Beginning in 2021, the European Union has been considering a new AI Act, which would regulate certain uses of AI. In particular, it seeks to ban certain uses of AI, such as broad-based real-time biometric identification for law enforcement in public places, and it seeks to ensure that certain precautions are taken before deployment of uses deemed ‘high-risk,’ such as the use of AI for access to education, employment, financial credit, or other essential services.

Creative Commons has proactively worked with policymakers and other key stakeholders, creating a constructive dialogue to inform both the content of the text and the context of the debate. We agree with the objectives of the Act: ensuring AI systems placed on the Union market are used in a way that respects fundamental rights and Union values; providing legal certainty to facilitate investment and innovation in AI; and facilitating the development of a single market for lawful, transparent, and trustworthy AI applications to prevent market fragmentation.

While the proposal covers a broad range of topics, we have focused on two areas that are pertinent to our strategy, better sharing.

First, we have advocated for the benefits of supporting open data, open source, and interoperability as means to support a healthy marketplace for and robust competition in the development and use of AI.

Harmful uses of AI are best addressed through a contextual approach, based on clear principles that can adapt to new developments in how AI is designed and implemented for different use cases based on their risks to society. Such a tailored approach can and should avoid overbroad restrictions on general purpose artificial intelligence (GPAI) and the sharing and use of open source tools.

The European Commission’s original draft proposal did not directly address GPAI, and we agree that this is an appropriate approach. Requirements on GPAI creators are unnecessary because the follow-on developers of high-risk systems will already be covered by this Act. To the extent GPAI creators wish to serve that market, they already have incentives to cooperate with high-risk users to ensure broad compliance.

We also recognize that the EU legislators are currently considering ways to address responsibilities related to GPAI, including open source tools. If that moves forward, we recommend adding language to ensure that GPAI regulations are tailored and proportionate. These regulations should not constrain open source tools, and should focus on ensuring cooperation between GPAI creators and users with whom they have an ongoing relationship.

We believe this is important to get right in part because it’s vital that the capacity to develop and use AI not be concentrated in the hands of a small number of large commercial operators. Lowering barriers to the development and use of AI — such as by supporting the availability of open data and open source tools, including as part of General Purpose AI (GPAI) — can spur innovation in services and lead to major social benefits. Empowering people to share their data among services and enabling them to move between services (ie, through data portability and interoperability) also can play a role in facilitating innovation and inhibiting user lock-in. While it is crucial to ensure commercial viability and incentives for investment, it is also crucial to ensure that this does not come at the expense of robust competition, consumer protection, and the public interest more broadly.

In addition to these topics, we’ve also taken this opportunity to ensure the intersection of copyright and AI is well understood. While copyright’s relationship to AI is not at core to this proposal, it is important that policymakers understand that appropriate limits on copyright are also core to serving the public interest. As we’ve explored in the past, AI generated content should not be copyrightable, and training AI on copyrighted works should not be limited.

During 2021–2022, CC has been celebrating the 20th anniversary of our founding in 2001 and the first release of the CC licenses in 2002, successfully concluding an ambitious fundraising campaign to support programs like Open Culture, Open Climate, and Open Education, and to help ensure CC’s ongoing sustainability.

In November 2022, CC will bring the 20th anniversary celebration to an official close with both online and in-person activities. The CC Global Network and our broader community are at the heart of CC’s work to support better sharing for an open commons, so we are inviting you to be a part of marking this milestone. There are several ways you can join the celebration — pick one or all!

