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Celebrating the Public Domain in the Capital of Europe

by Connor Benedict, Brigitte Vézina Open Culture post
Atomium in Brussels, photographed from below, in front of a clear blue sky. Prize winner of the Wikimedia Belgium Wiki Loves Monuments Photo Contest in 2023. Close-up of the Brussels' Atomium on a clear day By Geertivp, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Close-up_of_the_Brussels%27_Atomium_on_a_clear_day_(cropped).jpg

Last week, Creative Commons took part in the International Public Domain Day celebration at the Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels. Two engaging roundtables were hosted, delving into copyright issues concerning the public domain and its future. The event united advocates for open access to cultural heritage, featuring presentations on topics like the monetization and decolonization of the public domain, as well as updates on the Europeana Public Domain Charter. Creative Commons introduced new guidelines published in February aimed at encouraging users to reference institutions when utilizing public domain cultural heritage materials.

Zack Krida

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Zack worked on CC Search and moved to Openverse when the project migrated to the WordPress community in 2021. Through his work Zack aims to improve the discoverability and abundance of openly licensed digital content. He hopes his work in open-source technology can play a role in broader initiatives to create an open, more equitable…

Marlena Reimer

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Marlena oversees CC’s fundraising efforts. Prior to joining Creative Commons, she took on a range of program and fundraising roles in arts, storytelling, education and youth based nonprofit organizations. She is also a lover of creative reuse. Her most recent project is focused on making artisanal soap out of recycled cooking oil. Image Credit: “key…

Bilal Randeree

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Bilal Randeree is a digital media practitioner, investor and strategist. He currently serves as the Director for Africa/MENA at the Media Development Investment Fund, a mission-driven investment fund providing debt and equity financing to independent news and information companies. MDIF operates in countries across Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America where a free and…

Exploring Preference Signals for AI Training

by Catherine Stihler Better Internet, Open Culture, Technology post
Close up photo of three round metal signs lying haphazardly on a stony path, each with a big white arrow pointing in a different direction, embossed on a greenish-blue background. "Choices" by Derek Bruff, here cropped, licensed via CC BY-NC 2.0.

One of the motivations for founding Creative Commons (CC) was offering more choices for people who wish to share their works openly. Through engagement with a wide variety of stakeholders, we heard frustrations with the “all or nothing” choices they seemed to face with copyright. Instead they wanted to let the public share and reuse…

Surveying the Open Climate Data Landscape

by Taylor Campbell, Cable Green Open Climate, Open Data post
A satellite image of the Volga River delta at the Caspian Sea, showing scattered white ice floating in greenish water around patches of brownish land. “Volga River. Caspian Sea (7-03-2023)” by Miguel Masegosa is licensed via CC BY 2.0 and contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2023 processed by Sentinel Hub.

At CC we believe that to solve big problems, the knowledge and culture about those problems needs to be open and freely accessible. In line with our Open Climate Campaign, which focuses on opening up climate research, we recently launched the Open Climate Data project, to facilitate better sharing of climate data on a global…