Today, Creative Commons announced the launch of a research study that will explore differences between commercial and noncommercial uses of content. The study will explore how the definitions of “commercial use” and “noncommercial use” are understood among various communities and in connection with a wide variety of content.

“The study has direct relevance to Creative Commons’ mission of providing free, flexible copyright licenses that are easy to understand and simple to use,” said Creative Commons CEO Joi Ito. “The NC term is a popular option for creators choosing a Creative Commons license, and that tells us the term meets a need. However, as exponentially increasing numbers of works are made available under CC licenses, we want to provide additional information for creators about the contexts in which the NC term may further or impede their intentions with respect to the works they choose to share, and we want to make sure that users clearly understand those intentions. We expect the study findings will help us do a better job of explaining the licenses and to improve them, where possible. We also hope the findings, which will be made publicly available, will contribute to better understanding of some of the complexities of digital distribution of content.”

You can read more about this news in the press release CC issued this morning.

Thank you to The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for its generous support of this study.

Today, Creative Commons announced the launch of a research study that will explore differences between commercial and noncommercial uses of content. The study will explore how the definitions of “commercial use” and “noncommercial use” are understood among various communities and in connection with a wide variety of content.

“The study has direct relevance to Creative Commons’ mission of providing free, flexible copyright licenses that are easy to understand and simple to use,” said Creative Commons CEO Joi Ito. “The NC term is a popular option for creators choosing a Creative Commons license, and that tells us the term meets a need. However, as exponentially increasing numbers of works are made available under CC licenses, we want to provide additional information for creators about the contexts in which the NC term may further or impede their intentions with respect to the works they choose to share, and we want to make sure that users clearly understand those intentions. We expect the study findings will help us do a better job of explaining the licenses and to improve them, where possible. We also hope the findings, which will be made publicly available, will contribute to better understanding of some of the complexities of digital distribution of content.”

You can read more about this news in the press release CC issued this morning.

Thank you to The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for its generous support of this study.

San Francisco, California, USA — September 18, 2008

The nonprofit organization Creative Commons has launched a research study that will explore differences between commercial and noncommercial uses of content, as those uses are understood among various communities and in connection with a wide variety of content. Generous support for the study has been provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Creative Commons provides free copyright licenses to creators who want to give the public certain permissions to use their works, in advance and without the need for one-to-one contact between the user and the creator. “Noncommercial” or “NC” is one of four different license terms that creators may choose to apply to their Creative Commons-licensed content. Works distributed under a Creative Commons license including the NC term may be used by anyone for any purpose that is not “primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation,” provided the use also complies with the other terms of the license. Works distributed under a Creative Commons license without the NC term may additionally be used for commercial purposes, an option that promotes creative reuse in a broader range of contexts.

“The study has direct relevance to Creative Commons’ mission of providing free, flexible copyright licenses that are easy to understand and simple to use,” said Creative Commons CEO Joi Ito. “The NC term is a popular option for creators choosing a Creative Commons license, and that tells us the term meets a need. However, as exponentially increasing numbers of works are made available under CC licenses, we want to provide additional information for creators about the contexts in which the NC term may further or impede their intentions with respect to the works they choose to share, and we want to make sure that users clearly understand those intentions. We expect the study findings will help us do a better job of explaining the licenses and to improve them, where possible. We also hope the findings, which will be made publicly available, will contribute to better understanding of some of the complexities of digital distribution of content.”

“Developments in technology, social practices, and business models are pressing the question of what should count as a commercial use,” explained Creative Commons Special Counsel Virginia Rutledge, who is leading the study. “The answer to that question should come from creators, who should be able to specify what uses they want to permit, subject to the limitations and exceptions to copyright or other applicable law. Creative Commons is fortunate to have a stellar group of legal, public policy, and information technology experts advising on this project, as well as the help of its extensive international network of affiliates.”

