Creative Commons and the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) introduce innovative copyright licenses to Australia

San Francisco, USA and Brisbane, AUSTRALIA  Jan. 19, 2005  Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that offers a flexible copyright for creative work, today unveiled a localized version of its innovative licensing system in Australia. The Creative Commons licenses afford authors and publishers an intermediate degree of protection over their photos, music, text, films, and educational materials under a “some rights reserved” copyright, in contrast to the traditional “all rights reserved.”

With the announcement, Creative Commons now offers free legal tools in a total of fifteen country-specific versions. The organization already provides copyright licenses specific to Austrian, Belgian, Brazilian, Croatian, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, U.S., Taiwanese, Canadian, and Spanish law, thanks to a global network of artists, lawyers, and technologists.

Staff at Creative Commons’s offices in San Francisco and Berlin worked with project lead Professor Brian Fitzgerald of the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia, to adapt the standardized licenses for use under Australian law.

Professor Fitzgerald, an internationally recognized expert in intellectual property and technology law, said, “Normally to use other people’s copyright you have to go through a time-consuming process to negotiate your legal rights. What we aim to do with Creative Commons is to be able to license or negotiate those rights through a website with the click of a mouse.”

Creative Commons released the new legal tools, which are available free of charge from the Creative Commons website, at a conference at the QUT today. Lawrence Lessig, professor of law at Stanford University and chairman of Creative Commons, delivered a public lecture on open content licencing at the conference.

“It’s wonderful to see this organization become truly global,” said Neeru Paharia, Assistant Director of Creative Commons, who is visiting Brisbane for the launch. “We hope to localize the Creative Commons licences to other countries of the Asia-Pacific region very soon.”

The worldwide expansion of the Creative Commons is one of the main priorities of the San Francisco-based organization for 2005.

About Creative Commons

A nonprofit corporation founded in 2001, Creative Commons promotes the creative re-use of intellectual and artistic works, whether owned or in the public domain, by empowering authors and audiences. It is sustained by the generous support of the Center for the Public Domain, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Omidyar Network Fund, and the Hewlett Foundation.

For general information, visit the Creative Commons website

Contact

Christiane Asschenfeldt(Berlin)
iCommons Director
Creative Commons
christiane@creativecommons.org

Neeru Pahari(San Francisco)
Executive Director
Creative Commons
neeru@creativecommons.org

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