Attend a global CC 20th Anniversary event

San Francisco

Creative Commons invites you to a 20th Anniversary Celebration on Thursday 17 November 2022 at 7pm PST at Terra Gallery, San Francisco*. Join us for an evening of entertainment as we toast to the past and mobilize support for the future! Save your seat >

Virtual

Can’t come to San Francisco? Join a virtual 20th Anniversary Celebration on Wednesday 30 November 2022. Register for 3:00–5:00 UTC and/or 15:00–17:00 UTC >

Make a contribution to support CC

Creative Commons empowers people, institutions, and governments to share content openly to advance knowledge, equity, and creativity for everyone, everywhere. As we look ahead to the next 20 years, our focus is on better sharing, sharing that is contextual, inclusive, just, equitable, reciprocal, and sustainable. As a nonprofit, we rely on contributions from people like you. Make a contribution of any size >

Share a digital artifact showcasing your community’s open contributions

Share a digital artifact that showcases your local community’s past or future work to build the open commons. CC will share accepted artifacts with the world to illustrate the variety of activities and points of view that represent the Creative Commons Global Network and CC community.

Requirements: All artifacts must be shared with CC licenses or CC0 public domain dedications, and demonstrate CC’s better sharing values. Describe your artifact >

CC chapters: Grants to mark CC’s 20th Anniversary locally 

CC chapters worldwide will be marking the anniversary locally with events, activities, and projects supported by #20CC Anniversary grants to celebrate CC’s past 20 years and our shared future. Stay tuned to the #20CCAnniversary hashtag on social media to hear more about what the grantees and their work.

Requirements: The grant program closed on 10 Oct 2022. If you missed it, you are still welcome to contribute a digital artifact as above to include your community’s work in the #20CC celebration.

Celebrate on social media

Help get the word out about CC’s 20th Anniversary celebration: Share this post with the #20CCAnniversary hashtag and what CC, better sharing, and the open commons mean to you.

Do you like what other people are sharing? Favorite and reshare #20CCAnniversary posts from other CC community members.

Questions?

Reach out to communications@creativecommons.org, or start a conversation in the #cc-community channel in the CC community slack. 

Hi Creative Commoners! On this episode, we’re joined by art historians, Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, the co-founders and executive directors of Smarthistory. Smarthistory is a center for public art history, with thousands of free and CC licensed videos and essays written by experts who want to share their knowledge with learners around the world. Previously, Beth was dean of art and history at Khan Academy and director of digital learning at The Museum of Modern Art. Before joining MoMA, Beth was Associate Professor of art history and director of distance learning at the Fashion Institute of Technology, where she taught both online and in the classroom. Previously, Steven was dean of art and history at Khan Academy. He was chair of history of art and design at Pratt Institute, where he strengthened enrollment and led renewal of curriculum across the Institute. Previously, he was dean of the School of Graduate Studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY and chair of art history. He has taught at The School of Visual Arts, Hunter College, and at The Museum of Modern Art.

• Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, and more. You can also subscribe via the show’s RSS feed.
• Episode transcript: Text // PDF // Doc

Please subscribe to the show in whatever podcast app you use, so you don’t miss any of our conversations with people working to make the internet and our global culture more open and collaborative.

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 en común: formas distribuidas de propiedad y autoría culturales” organized by Creative Commons Mexico. Watch the recording on Facebook.

It was in 1982 that the Mexico City Declaration on Cultural Policies defined a path for culture to become a fundamental pillar of development. 40 years on, culture now underpins all 17 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and calls are being made to make culture a sustainable development goal in itself. We agree with UNESCO that “culture is the bridge between peoples and countries… and the key to unlocking mutual understanding and reinforcing global action based human rights and respect for diversity.”

Unfortunately, people everywhere are facing tremendous challenges in accessing, sharing, and (re)using culture, in large part due to unfit and outdated copyright rules. Culture is being locked away behind undue and unnecessary paywalls, entry and rental fees, or the walled-gardens of for-profit companies. Cultural heritage institutions too face difficulties in realizing their missions in the digital world. They struggle to conduct their legitimate activities, like digitizing collections to preserve them and make them available to the public. Furthermore, climate change, global health crises, and violent conflicts are posing great threats to culture and the institutions that make it accessible. 