Research is expected to be completed early in 2009. The study will investigate understanding of noncommercial use and the Creative Commons NC license term through a random sample survey of online content creators in the U.S., a poll of the global Creative Commons community, and qualitative data gathered from interviews with thought leaders and focus groups with participants from around the world who create and use a wide variety of content and media.

Advisors on the project include distinguished academicians Christine L. Borgman, Ph.D., Professor and Presidential Chair in Information Studies, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles; William H. Dutton, Ph.D., Director of the Oxford Internet Institute, Professor of Internet Studies, University of Oxford, Fellow of Balliol College; Deborah R. Hensler, Ph.D., Judge John W. Ford Professor of Dispute Resolution and Associate Dean, Graduate Studies, Stanford Law School; and Daniel E. Ho, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Law and Robert E. Paradise Faculty Fellow for Excellence in Teaching and Research, Stanford Law School.

Research will be conducted by market research firm Netpop Research, LLC. “The potential impact of this study is profound, given the number of creators turning to the Web to distribute and share their works,” said Josh Crandall, managing director of Netpop Research. “We are excited to be a part of it.”

Since Creative Commons licenses were introduced in 2002, they have been translated into 47 legal jurisdictions and adopted by content creators around the globe, from remix musicians to educator consortia, bloggers to book publishers. At present over 130 million works are available on the Internet under Creative Commons licenses, each work tagged with metadata expressing the rights and permissions associated with it. This wealth of pre-cleared material is locatable through functionality built into major search engines Google and Yahoo!, as well as through the Creative Commons website and many online content providers and services.

About Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a not-for-profit organization, founded in 2001, that promotes the creative re-use of intellectual and artistic works, whether owned or in the public domain. Through its free copyright licenses, Creative Commons offers authors, artists, scientists and educators the choice of a flexible range of protections and freedoms that build upon the “all rights reserved” concept of traditional copyright to enable a voluntary “some rights reserved” approach. Creative Commons was built with and is sustained by the generous support of organizations including the Center for the Public Domain, Omidyar Network, The Rockefeller Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, as well as members of the public. For more information about Creative Commons, visit https://creativecommons.org.

About Netpop Research, LLC

Netpop Research, LLC is a San Francisco-based strategic market research firm that specializes in online media, digital entertainment and user-generated content trends. Netpop Research has fielded numerous studies for major profit and nonprofit entities, and is the creator of the Netpop tracking study of Internet usage among broadband consumers in the United States and China.

Contact

Virginia Rutledge
Special Counsel, Creative Commons
virginia at creativecommons dot org

Press Kit

San Francisco, California, USA — September 18, 2008

The nonprofit organization Creative Commons has launched a research study that will explore differences between commercial and noncommercial uses of content, as those uses are understood among various communities and in connection with a wide variety of content. Generous support for the study has been provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Creative Commons provides free copyright licenses to creators who want to give the public certain permissions to use their works, in advance and without the need for one-to-one contact between the user and the creator. “Noncommercial” or “NC” is one of four different license terms that creators may choose to apply to their Creative Commons-licensed content. Works distributed under a Creative Commons license including the NC term may be used by anyone for any purpose that is not “primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation,” provided the use also complies with the other terms of the license. Works distributed under a Creative Commons license without the NC term may additionally be used for commercial purposes, an option that promotes creative reuse in a broader range of contexts.

“The study has direct relevance to Creative Commons’ mission of providing free, flexible copyright licenses that are easy to understand and simple to use,” said Creative Commons CEO Joi Ito. “The NC term is a popular option for creators choosing a Creative Commons license, and that tells us the term meets a need. However, as exponentially increasing numbers of works are made available under CC licenses, we want to provide additional information for creators about the contexts in which the NC term may further or impede their intentions with respect to the works they choose to share, and we want to make sure that users clearly understand those intentions. We expect the study findings will help us do a better job of explaining the licenses and to improve them, where possible. We also hope the findings, which will be made publicly available, will contribute to better understanding of some of the complexities of digital distribution of content.”

