For those of you who followed the weekly Lessig Letters last year, you may recall that Larry outlined one of our planned projects for 2006 – a public domain registry or public domain wiki. Work on the registry has commenced in earnest.

Today, Access Copyright, Creative Commons Canada and Creative Commons announced the project – confirming that it is Canada that will have the benefit of being able to readily identify and access it’s public domain cultural heritage. As Maureen Cavan, Executive Director of Access Copyright, Canada’s leading copyright licensing agency, said:

“We’re excited about this partnership that will enhance and preserve Canadian culture by making Canadian works in the public domain more widely accessible both here and abroad. Creators looking for source material and educators looking for classroom content will have this free database at their fingertips.”

At Creative Commons we are also very excited about this project and thankful for the foresight and initiative taken by Access Copyright in working with us to realize such a great idea. We certainly hope that organizations in other countries will take note and take steps to open up their national cultural heritage similar to the Canadians.