A cropped version of "'Espejo exterior o espía'." by Biblioteca Rector Machado y Nuñez is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0. with a white CC open culture logo

2022 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, and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. In this blog post, we take a look back at some of the year’s highlights in our program’s four components: Policy,…

Join Creative Commons, Internet Archive, and many other leaders from the open world to celebrate Public Domain Day 2023. As of January 2023, a treasure trove of new cultural works has become as free as the moon and the stars — at least in the USA and many other countries. And what better way to…

Since its creation in 2001, Creative Commons (CC) has helped release nearly 5 million digital open images of cultural heritage held in cultural heritage institutions using CC tools. We have also been promoting open culture to build a more equitable, accessible, and innovative world, and it is based on this rich experience that our Open…

Exciting news — an initiative of the MHz Foundation, Curationist.org, a free-to-use platform that connects users to over 4.4 million digital artworks and cultural objects, recently relaunched with some amazing new features. On 7 December, they will host a guided experience of the new platform, and we hope to see you there. Register now. The…

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Creative Commons and our licenses, we partnered with Fine Acts to commission the “Better Sharing” collection. We are excited to share the collection with the world, which was unveiled last week at CC’s 20th Anniversary Celebration. The artworks are available on TheGreats.co to be enjoyed, used and adapted, and…

This week, the international community celebrates 30 years of the UNESCO Memory of the World Program. At Creative Commons (CC), we applaud the program’s achievements in enhancing preservation and access to documentary heritage from galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAMs) around the globe. We laud the multitude of efforts enlisting documentary heritage to promote inclusive,…

This week, policymakers from around the world gather in Mexico for MONDIACULT2022, the UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development, a critical event that is bound to shape the future of international cultural policies worldwide. In the lead-up to MONDIACULT2022, Creative Commons’ (CC) Brigitte Vézina delivered a keynote to the international forum “Digitalizar…

Want to build a fairer, more peaceful world? Creative Commons does and we are joining over 170 other organizations in New York City during 16–25 September to accelerate progress on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) during 2022 #GlobalGoalsWeek. CC’s deep engagement with the SDGs comes from two of our fundamental beliefs: First, that…

Better Together (Stretch Your Hands) by Anna Lopes is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Do you know about the Creative Commons Open Culture Platform? It’s a space for open culture and cultural heritage practitioners, advocates, and enthusiasts to share resources, hold conversations, and collaborate on matters related to open access to cultural heritage, especially heritage held in galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAMs). As we were curious about our…

"Abstract Art Photo" by Steve Johnson is marked with CC0 1.0.

What are the barriers to open culture? What challenges do cultural heritage institutions — such as galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAMs) — face in making their collections openly accessible online? How could Creative Commons support institutions in addressing these challenges and taking part in better sharing of cultural heritage? In search of answers, we…