“Developments in technology, social practices, and business models are pressing the question of what should count as a commercial use,” explained Creative Commons Special Counsel Virginia Rutledge, who is leading the study. “The answer to that question should come from creators, who should be able to specify what uses they want to permit, subject to the limitations and exceptions to copyright or other applicable law. Creative Commons is fortunate to have a stellar group of legal, public policy, and information technology experts advising on this project, as well as the help of its extensive international network of affiliates.”

Research is expected to be completed early in 2009. The study will investigate understanding of noncommercial use and the Creative Commons NC license term through a random sample survey of online content creators in the U.S., a poll of the global Creative Commons community, and qualitative data gathered from interviews with thought leaders and focus groups with participants from around the world who create and use a wide variety of content and media.

Advisors on the project include distinguished academicians Christine L. Borgman, Ph.D., Professor and Presidential Chair in Information Studies, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles; William H. Dutton, Ph.D., Director of the Oxford Internet Institute, Professor of Internet Studies, University of Oxford, Fellow of Balliol College; Deborah R. Hensler, Ph.D., Judge John W. Ford Professor of Dispute Resolution and Associate Dean, Graduate Studies, Stanford Law School; and Daniel E. Ho, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Law and Robert E. Paradise Faculty Fellow for Excellence in Teaching and Research, Stanford Law School.

Research will be conducted by market research firm Netpop Research, LLC. “The potential impact of this study is profound, given the number of creators turning to the Web to distribute and share their works,” said Josh Crandall, managing director of Netpop Research. “We are excited to be a part of it.”

Since Creative Commons licenses were introduced in 2002, they have been translated into 47 legal jurisdictions and adopted by content creators around the globe, from remix musicians to educator consortia, bloggers to book publishers. At present over 130 million works are available on the Internet under Creative Commons licenses, each work tagged with metadata expressing the rights and permissions associated with it. This wealth of pre-cleared material is locatable through functionality built into major search engines Google and Yahoo!, as well as through the Creative Commons website and many online content providers and services.

About Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a not-for-profit organization, founded in 2001, that promotes the creative re-use of intellectual and artistic works, whether owned or in the public domain. Through its free copyright licenses, Creative Commons offers authors, artists, scientists and educators the choice of a flexible range of protections and freedoms that build upon the “all rights reserved” concept of traditional copyright to enable a voluntary “some rights reserved” approach. Creative Commons was built with and is sustained by the generous support of organizations including the Center for the Public Domain, Omidyar Network, The Rockefeller Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, as well as members of the public. For more information about Creative Commons, visit https://creativecommons.org.

About Netpop Research, LLC

Netpop Research, LLC is a San Francisco-based strategic market research firm that specializes in online media, digital entertainment and user-generated content trends. Netpop Research has fielded numerous studies for major profit and nonprofit entities, and is the creator of the Netpop tracking study of Internet usage among broadband consumers in the United States and China.

Contact

Virginia Rutledge
Special Counsel, Creative Commons
virginia at creativecommons dot org

Press Kit

is the new publication by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and MIT Press exploring “the potential of open education to transform the economics and ecology of education.” Opening Up Education: The Collective Advancement of Education through Open Technology, Open Content, and Open Knowledge is a collection of thirty essays written by leaders in the open education movement. From the press release:

“[They] reflect on current and past open education initiatives, offer critical analyses, share the strategic underpinnings of their own work, and delve into open education’s implications in three areas: technology, content, and knowledge. Together, they address the central question of how open education can improve the quality of education.”

Co-editor M. S. Vijay Kumar is also quoted:

“A look at the landscape tells us that efforts with open education so far have been largely confined to attempts at improving what we already do. While this is certainly valid, we encourage consideration of approaches that transcend traditional practices, organizations, disciplines and audiences.” 

