What were five hundred folks from 30 countries doing in 40+ different sessions running concurrently in three rooms of two gorgeous buildings in Ciudad de México? They were showing, sharing and learning from the best of each other’s work utilizing open data, pushing governments to adopt open policies, and hacking for social, environmental and humanitarian…

I’m writing to announce that Creative Commons is closing its office in Mountain View, CA. For most people reading this, the news will hardly come as a surprise. We’ve always been a virtual organization. Although we have a group of staff in the Bay Area, we have full-time staff in six US States and two…

On Monday California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law AB 609–the California Taxpayer Access to Publicly Funded Research Act. The law requires that research articles created with funds from the California Department of Public Health be made publicly available in an online repository no later than 12 months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal. AB…

Yesterday at the United Nations, President Barack Obama marked the Open Government Partnership‘s (OGP) third anniversary by announcing that in addition to the commitments outlined in the current U.S. OGP National Action Plan, “The United States will take additional steps to make our government more open, transparent, and accessible for all Americans.” Among the multiple new…

It’s time to celebrate the Web We Want / CC Colombia / CC BY-SA This Friday, School of Open and Creative Commons affiliates in Colombia are throwing a celebration of the Web We Want that will highlight open licensing, copyright reform, and free culture. The event takes place as part of the Creative Commons Film…

Last week the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation announced that it is extending its open licensing policy to require that all content (such as reports, videos, white papers) resulting from project grant funds be licensed under the most recent Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. From the Foundation’s blog post: “We’re making this change because…

Following on the heels of School of Open Africa launch events in Tanzania and Nigeria last weekend, School of Open Kenya is hosting its own tomorrow to kick off training for four high schools in Nairobi. (SOO logo here. Earth icon licensed CC BY by Erin Standley from the Noun Project.) Called Popjam, this SOO…

In July the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote about the predicament that Colombian student Diego Gomez found himself in after he shared a research article online. Gomez is a graduate student in conservation and wildlife management at a small university. He has generally poor access to many of the resources and databases that would help him…

When you go searching for Creative Commons–licensed content, you never know what you’ll find. Sometimes you’ll find the exact photo or piece of sound you were looking for, and sometimes you’ll find something you never could have imagined. We’ve created a new Tumblr blog to celebrate those unusual, beautiful, and quirky CC finds from around…

Every year, our friends at Musikpiraten e.V. host the Free! Music! Contest to find the best Creative Commons–licensed music of the year. CC is proud to serve as a partner in this awesome tradition. This year, anyone who preorders the album of winning selections earns the right to vote for their favorite entries. From the…