At Creative Commons, we believe that addressing global challenges like the climate crisis requires opening the knowledge about those challenges. We are thrilled to announce the release of our “Recommendations for Better Sharing of Climate Data”— the culmination of a nine-month research initiative from our Open Climate Data project. These guidelines are a result of…

Laterna magica bild målad i färg på glasskiva. Bilder ur solsystemet. from Tekniska Museet Svenska, Public Domain Mark. https://digitaltmuseum.se/021016341596/laterna-magica-bild-malad-i-farg-pa-glasskiva-bilder-ur-solsystemet

2023 was quite a year for the Creative Commons (CC) Open Culture Program, thanks to generous funding from Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing & Peter Baldwin. In this blog post we look back on some of the year’s key achievements.

"The Electric Boots” British Library. Public Domain.

In November 2023, the Court of Appeal in THJ v Sheridan offered an important clarification of the originality requirement under UK copyright law, which clears a path for open culture to flourish in the UK.

“Andean Textile Fragment” by Peruvian. 1500. Walters Art Museum., here slightly cropped, is released into the public domain under CC0.

On Wednesday, 17 January, 2024, at 3:00 pm UTC, CC’s Open Culture Program will be hosting a new webinar in our Open Culture Live series titled “Whose Open Culture? Decolonization, Indigenization, and Restitution.” As we observed a few years ago, there is growing awareness in the open culture movement about issues related to the acquisition, preservation, access, sharing, and reuse of cultural heritage of Indigenous peoples and local communities (including traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions), heritage in the context of colonization, and culturally-sensitive heritage.

Today Creative Commons CEO Catherine Stihler is announcing the conclusion of her time leading the organization. On behalf of the Board of Directors, staff, and global community, we want to offer Catherine our sincere thanks. We are grateful to her for over three years of leadership at CC.  During her tenure as CEO, Catherine demonstrated…

This December, Creative Commons led a CC Certificate Bootcamp, or condensed Certificate training, for faculty and staff from 16 different California Community Colleges implementing Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) degree programs. This marked the second CC Bootcamp for California Community Colleges after the California legislature invested $115 million to expand ZTC degrees and the use of…

“Original art by illustrator Freya C. Morgan”. Internet Archive.

Join Creative Commons, Internet Archive, and many other leaders from the open world to celebrate Public Domain Day 2024. The mouse that became Mickey will finally be free of his corporate captivity as the copyright term of the 1928 animated Disney film, Steamboat Willie, expires along with that of thousands of other cultural works on…

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

On 22 November, we organized a webinar with a group of experts to discuss their unique approaches to reparative metadata practices: considering the ways that harmful histories and terminologies have made their way into collections labeling and categorization practices and finding ways to identify those terms, contextualize them, and/or replace them altogether. Jill Baron, a…

Wetland at Expo City Dubai by Monica Granados is licensed via CC BY 4.0.

The complexity of climate change is on display at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP). The conference is arranged into two major zones, blue and green, with the former accessible only by parties  with UNFCCC accreditation. The green zone is a landscape dotted by venues with booths…

Today we conclude the Open Culture Voices series, which over two years has showcased more than 65 open culture experts and practitioners from around the world. Over these two years we have had the privilege of engaging with remarkable individuals, each bringing their unique insights and stories to our community. Thank you!