San Francisco, USA, and Johannesburg, SOUTH AFRICA, June 1, 2005 –
Creative Commons, a non-profit organization that offers free copyright
licenses and tools to creators to make their works available on more
flexible terms, unveiled a localized version of its innovative
licensing system in South Africa last week.

With South Africa offering Creative Commons licenses tailored for the
specifics of the legal system in South Africa, Creative Commons
licenses and tools are now available a total of 18 jurisdictions. The
organization already provides copyright licenses specific to
Australian, Austrian, Brazilian, Belgian, Canadian, Croatian, Dutch,
English & Welsh, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish,
U.S., Taiwanese and Spanish law, thanks to a global network of
artists, lawyers, and technologists.

Staff at Creative Common’s offices in San Francisco and Berlin worked
with Project Leads Heather Ford and Andrew Rens as well as the LINK
Centre at the University of Witwatersrand to adapt the standardized
licenses for use in South Africa. Heather Ford is a former Reuters’
fellow at Stanford Law School and the director of the Creative Commons
South Africa project. Heather has already built an energetic creative
community in South Africa around the Creative Commons licenses.
Andrew Rens is a South African attorney, who previously taught both
intellectual property and information and communications technology
law at the University of the Witwatersrand, and led the license
drafting process.

The launch of the South African Creative Commons licenses occurred in
conjunction with a conference sponsored by the LINK Centre entitled
“Commons Sense: Towards an African Digital Information Commons.”
Project leads from Creative Commons Brazil, Ronaldo Lemos, and
Creative Commons India, Lawrence Liang, presented on the topic of
“Open Content for the Developing World.” Creative Commons CEO &
Chairman, Lawrence Lessig also presented at the conference on the
topic of the “Global Momentum towards the Commons.”

“South Africa, along with Brazil, will prove to be the one of the most
important opportunities for the spread of Creative Commons,” said
Lawrence Lessig of the South African launch, “Already the energy and
awareness is far beyond anything we could have expected.”

About the LINK Centre:

The LINK Centre is the leading research and training body in the field
of information and communications technology (ICT) policy, regulation
and management in Southern Africa.

LINK focuses on capacity building in the public sector and development
arenas through quality training, applied research and consultancy
services necessary to maximize the benefits of the Information Society
and the Knowledge Economy. In addition to hosting the South African
chapter of Creative Commons, LINK is a founding partner in Research
ICT Africa!
For general information, visit here

For information about Creative Commons, South Africa, visit
here

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 Creative Commons

Contacts:

• Andrew Rens (San Francisco)
• Legal Lead
• Creative Commons, South Africa
• andrewrens@yahoo.com

• Heather Ford (Johannesburg)
• Director
• Creative Commons, South Africa
• heather@creativecommons.org

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

• Christiane Asschenfeldt (Berlin)
• Executive Director
• iCommons
• christiane@creativecommons.org

Press Kit here