San Francisco, CA, USA and Berlin, GERMANY — March 29, 2006 — Creative Commons, a nonprofit dedicated to building a body of creative work free to share and build upon, today unveils a localized version of its innovative licensing system in The People’s Republic of China.

Creative Commons copyright licenses are available free of charge from the group’s website. The licenses allow authors and artists to mark their works as free to copy or transform under certain conditions—to declare “some rights reserved,” in contrast to the traditional “all rights reserved”—thereby enabling others to access a growing pool of raw materials without legal friction.

Staff at Creative Commons’ offices in San Francisco and Berlin worked with Project Lead Professor Chunyan Wang to adapt the standardized licenses to Chinese law. Creative Commons’ Mainland China project is being supported by the Law School of Renmin University of China.

Today the Chinese version of the Creative Commons licenses will be launched at the opening ceremony of an international conference on Intellectual Property and Creative Commons, being held at Renmin University of China and Peking University, in Beijing. The event is sponsored by Law School of Renmin University of China, IET Foundation, Peking University Law School, China Open Resources for Education, LI-Ning Company Limited, and other four organizations.

Professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford University, CEO & Chairman of Creative Commons, will deliver the keynote speech on the Role of Creative Commons in an Information Economy. There will be an array of other diverse and preeminent speakers including Professor William Fisher of Harvard Law School.

The launch event will also feature the announcement of a new music CD titled “Pat Pet” which contains several Chinese songs that are being released under a Creative Commons Mainland China license.

Says Chunyan Wang, “We expect that the launch of the Creative Commons licenses will help pave a path for protecting intellectual property and create a win-win solution for all by allowing for reasonable use and sharing of the creative works. The launch will also help build a formal model to be used for creative products and provide a solution for dealing with the challenge of the new digital, Internet society. We believe that the launch will inspire a new “Creative Commons” community in a country with a rich cultural history and great potential creativity.”

About Law School of Renmin University of China

Renmin University of China (RUC) is a national leading university focusing on humanities, social sciences, economics, law and management. RUC was officially established in 1950. As one of the major schools and departments, the Law School is the first higher legal education institution officially established after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Consisting of 12 Teaching and Research Sections (TRS) and 15 research centers, the Law School boasts two National Key Research Centers — Research Center of Criminal Jurisprudence and Research Center of Civil and Commercial Jurisprudence — and China Law Information Center, a National 211 Project program. With one LL.B, nine LL.M and seven LL.D programs, RUC Law School has a comprehensive legal education system.

For general information, visit the RUC website.

About Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a not-for-profit organization, founded in 2001, that promotes the creative re-use of intellectual and artistic works—whether owned or in the public domain. Creative Commons licences provide a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors, artists, and educators that build upon the “all rights reserved” concept of traditional copyright to offer a voluntary “some rights reserved” approach. It is sustained by the generous support of various foundations including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Omidyar Network Fund, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation as well as members of the public. For general information, visit the groups’s website.

Contact

Christiane Henckel von Donnersmarck
Executive Director, Creative Commons International, Creative Commons
Email

Press Kit