Picture of the Creative Commons team at GLAM Wiki, Montevideo, Uruguay, 17 November, 2023. From left to right: Jocelyn Miyara, Brigitte Vézina, Connor Benedict, and Jennryn Wetzler. © Creative Commons, licensed CC-BY.

From 16 to 18 November, members of the Creative Commons (CC) Open Culture and Learning and Training teams attended GLAM Wiki in Montevideo Uruguay. In this blog post we look back at the event’s highlights from CC’s perspective.

“Somos El Bien Común” by Eréndira Derbez, here cropped, is licensed via CC BY 4.0.

CC has long been at the forefront of enabling innovation and promoting access to knowledge and creativity. The Creative Commons 2023 Summit brought together creators, academics, technologists, and policymakers from around the world to discuss the future of open culture and how CC can continue to drive positive change. This blog post reflects on the key challenges of the summit and shares the insightful learnings that emerged from these discussions.

“Princesses Gather at Fountain”, ca. 1770, shown slightly cropped. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public Domain.

For centuries, cultural heritage institutions have been undertaking the work to document and catalog objects in their collections — sometimes this work suffers from a legacy of colonialism and discrimination in the way their collections are labeled and categorized. Some institutions are working to update these labels with more respectful terminology. Hear more from some of the changemakers working to update labels and metadata with more respectful terminologies during this CC panel.

Dave talks about how many “institutions are on a mission to expose their collections to the world and make them available for everyone.” Dave sees this as a major evolution from a time not too long ago when it was only those with means who could access collections in any way. Open Culture VOICES is…

“WIPO SSCR Screenshot” by Creative Commons is licensed via CC BY 4.0.

From 6 to 8 November 2023, Creative Commons participated remotely in the 44th session of the World Intellectual Property Organization Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights. In this blog post, we look back on the session’s highlights on broadcasting, exceptions and limitations, and generative AI, from CC’s perspective.

Detail from “AI Outputs” by CC0.

In August, the United States Copyright Office issued a Notice of Inquiry seeking public responses to 34 questions (and several sub-questions) about the intersection of copyright law and artificial intelligence. The comment period closed on 30 October with over 10,000 individuals and organizations responding, representing a broad spectrum of interests on how copyright should apply in relation to generative AI. CC joined in the conversation to provide our own thoughts on copyright and AI to the copyright office.

Kyle believes that “the artistic and creative expressions of humanity is the best way to experience our human efforts” and open GLAM makes this a reality for much more than what you can see on a given day in a museum. Open GLAM also helps drive more digitization of collections around the world in an…

CC Licenses make it possible to share content legally and openly. Over the past 20 years, they have unlocked approximately 3 billion articles, books, research, artwork, and music. CC’s Legal Tools are a free and reliable public good. Yet most people are unaware that their infrastructure and stewardship takes a lot of money and work to maintain. That’s why we’re launching the Open Infrastructure Circle (OIC) — an initiative to obtain annual or multi-year support from foundations, corporations, and individuals for Creative Commons’ core operations and license infrastructure.

Each month throughout 2023, we will be spotlighting a different CC-licensed illustration from the collection on our social media headers and the CC blog. For November, we’re excited to showcase “Shared Knowledge, Shared Future” by Colombian illustrator, Luisa Brando.

  Maarten believes that “Open GLAM is a necessity of a disbalanced copyright framework.” Maarten talks about how open access policies help institutions achieve their public missions. Open access policies in instutions provides good evidence that society and communities need access to cultural heritage to flourish. Open Culture VOICES is a series of short videos…