“AI Alignment Assembly” by Jakub Koźniewski for the Open Future Foundation is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Dear Open Movement Creators, Activists, and Stewards,  A key question facing Creative Commons as an organization, and the open movement in general, is how we will respond to the challenge of shaping artificial intelligence (AI) towards the public interest, growing and sustaining a thriving commons of shared knowledge and culture. So much of generative AI…

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.

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.

“Sorry! This video does not exist.” by Creative Commons is licensed via CC BY 4.0.

A key video disappeared from the CC home webpage after the video hosting service Vimeo tagged the open work with an invalid automated copyright violation takedown notice. Learn more about what happens when automated copyright filters go wrong.

"EU Flag Neural Network" by Creative Commons was cropped from an image generated by the DALL-E 2 AI platform with the text prompt "European Union flag neural network." CC dedicates any rights it holds to the image to the public domain via CC0.

The European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act will be discussed at a key trilogue meeting on 24 October 2023. CC collaborated with Communia to summarize our views emphasizing the importance of a balanced and tailored approach to regulating foundation models and of transparency in general.

"CC Global Summit 2023 Day 0" by Creative Commons is licensed CC BY 4.0.

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.

“CC Icon Statue” by Creative Commons, generated in part by the DALL-E 2 AI platform. CC dedicates any rights it holds to this image to the public domain via CC0.

Many wonder what role CC licenses, and CC as an organization, can and should play in the future of generative AI. The legal and ethical uncertainty over using copyrighted inputs for training, the uncertainty over the legal status and best practices around works produced by generative AI, and the implications for this technology on the…

We are thrilled to announce that Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects have now adopted version 4.0 of the Creative Commons BY-SA license! The project first began using version 3.0 of the CC licenses in 2009 following a community process, having previously used the GNU Free Documentation License. This decision, made as part of a Terms…

In my last blog post, I looked at whether copyright protects artistic style, particularly in the context of generative AI (GAI) art tools like Stable Diffusion and Midjourney. However, in the class action litigation against Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, the plaintiffs are not only concerned that people can use the GAI tools to produce works…

“Grunge Heroes” by Stephen Wolfson for Creative Commons was generated by the Midjourney AI platform with the text prompt “a grunge band from the 1990s made up of superheroes.” CC dedicates any rights it holds to the image to the public domain via CC0.

In my previous posts on generative AI, I discussed fair use and AI training data, copyright over AI outputs, and a recent U.S. Copyright Office decision on registration for a work produced by generative AI. In the next posts in our series, I will look at claims (exemplified in a recent case against Stable Diffusion…