Twenty-five years ago, a small group of people made a bet. They believed that if you gave creators a simple set of tools and licenses in language that a lawyer, a machine, and a human could all read, millions of people might choose to share their work with the world instead of locking it down.
“We said, oh gosh, if a million people use these licenses, that would be amazing,” Hal Abelson recalled, laughing at how small that ambition sounds now. Today the number “starts with a B.” Hal’s quote was one of many memorable moments during Creative Commons’ Founders Fireside Chat, a special benefit event for CC’s 25th anniversary.
This month, CC will be represented at the AI Impact Summit in Delhi, an international gathering shaping the future of AI policy and practice. The 2026 Summit follows the AI Action Summit in Paris in February 2025, where CC underscored a simple but essential truth: without civil society, there can be no public interest.
SXSW by Creative Commons is licensed under CC BY 4.0
SXSW by Creative Commons is licensed under CC BY 4.0 If you’ve been following along on the blog this year, you’ll know that we’ve been thinking a lot about the future of open, particularly in this age of AI. With our 2025-2028 strategy to guide us, we’ve been louder about a renewed call for reciprocity…
The Conciergerie, Paris by Mustang Joe is marked with CC0 1.0. On February 10 and 11, 2025, the government of France convened the AI Action Summit, bringing together heads of state, tech leaders, and civil society to discuss global collaboration and action on AI. The event was co-chaired by French President Macron and Indian Prime…
This report maps current threats and opportunities facing the open movement, based on the ongoing work of the organizations behind the Common(s) Cause event, which took place in Katowice, Poland, as a pre-conference event for Wikimania 2024 on August 6, 2024. The meeting was organized by Creative Commons, Open Knowledge Foundation, Open Future, and Wikimedia…
“Eagle Traffic Signals – 1970s” by RS 1990 is licensed via CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.. At the intersection of rapid advancements in generative AI and our ongoing strategy refresh, we’ve been deeply engaged in researching, analyzing, and fostering conversations about AI and value alignment. Our goal is to ensure that our legal and technical infrastructure remains…
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…
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.
On the eve of the CC Global Summit, members of the CC global community and Creative Commons held a one-day workshop to discuss issues related to AI, creators, and the commons. Emerging from that deep discussion and in subsequent conversation during the three days of the Summit, this group identified a set of common issues and values.
We are deeply honored to announce that the 2023 Summit’s opening keynote will be from Mexican sound artist, musician, researcher, and cultural leader Francisco J. Rivas Mesa, also known by his stage name Tito Rivas.
