Assignments of copyrights photostat copies by mollyali, CC BY-NC 2.0 A few months ago the United States Copyright Office issued a request for comments on an extended collective licensing (ECL) pilot program they are considering for mass digitization projects. The Office thinks that such a program would permit greater access to cultural works by allowing…

Post written by John Weitzmann Creative Commons and the European group of CC Affiliates are proud and happy to announce the launch of the official Polish translation of CC0 version 1.0. Translation is an essential part of our efforts to be a truly global project, offering legal tools that work for everyone regardless of language…

The declaration increases interoperability of the commons for games, hardware designs, and more In January we officially opened a public consultation (blog post) on CC BY-SA 4.0 unilateral compatibility with GPLv3, in accordance with our ShareAlike compatibility process and criteria. Following additional months of detailed analysis, discussion and deliberation with the Free Software Foundation and…

Cape Town by Kemal Kestelli on Flickr, CC BY-ND 2.0. Earlier this year, Creative Commons and the Open Policy Network hosted the first Institute for Open Leadership (IOL). The IOL is a training and support program to empower new leaders interested in crafting and implementing an open licensing policy within their discipline. We had a…

Creative Commons is pleased to announce a grant award in the amount of $450,000 over 3 years from the Arcadia Fund, the charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin. Since its inception in 2001, Arcadia has awarded grants in excess of $331 million. Arcadia works to protect endangered culture and nature. Creative Commons will…

This is a guest post by Jan Gondol. Pencil by Mari Pi, Public Domain. In the midst of the European migrant crisis, the Czech Republic is showing the power of open educational resources (OER). EDUin, a non-profit organization based in Prague worked with the Czech organization of civic education teachers to address the current migrant…

Files. By Pieter J. Smits, CC BY 3.0 Creative Commons believes that public and foundation funded resources should be openly licensed by default. We have written extensively about the importance of open licensing policies in government, foundations, and have built the Open Policy Network and the Institute for Open Leadership with our open policy partners…

  There are plenty of examples to depict our broken copyright system, but the “dancing baby” case is one of the most notorious. That’s the one where Universal Music used the DMCA to take down a 29-second YouTube video of an adorable baby dancing to “Let’s Go Crazy” by Prince. Putting aside the legal questions,…

Williamsfield video by U.S. Department of Education is licensed CC BY I’m pleased to announce two important updates from the U.S. Department of Education! #1: Williamsfield Community Unified School District embraces OER Today, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visited Williamsfield Community Unified School District in Illinois to highlight the progress the rural school district…

We are thrilled to announce that 1,687 people backed our Kickstarter campaign, which successfully raised $65,420 – over 130% of our funding goal. We’re told by Kickstarter that Creative Commons is now among the top 5% of publishing projects in the history of the crowdfunding platform. All thanks to you, our supporters! What’s next?! Email…