Creative Commons’ innovative copyright licenses now offered in Scotland.

San Francisco, CA, USA; Berlin, GERMANY; and Edinburgh, Scotland — December 2, 2005 — Creative Commons, a nonprofit dedicated to building a body of creative work free to share and build upon today announced the launch of its licenses in Scotland.

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 joint project leads in Scotland to adapt the standard licenses to Scottish law. The joint project leads for Creative Commons Scotland are Professor Hector MacQueen, who is Director of the Governing Board of the Arts and Humanities Research Council Centre for Studies in Intellectual Property and Technology Law, and Jonathan Mitchell QC, who is a practicing Queens Counsel at the Scottish bar and a visiting Research Fellow at the Centre.

“With growing interest in the re-use of publicly available material, and growing concern at attempts by commercial publishers to restrict re-use, Creative Commons licensing has never been more needed than now. The creative communities in Scotland now have an opportunity to apply ready-made, plain-language licences to their work to aid its maximum distribution”, says Jonathan Mitchell.

About AHRC

The Arts and Humanities Research Council Centre for Studies in Intellectual Property and Technology Law was established in 2002 in the Faculty of Law of Edinburgh University with the assistance of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Its Director—Professor Hector MacQueen—and four co-Directors—Ms Lilian Edwards, Mr. Andres Guadamuz, Professor Graeme Laurie and Dr. Charlotte Waelde—have worked together since the establishment of their earlier research centre SCRIPT in 1998. The Centre conducts research into law, technology, commerce and society in the widest possible sense; its anchor projects are ‘Privacy, Property and Personality’; ‘Intellectual Property, Cultural Heritage and the Public Domain’; and ‘E- commerce Legislation within the EU’, bringing together academics and practising lawyers. Among its many publications are a number of reports dealing with copyright management and the law.

For more information on the Creative Commons Scotland project visit this site.

For more information on the Research Centre visit the Centre’s site

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 group’s website.

Contact

Jonathan Mitchell QC
The Murray Stable of the Faculty of Advocates
Email

Christiane Asschenfeldt
Executive Director iCommons, Creative Commons
Email

Mia Garlick
General Counsel & COO, Creative Commons
Email

Press Kit