At CC, we promote open culture and aim to help cultural heritage institutions and their users make the most out of CC licenses and tools to open up their collections online in the public interest. Many institutions have successfully harnessed CC tools to release nearly five million digital open images. But while our tools support global sharing of culture, they cannot erase all barriers. That’s why with our Open Culture Program, we work to drive global policy discussion in support of better sharing, i.e. sharing that is contextual, ethical, inclusive, sustainable, purposeful and prosocial: sharing that builds a commons of knowledge and culture that is just and that inspires reciprocity — a commons that serves the public interest. 

Today, we look to UNESCO’s leadership to build momentum for open culture and to champion better sharing. MONDIACULT offers an opportunity to rethink how policy can truly promote equitable access to culture, bolster creativity, and restore balance in a copyright system unfit for the digital age. With new technologies on the horizon, like artificial intelligence and blockchain-based conveyances, we need to build new models based on collaboration, freedom to reuse, and generative sharing of culture. 

Now, more than ever, UNESCO and its Member States need to take action to protect the public domain and recalibrate copyright to support public interests in tune with the evolving sharing possibilities of our complex world. MONDIACULT 2022 is the starting point to explore how we can empower creators, liberate and celebrate culture as a global public good, and build a sustainable future for all. As the world of culture meets at MONDIACULT, with over 160 ministers and multiple actors of culture joining forces in México, let us reiterate our call: there is an urgent need to realize open culture for all.

 

Want to get involved? Join us!

• Become a member of the CC Global Network
• Become a member of the CC Open Culture Platform
• Sign up to the CC Open Culture mailing list
• Join our Open Culture working groups
• Join the #cc-openglam Slack channel
• Participate in CC Open Culture Platform calls — they are announced in the Slack channel and on the mailing list

At Creative Commons, we’ve been thinking a lot about how open principles and public interest values intersect with the decentralized web movement, particularly in relation to broader, collaborative efforts to build a Better Internet. In the past year, we’ve worked with other digital human rights and tech policy organizations to power this emerging movement, focused on addressing the challenges and failings of dominant internet platforms. One of the primary goals of the Better Internet movement is to develop an affirmative policy agenda that reflects public-interest values, championing technology that works for all. Any such agenda must be informed not only by these values, but also by the communities it intends to serve.

A few weeks ago, Catherine Stihler and I had the opportunity to attend DWeb Camp, a conference focused on the decentralized web that brings together a community of people around a set of collaboratively developed principles. The camp was a mix of conference and extracurricular sessions with extremely diverse and rigorous programming, balanced by free time to enjoy the outdoors.

❝ One of the primary goals of the Better Internet movement is to develop an affirmative policy agenda that reflects public-interest values, championing technology that works for all.

While there, we hosted a workshop, alongside our peers from Public Knowledge, focused on the values that might inform the building of a Better Internet. At this juncture, those active in the Better Internet movement are working to crystallize shared values about what constitutes “better” and how to get there. We saw an opportunity to brainstorm with the DWeb community, who have led the charge in exploring and building alternatives to existing platforms and systems. 

Our ultimate goal is to produce a statement of values that underpins a broader public interest vision and a policy agenda for a Better Internet.  But that doesn’t happen without learning, listening, and digging into some of the more challenging topics. The purpose of the workshop we hosted at DWeb Camp and the many informal conversations we had during our time there was to examine the role decentralization could play in achieving “better.”

What would decentralization enable? What are the barriers or accelerators for the DWeb? What challenges would it not address? What new issues might emerge?

Chris Lewis, President & CEO of Public Knowledge, spoke about what it takes to build a shared vision for the internet, which respects the work of everyone in this fight. He talked through movement building, allyship, and the importance of collaborating with potential allies to make the gains that truly matter for broader society. Catherine and Chris joined Ross Schulman from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in a panel discussion exploring broader matters of tech policy and collaboration, moderated by the Filecoin Foundation’s Danny O’Brien.

What stood out to us the most during this camp was the sheer amount of energy and enthusiasm for building a better digital environment, where people have greater autonomy and ability to control their own presence and space.

