Creative Commons is turning 20! We are delighted to be celebrating this milestone with our global community, honoring our commitment as a nonprofit to creating a world where everyone has access to knowledge and creativity.  As we considered CC’s goals for the next 20 years, we kept returning to a simple idea:  Better Sharing for…

Creative Commons empowers people, institutions, and governments to openly share content to advance knowledge, equity, and creativity for everyone, everywhere. Throughout modern history, access to knowledge has been deliberately and unjustly denied to many, limiting our collective ability to solve the world’s most pressing challenges.  That’s why, in 2001, we came up with a simple…

It’s International Museum Day and at Creative Commons (CC) we are thrilled to once again  celebrate the institutions that acquire, conserve, research, communicate, and exhibit the world’s heritage for education, study, and enjoyment. This year’s theme is The Future of Museums: Recover and Reimagine and in this blog post, we imagine a future where museums…

Creative Commons is thrilled to confirm that CC Search, the search engine we built for openly licensed content, has found a new home and will soon be joining WordPress. With its talented team and active community of open source contributors from all around the globe, WordPress is the perfect partner to help keep the project…

2020 was a year none of us will forget—and while there are many reasons to look back on last year with sadness and anger, we’ve chosen a different path: one of optimism and hope. In our 2020 State of the Commons report, we take you through what we accomplished last year, from effectively unlocking hundreds…

On 29 January 2020, the Canadian federal government introduced Bill C-4, “An Act to Implement the Agreement between Canada, the United States of America and the United Mexican States” (CUSMA).1 The bill includes a proposal to extend copyright’s term of protection2 by 20 years, moving it from “life of the author + 50 years” (the…

Developments in artificial intelligence (AI) raise several questions when it comes to the use of copyright material and Creative Commons-licensed content in particular.1 One of them is whether CC-licensed content (e.g. photographs, artworks, text, music, etc.) should be used as input to train AI. To get a sense of the various views on this question,…

"St. Valentine's Day - The Old Story in All Lands (1868)" by Harper & Bros. Cooper Hewitt (CC0)

February is usually the time to share virtual hugs, chocolates, and witty cards with family and friends for Valentine’s Day ❤️. (Or “Friend’s Day” in Finland!) This past Valentine’s Day, we wanted you to share something a little different: your creative work.  In our Open Sharing is Caring challenge, we asked you to openly share…

In two days, the Smithsonian will celebrate one year of Smithsonian Open Access. This initiative removed copyright restrictions from 2.8 million digital collection 2D and 3D images and nearly two centuries of data using Creative Commons’ public domain dedication tool (CC0). Launched just before many of us went into lockdown due to COVID-19, Smithsonian Open…

There is a quiet, familiar beauty found in still life, a type of art that depicts primarily inanimate objects, like animals, food, or flowers. These comforting images offer a sense of certainty and simplicity in uncertain and complex times. This could explain why over six million Instagram users have fallen in love with still life…