John Seely Brown agrees in his Foreword, “We need to reconceptualize twentieth-century education models, and at the same time reinforce learning outside of formal schooling. This book provides real leverage for open education, and is a major step toward creating a culture of learning for this century.”

The book is also edited by Toru Iiyoshi and is available for download at MIT Press under CC BY-NC-ND.

Emulating MIT and a host of other OCW institutions, the Stanford School of Engineering has jumped on the OER bandwagon by releasing ten of its courses online in multiple formats. The pilot open courseware portal, known as Stanford Engineering Everywhere (SEE), is Stanford’s first move towards offering full-length course videos and other materials online for free and open use. SEE’s current ten course offerings consist of “instruction videos, reading lists and materials and class assignments” in three subject areas: computer science, artificial intelligence, and linear systems and optimization.

All course materials are open for re-use under CC BY-NC-SA. The general site content on Stanford Engineering Everywhere is licensed CC BY.

The 100 Second Film Festival is “a collection of short videos presented to an audience in person or through the medium of cable television or the Internet” with the only requirements being that the films are 100 seconds long and are released under a CC BY-NC-SA license. This allows the film festivals – the screenings are decentralized – to pool past submissions as well as new ones for their lineup. Whoever is curating a specific festival can put together the lineup in any fashion they see fit, although ideally, each screening will contain at least a few works produced by the local audience where the screening is held.

This year’s call for entries was just announced, with the deadline to submit a short extended to Dec 15th, 2008. From 100SFF:

The 100 Second Film Festival is an unique yet accessible universal collaboration. Launched in 2005, this evolving anthology of videos embraces the raw creativity from producers of all skill levels and backgrounds, encouraging them to submit their best work. Works from all genres are welcome
adhering to the common constraint of 100 seconds or less in duration.

We’re not quite sure what is in the water down under, but more great news keeps piling in from our friends at CCau – on 29 September the Sydney Arts Management Advisory Group (SAMAG) are running a seminar entitled “Copyleft or Copyright: Alternative licensing models in the digital era: promotion or protection” which promises to “explore[] how the landscape has changed since the analogue era and what this means for the creators of copyright.”

Delia Browne will be presenting on behalf of CCau, along with David Noakes from the Film Finance Corporation (FFC) and Scot Morris from the Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA). Details below:

When: 6pm – 8pm, Monday 29 September 2008
Where: Australia Council: 372 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills
How: RSVP by 9/25 to Janelle Prescott – info AT samag DOT org – or (02) 8250 5722 (msg only)
Cost: FREE ENTRY for 2008 SAMAG Members / $10 for non-members / $5 for students

Digital Fringe, a program that will be taking place during the 2008 Melbourne Film Festival, recentlly issued a call for material to screen during this year’s program. Taking place between the 9/24 – 10/12, the material will vary in form and content with DF broadcasting the submissions anywhere and everywhere – from public screens to TVs in shop windows to the web. From CCau:

Run out of the experimental media bar, Horse Bazaar (one of my favourite places in Melbourne – check out the men’s toilets!), Digital Fringe showcases the work of emerging and established new media artists on hundreds of screens across Victoria. Contributions can be from anywhere in the world and can be in any form, from works by professional artists to kindergarten multimedia projects and everything in between. You provide the material, they provide the novel environment – whether it be a bar, a gallery, a wall or even a mobile phone. They even have a Mobile Projection Unit, which moves around Melbourne from dusk, projecting onto buildings and structures and interacting with the citylife and local goings on.

And our favourite bit (as always) – the copyright. All artists retain full copyright in their works, and are free to license them however they like, from all rights reserved to public domain. However, in the spirit or sharing and experimentation, Digital Fringe encourages the use of Creative Commons licences.

I’m about to head over to the first day of the Web 2.0 Expo in New York City. Creative Commons has a booth in the non-profit pavilion, so if you are at the conference and you’d like some swag (including some of the highly sought after CC vinyl stickers) or just want to say ‘Hi’, don’t hesitate to drop by!