It is now a commonplace reference that Web1 was the web we read, Web2 is the web we read and write (albeit within walled gardens), and Web3 will be the web that we read, write, and own. Engaging with those building decentralized technology, though, we question this adage. In conversations with those who have focused on decentralization for the majority of their careers, it is clear that ideally future iterations of the web should actually be less about ownership and more about sharing.

This is why the CC licenses and public domain tools have a critical role to play in the development of these new technologies. Open sharing, reuse, and remix culture had a strong presence among creators in the early days of the web, when the CC licenses were integrated into popular platforms like Google, Bing, Flickr, and YouTube. This presence was diluted by the rise of social media and personal publication platforms (a.k.a. walled gardens), which did not integrate the open sharing ethos at the outset.

During our workshop at Dweb and throughout the camp, we repeatedly identified what societal challenges might benefit from the development of decentralized technologies, but also what it may hurt or hinder. Questions of privacy, autonomy, ownership, free expression — the list goes on. What is truly being “solved” by the decentralized web, and where are these new technologies overpromising, or too blunt an instrument?  

Folks generally shared a belief that the decentralized web will give users greater control, introduce and amplify new community structures, and has the potential to thwart monopolistic tendencies. However, there is a fear among some that history will repeat itself, and the safe and exciting spaces and platforms that develop will be overtaken by commercial interests and monopolies regardless. This does seem inevitable. Some systems will get more use than others. Some platforms will win over a larger user base. But ideally, we will see enough disparate platforms develop that users feel they have choice. There is evidently a need, and desire, for more natural gathering points, like the public squares in our cities and the parks in our neighborhoods — where the space may be less crowded, fostering greater community cohesion.

❝ This is why the CC licenses and public domain tools have a critical role to play in the development of these new technologies.

One of the greatest challenges that currently faces these technologies is accessibility and the overall user experience. This is coupled with concerns around privacy. It isn’t lost on anyone that many of these emerging technologies are developing among broader societal tech pessimism, against a backdrop of cycles that oscillate between hype and scam. This gives many people pause about the potential that these technologies hold, and rightly so.

This is among the many reasons why we think it is critical to ensure that open principles are adopted in the values layer of emerging technology as they are being designed. Legal open sharing empowers both the creator and the user, bringing clarity of rights and intentions. What we definitely do not need is a re-invention of every wheel that already exists. We should be able to look back and learn a lot, not just from our more recent explosive whistleblowers, but also further still. We should also not just build in a reactionary way. It is valid to try to fight surveillance and want to take back control, but in product design we have to peel back many, many layers and avoid the knee-jerk solutions that haven’t been deeply interrogated. 

The spirit of cooperation and optimism was a continuous through-line in our conversations with folks at the camp. If we use this moment to look ahead, we should do so as well in the context of what we’ve already learned can work well.

It’s a lot like parenting. You need to give your kid a high five for putting their socks on by themselves once in a while, so that you remember that these are the positives and achievements in our day, and not merely invisible and hidden gifts that we fail to appreciate. Let’s not just focus on the fact that somehow half their food ends up outside their plate after each meal. There are already things that are working, and there is ample opportunity to reimagine and improve that which is not, but there is no sense in re-creating the positive that already exists. We’d do so at the expense of global standards, like the CC legal tools, and we’d risk hindering the core principles of interoperability, without which open source technologies (and closed source, for that matter) would not thrive.

❝ As CC continues to engage with emerging technologies … we are guided by the fact that open principles will be critical to any new development of the web, and we need to ensure that our values are heard and reflected in the spaces where people are creating knowledge and building collaboratively.

One area in particular that we should continue to explore is around the balance between free expression and content moderation — especially as it relates to user safety and privacy. We anticipate working with those who are deep in this field as we determine the best balance to ensure free and open sharing remains unhindered, that better sharing is prioritized, but that users feel safe in their digital spaces and are protected from harms insofar as is possible. A world where someone can walk down their digital street and be free of harassment, but be able to express their opinion at the same time.

As CC continues to engage with emerging technologies — like those being built across the decentralized web, artificial intelligence tools, and beyond — we are guided by the fact that open principles will be critical to any new development of the web, and we need to ensure that our values are heard and reflected in the spaces where people are creating knowledge and building collaboratively.

