For over 20 years, Creative Commons (CC) has provided self-serve solutions to address the limitations of copyright in a digital world. CC is a beloved symbol of sharing and knowledge freedom that resists a restrictive sharing and re-use environment and brings people together. Thanks to organizations like CC and many others, creative, cultural, educational, and research works are more accessible than ever before, and yet, our work is not done. At a time when there are increasing concentrations of power online, and when monopolization of knowledge is amplified exponentially through technology such as artificial intelligence (AI), CC has been called upon to intervene with the same creativity and collective action as we did with the CC licenses over 20 years ago. If we continue down this path without intervention, the internet and our ways of connecting online will be controlled by the few who disproportionately benefit from the many in ways that deepen inequities.

Over the next five years, our priorities will focus on ensuring a strong and resilient open infrastructure of sharing, and enabling a healthy and thriving creative commons powered by reciprocity and community in the public interest.

Download your copy of CC’s 2025-2028 strategy

Let’s get into the details! Our 2025-2028 strategy is guided by three interconnected goals: 

1. Strengthen the open infrastructure of sharing
2. Defend and advocate for a thriving creative commons
3. Center community

Goal 1: Strengthen the open infrastructure of sharing

We imagine a world where CC’s foundational open infrastructure is funded by default, and where individual creators and rightsholders reclaim agency in contributing to and benefiting from the commons. If we can ensure a strong and resilient open infrastructure of sharing that enables access to educational resources, cultural heritage, and scientific research in the public interest, we’ll have a viable alternative to the concentrations of power that currently exist and are restricting sharing and access. Because the commons must continue to exist for everyone. 

As we look to the future, we will know we’ve been successful in meeting this goal when a strong and resilient open infrastructure empowers sharing and access in the public interest.

Goal 2: Defend and advocate for a thriving creative commons

Stronger open infrastructure enables the thriving creative commons that is required to solve the world’s greatest problems. Knowledge must be accessible, discoverable, and reusable. In tandem with a strong and supported open infrastructure of sharing, a thriving creative commons redistributes power from the hands of the few to the minds of the many, and cements a worldview of knowledge as a public good and a human right. We cannot and must not take the commons for granted. 

As we look to the future, we will know we’ve been successful in meeting this goal when a thriving creative commons exists to solve the world’s greatest challenges.

Goal 3: Center community

We steward the open infrastructure of sharing and contribute to a thriving creative commons with, and for, community. Community is central to everything we do and at the heart of our mission and vision. We need to recalibrate our commitment to serve and recognize those who have built the commons on which we all rely. We aim to better center the community of open advocates, who are credited for the global usability and adoption of the CC legal tools, alongside the rich generational and geographical diversity of open advocates with varying needs and awareness of CC.

As we look to the future, we will know we’ve been successful in meeting this goal when communities leverage CC’s open infrastructure to share knowledge in the public interest.

Over the next several weeks we will be outlining more about our plans for 2025 and the ways that we are bringing this ambitious strategy and optimistic view of the future to life. In the meantime, you can read the full published strategy on our website. 

The creation of this strategy would not have been possible without the input and vision of the CC global community, including the CC Board of Directors, members of the CC Global Network, and our engaged and enthusiastic platform communities. Thank you!