December 15, 2007 — San Francisco, CA, USA and Pasay City, Metro Manila, Philippines

Today in Pasay City, the 42nd locally ported Creative Commons licensing suite will be launched for the Philippines. The Creative Commons licenses, now legally adapted to Philippine law, enable authors, artists, scientists, and educators the choice of a flexible range of protections and freedoms in efforts to promote a voluntary “some rights reserved” approach to copyright.

The Creative Commons team members in the Philippines, lead by Atty. Jaime N. Soriano, have worked under the auspices of the e-Law Center at the Arellano University School of Law and in collaboration with Creative Commons to port the licenses to their national jurisdiction.

In a prelude to a larger celebration planned in January 2008, CC Philippines will unveil the licenses today at 2pm PST at an event held in Arellano University’s School of Law. Atty. Michael Vernon M. Guerrero, jurisdiction deputy project lead of CC Philippines, will introduce the licenses, followed by the inauguration of the Philippine Commons, a collaboration fostering alternative licensing, free and open source software, open education, and free culture in the region.

Dr. Catharina Maracke, Director of Creative Commons International, thanks the CC Philippines Team for all their efforts, and she remarks, “The licensing project in the Philippines is a strong step towards strengthening and cultivating the global commons. The Philippines joins neighboring Malaysia, launched two years ago, in offering completed localized CC licenses. With upcoming jurisdictions in Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia, this region within Asia will continue to thrive and enjoy its vibrant remix-reuse community.”

The launch event in Pasay City will continue later in the evening as a birthday party for Creative Commons, as part of a series of synchronized celebrations worldwide to commemorate Creative Commons’ fifth year.

About AUSL

The Arellano University School of Law (AUSL), a non-stock non-profit institution, is named after the First Chief Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court, Cayetano S. Arellano, and established in 1938. Today it boasts more than six decades of providing quality legal education. The foremost objective of the school is to create global lawyers: practitioners who are deeply educated in the law, practice-ready, and devoted to service not only in the local but also the international community. Arellano Law prides itself for being one of the most populous law schools in the Philippines with faculty members who have distinguished themselves in law practice, the judiciary, government service, and the academe. The law school furthermore is one of the few schools in the Philippines that produces the most number of lawyers in the annual bar examinations administered by the Supreme Court.

For more information, please visit http://www.arellanolaw.edu/.

About the e-Law Center at Arellano University School of Law

The e-Law Center was founded in November 2002 under the auspices of the Arellano University School of Law, following the launching of the school’s LAWPHiL Project, which is considered one of the most popular on-line and electronic databases of Philippine law and jurisprudence that is accessible for free to the general public. The Center is pursuing projects in research, publication, policy initiatives and advocacy, capability building, academic support, and linkages in the field of information and communication technology as it affects the Philippine legal system.

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. Through its free copyright licenses, Creative Commons offers authors, artists, scientists, and educators the choice of a flexible range of protections and freedoms that build upon the “all rights reserved” concept of traditional copyright to enable a voluntary “some rights reserved” approach. Creative Commons is sustained by the generous support of organizations including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Omidyar Network, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation, as well as members of the public.

For more information about Creative Commons, visit https://creativecommons.org.

Contact

Dr. Catharina Maracke
Director
Creative Commons International, Creative Commons
catharina@creativecommons.org

Press Kit
https://creativecommons.org/presskit
https://creativecommons.org/international/ph/