In the coming week, Creative Commons will be in New York for a variety of activities related to UN Global Goals week, in addition to attending Unfinished Live and the Fake Symposium. Engaging with creators, builders, academics and those who are steeped in these thorny issues is critical, as we continue to navigate the role of openness in these new spaces.

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 the 17 SDGs identify the world’s biggest challenges, enabling us all to focus where we need to ensure a better future for all. And second, that we believe addressing these challenges requires that knowledge and culture about them need to be  open and accessible to all so we can solve them. When knowledge and culture are not freely and openly available, only part of humanity is able to learn about and contribute to solutions.

Opening knowledge and culture requires not only robust legal infrastructure for sharing — like CC’s open licenses and CC0 public domain dedication — but also intentional practices to support what we call better sharing:

• Sharing that is inclusive, just and equitable — where everyone has wide opportunity to access content, to contribute their own creativity, and to receive recognition and rewards for their contributions.
• Sharing that is reciprocal — where we rebalance the skewed world we live in now in which a few produce and profit from works that the many consume.
• Sharing that is sustainable — where open participation in the public commons is the default rather than the exception.

Connect with CC in NYC During #GlobalGoalsWeek

On Friday 23 Sep, CC CEO Catherine Stihler Catherine will join Brewster Kahle, Founder & Digital Librarian at the Internet Archive and Christopher Lewis, President and CEO at Public Knowledge to lead a workshop at Unfinished Live: Want A Better World? Build A Better Internet, in an informal and intimate conversation about why they are initiating “a movement for a better internet,” and the public interest values that drive their work. Catherine is also a panelist on Tuesday, 20 Sep on Forging a More Equitable Internet hosted by the Global Blockchain Business Council as part of Blockchain Central UNGA, and is a panelist on Wednesday 21 Sep on Incorporating Principles of Sustainability in the Future of Work hosted by the Business Council for International Understanding.

Dr. Cable Green, CC’s Director of Open Knowledge will be attending UN meetings on Saturday 17 September: Effective Educational Ecosystems: Solutions for Open Digital Content (1:30–2:30pm ET livestream) and Transforming Education for Sustainable Development: Implementing the UNESCO OER Recommendation within Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships (4:30–6:30pm ET livestream). Cable will also be attending additional meetings during the week, including the Ministerial Panel Transforming education for prosperity, people and the planet, the SDSN Leadership Council session Tech Innovation for Education and Training, and The Brookings Institution symposium Promises and perils of using new technologies to access, document, and credential learning in the digital age.

Engage with CC to Open Up Your Organization with Better Sharing

We hope to connect with many people during GlobalGoalsWeek and all related events, but we know not everyone will be able to attend in person and everyone will be looking for ways to build on the energy and ideas generated by these extraordinary gatherings. We invite you to connect with CC more deeply to bring open and better sharing into your community and work.

Looking for experts to speak on Creative Commons, open tools and practices, and better sharing? CC staff and community members are available to engage with your community and bring their expertise and experience to your organization, topics, and goals. Tell us more about your event >

Need help bringing the power of openness to meet Sustainable Development Goals? CC works with organizations and governments all over the world to help them integrate tools and practices for open and better sharing into their work to meet the SDGs. Start a conversation with CC >

Is your organization part of the Creative Commons Global Network? Join over 60 organizations from around the world who are dedicated to building the open commons and promoting better sharing in knowledge and culture. Contact us to learn more about our global network >

Want to build your expertise in open practices? The CC Certificate program offers in-depth courses about CC licenses, open practices, and the ethos of sharing in our global, digital commons in three tracks: for educators, for academic librarians, and for professionals working in open culture and GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museums). Certificate cohorts start on a rolling basis >

Creative Commons CEO Catherine Stihler welcomed the EU’s publication today of its Media Freedom Act.

