content Licensing (OCL): Cultivating the Creative Commons, was well attended by many of Australia’s influencial thinkers in government, technology, the arts, and law. Brian Fitzgerald, head of iCommons Australia, and his many colleagues, put together an amazing crash course in Creative Commons, as well as the context from which we’ve emerged. It seemed that conference attendees left excited about the potential for Creative Commons to work within the Australian cultural environment.

Most exciting about this conference, was to see how energetic everyone was about Creative Commons, both in support, and in criticism — the mere fact that people felt so strongly about it was truly inspiring. I also had the pleasure of attending the first official Creative Commons river boat cruise — leave it to the Australians to show you a good time! Below are some images from the event and the cruise:

A scene from a conference lecture:

Head of iCommons Australia, Brian Fitzgerald, with conference organizers and Creative Commons researches, Cher Barlett and Amanda Campion:

Michael May, conference organizer and Creative Commons researcher (sporting a CC shirt and enjoying a beer):

A scene from the boat:

The other boat, which looked like our boat (taken with my new digital camera that I obviously don’t know how to use very well yet):