San Francisco, CA, USA and Berlin, GERMANY — December 20, 2005 — Creative Commons, a nonprofit dedicated to building a body of creative work free to share and build upon, introduces today a revamped draft version of its localized licenses in The People’s Republic of China.

Creative Commons copyright licenses are available free of charge from the group’s website (https://creativecommons.org). 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.

Led by Project Lead Chunyan Wang and the Law School of Renmin University of China, and helped by Professors Li Chen and Guo He, Ms. Gao Si from NCAC, and Mr.Zheng Yi and Miss Chen Jie, Creative Commons Mainland China has worked on a new version of the standardized licenses, adapted to Chinese law.

The Creative Commons Mainland China project is supported by IET Foundation, the Center for Internet Law at Peking University Law School, and China Open Resources for Education (CORE).

CC Mainland China will post their new version on the Creative Commons website for public discussion. The license draft will be discussed at a new mailing list and a new URL.

Following a fruitful discussion, CC Mainland China plans to launch a localized version of the licenses during a launch event at the Intellectual Property and Creative Commons conference taking place at Renmin University of China and Peking University in Beijing in March 2006.

Says Chunyan Wang: “I think it would be extremely important to introduce Creative Commons licenses to China. The concept and approach of Creative Commons licenses would provide a sensible middle ground for China, between western approaches of strict copyright and the traditional Chinese approach of having no intellectual property rights. Indeed, the very idea of Creative Commons is based on the traditional Chinese approach of society sharing its intellectual creativity, under a reasonable set of guidelines. Adopting the Creative Commons licensing system in China would be a significant step forward in helping China further the development of culturally diverse creative works, and improve the ability of the people of China to communicate effectively with other societies and cultures around the world.“

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 website

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.

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