In 1996 the European Union adopted the Database Directive, which aimed to harmonise the treatment of databases under copyright law and introduced the sui generis database right for non-original databases. Sui generis database rights are separate from copyright. They protect the “sweat of the brow” of the person who has made a substantial investment in obtaining,…

Today Creative Commons and over two dozen civil society and digital rights organisations released a letter raising concerns about the potential impact of the re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on access to information, digital rights, and the open internet. The letter was released this week because trade negotiators from Canada, Mexico,…

Meticulously researched and incredibly entertaining, Theft explores 2,000 years of musical history, from Plato’s admonition that “musical innovation is full of danger to the whole state” to the recent “Blurred Lines” case – and everything in between.

Last month we announced the Community Activities Fund as part of our ongoing efforts to support the activities of CC communities and beyond. Creative Commons is committed to building and fostering a vibrant global commons through the activities and projects they undertake. Our fund was created in response to direct community requests, and we could…

The community of the Nexa Center at Politecnico di Torino, the Italian CC network affiliate institution.

The CC 4.0 licenses are now translated into Italian The official Italian translation of the Creative Commons 4.0 Licenses and CC0 waiver is now available! Led by CC Italy, the translations also benefited from the collaboration with CC Switzerland. The working group was hosted and coordinated by the Nexa Center for Internet & Society at…

We need your help! Over the next year, we will be investigating and reporting on 2-3 of the most compelling stories about collaboration in the commons. We want to tell the story of when and why a creator first decides to use CC, the kinds of connections they make online, how they invite and encourage…

We are proud to announce that the 2018 CC Summit will be in Toronto, Canada from April 13-15.

Imposing a mandatory and unwaivable compensation scheme violates the letter and spirit of open licensing. Copyright policymakers in Europe and South America have proposed legislation that would impose an unwaivable right to financial remuneration for authors and performers on copyrighted works. The laws attempt to ensure that creators receive payment for their work, but they…

Today is the annual #DayAgainstDRM, a global campaign to raise awareness about the harms of digital rights management (DRM). DRM consists of access control technologies or restrictive licensing agreements that attempt to restrict the use, modification, and distribution of legally-acquired works. There are serious problems with attaching DRM to creative works: not only does it…

“Wheat Field with Cypresses” by Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, Zundert 1853–1890 Auvers-sur-Oise) via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0 https://ccsearch.creativecommons.org/image/detail/jbnFP7Z3sGzWuzGJlx5ZIQ==

We launched our new CC Search tool in February with an amazing release from the Met Museum. Since then, over a million people have visited the site, searching for a wide variety of terms – many of which are related to the Met’s collection.