Catherine said: “An independent, plural media is central to a healthy, functioning democratic system which in turn is the bedrock for citizens’ trust and confidence in politics and values. Creative Commons applauds the EU in its efforts to protect journalists from intimidation and to safeguard the independence of the editorial processes.

“As we explored in our Open Journalism series this year, nonprofit and public service media have a critical role to play in ensuring better sharing of information in the public interest, and we are grateful that the proposal focuses on the importance of a strong, independent public service media sector.

“In an ever more digitalized world, the protection of online content is vitally important. We welcome and support efforts to counter mis- and dis-information and will look in detail at the legal text in order to ensure that the provisions included on this are fit for purpose and do not, unintentionally, inhibit or restrict creativity and better sharing in the public interest.

“With that in mind, we do have concerns about provisions that could create loopholes for purveyors of harmful misinformation and undermine media pluralism. Under Article 17, large online platforms would be expected to give special, advance notice and consideration to media providers when it comes to removal or restriction of their content. Many groups (including Creative Commons) raised concerns about these same concepts when they were proposed and rejected as part of the debates over the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, in particular because they could require platforms to carry and give prominence to harmful content simply because an entity claims to be a media provider. Moreover, because large publishers are most likely to have the resources to engage with companies and regulators on enforcement of these tools, this provision may tilt the competitive playing field in their favor, cutting against the pluralistic goals of the Act to support publishers of every size. The Digital Services Act already provides opportunities for anyone to seek redress from a platform, and it is premature to reconsider the balance struck there.

“We will look in more detail at the legal texts and look forward to constructively contributing to the process as the EU develops this important framework. With war on the European continent, it is now more than ever obvious that urgent action needs to be taken to defend our values — media freedom is an essential part of that.

“In fact, around the globe, media freedom is in great peril. In March 2022, UNESCO published an alarming report titled World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development, which shows that 85% of the world population experienced a decline in press freedom in their country over the past five years. Guided by our organizational value of global inclusivity, Creative Commons will continue to uphold universal freedoms and the free flow of ideas for a free and democratic world.”

(updated May 2024 with new link)

Come join CC’s legal team for open office hours. Everyone is invited to meet with General Counsel Kat Walsh and Counsel Yuanxiao Xu to discuss legal issues related to CC licenses, CC0, and open sharing in general.

We’ll start off with a few minutes talking about CC and some current topics and then open the floor for anything you’d like to chat about. As usual, CC will not be able to offer specific legal advice.

This is a casual conversation session, and there is no formal presentation — what we talk about is entirely up to you. We want to hear the questions that our FAQs have never really answered, what you’d like to see CC doing, the interesting resources you’ve found, the issues that you’re seeing as you try to share and reuse works, how you’re using and interacting with CC licenses and legal tools, and more. Or just a chat to get to know more of you in the CC community!

Stay tuned for the updated Legal Office Hours schedule for 2026!

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 members’ experience with the Platform, we recently asked a few of them to complete this sentence: “The CC Open Culture platform has been an opportunity for me to…” Here’s what they answered.

“… work on critical cultural heritage issues together with a knowledgeable international community and get support and expertise in the setup of intangible heritage documentation projects in the Balkans.”
— Mariana Ziku, Greece

“… connect with a diverse community of open knowledge enthusiasts and to deepen my knowledge and understanding of the Creative Commons licenses and the open movement community in general.”
— Sadik Shahadu, Ghana

“… keep up to date with the open culture movement and contribute my expertise to other members of the group.”
— Maarten Zeinstra, Netherlands

“… learn about practices across countries and institutions that I would otherwise not come across, and meet potential allies for collaborating in the development of future policy efforts.”
— Ariadna Matas, France

“… engage with likeminded people from different parts of the world, and improve my understanding of cultural heritage outside of a formal education system. It has equipped me with advocacy skills in working with GLAM institutions and professionals in Nigeria.”
— Isaac Oloruntimilehin, Nigeria

“… explore new ideas and learn from people across the globe.”
— Jesse Carson, Canada

“… meet people with relevant experiences and interests to discuss a specific matter and learn a lot.”
— Tomoaki Watanabe, Japan

“… meet people from all over the world who are generous with their time, knowledge and experiences, and improve my cross-cultural communication skills.”
— Revekka Kefalea, Greece

“… share my ideas and experience in international copyright law and open my views based on the ideas and experience from other participants.”
— Deborah De Angelis, Italy

Do you also want to get involved? Don’t hesitate!

• Become a member of the CC Open Culture Platform
• Sign up to the CC Open Culture mailing list
• Join our Open Culture working groups
• Join the #cc-openglam Slack channel
• Participate in CC Open Culture Platform calls — they are announced in the Slack channel and on the mailing list

Unless you’ve been avoiding the internet entirely, you’ve probably heard about people buying and selling non-fungible tokens — or NFTs — unique data tokens that link to digital files, including artworks and other types of copyrightable works.

CC has been following how people are creating and trading NFTs, and how the marketplace of creative works is transforming. We keep seeing NFTs linked to works published with CC’s open licenses or the CC0 public domain dedication — so often that CC0 NFTs have their own hashtag: #cc0summer. We know that there are many in the CC community trying to figure out how CC tools interact with NFTs — as are many others who are hearing about CC for the first time as they explore NFTs.

While we always welcome contributions to the public commons, we want to ensure everyone understands how these new tools and practices might align with our legal tools and the global open commons that CC legal tools enable. Having spoken with some NFT artists and platform team members, we know there is widespread misunderstanding about what a CC license or CC0 dedication means. When a CC license or CC0 is used to share a work, the rights to reuse that work are widely or completely shared, with limited or no rights reserved.

To help clarify how NFTs are already leveraging CC legal tools, we have added a new section to our FAQ on using CC licenses and the CC0 public domain dedication with NFTs. This FAQ is intended to provide basic guidance for those who are already using NFTs and want to know how to use CC licenses and legal tools with NFT projects. We will continue to update our FAQ as our understanding and interpretation develops.

CC’s licenses and legal tools are intentionally general-purpose: we designed them to be applicable to a wide variety of contexts and works. While some may believe NFTs are a special case that call for new copyright licenses, we believe CC licenses and CC0 work well to contribute works to the public commons when used with NFTs. NFTs may introduce new relationships around who holds the rights to related works and how such rights are transferred as NFTs change hands, but those are contractual questions best handled outside open licenses or a release to the public domain.

If your creative work is linked to an NFT, you may apply one of the existing CC licenses or CC0 to let others know how they may share and reuse your work, separate from the ownership of a related token. And where this is used with intention, there are many possibilities for vibrant sharing and reuse where these works are in the public commons, with the ownership of the rights completely removed from the ownership of the token.

We are aware of other efforts in the space, including some that say they are inspired by CC’s work but are incompatible with the material already available in the commons. (In particular, some of the licenses recently produced by a16z, which claim direct inspiration but were not developed in consultation with CC.) While the approach may be similar, the effect is different: the terms of most of these licenses are incompatible with the CC licenses and with most other free and open content licenses; users of these terms will find that their works are remixable only within the narrow space of others using the same terms, rather than the much broader spectrum of works using the CC licenses and compatible licenses. This is not true of all other licensing efforts: some simply add terms about the sale and transfer of the token as an addition to a CC license or public domain release.

NFTs, and the distributed web movement they are a part of, are new and still evolving. NFTs are also hotly debated. We know many in the CC community embrace NFTs as a new way to support and enable creators. Many others offer strong and convincing criticism. Whatever your opinions about NFTs, CC licenses and the CC0 dedication are being used widely in conjunction with NFTs and works they reference. CC has a responsibility to our mission and our community to clarify how our work connects to these emerging tools and practices. At CC we are watching closely, focused on how NFTs may help or hinder better sharing: sharing that is inclusive, just and equitable — where everyone has wide opportunity to access content, to contribute their own creativity, and to receive recognition and rewards for their contributions.

Please read and share the more detailed discussion in our FAQ.