MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA – The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recently allocated $1M to Creative Commons (CC) in honor of CC’s 20th Anniversary. This three-year, general operating support will help foster CC’s commitment to Better Sharing by addressing equity gaps and unequal balances of power in the open ecosystem.

The internet has global ownership with people sharing more information and ideas than ever before; but not all sharing supports equity and the public’s best interests. Better Sharing involves a concerted effort and dedication to building a globally produced, open commons of knowledge, data, culture, and innovation that is universally applicable and accessible.

“We are committed to building a world where everyone, everywhere, has access to free and open knowledge,” says Catherine Stihler, CC chief executive officer. “For us, this means doubling down on our efforts to ensure open access and better sharing for all – not only those with privilege. It also means launching new ventures in Open Science to remove unnecessary barriers to addressing public health crises and the climate emergency, driving comprehensive equitable solutions.”

For the last 20 years, CC has been at the forefront of the digital commons, prioritizing equity in our foundational projects, spanning license stewardship and infrastructure, cultural heritage, education, science, policy, and expanding the global open community. Through CC’s signature licenses, creators have shared over 2 billion works of art, images, texts, research, textbooks, and 3-D models. This global copyright standard empowers people, institutions, and systems to share information openly to advance education, equity, and creativity worldwide. 

To ensure inclusively, sustained progress of Better Sharing, CC will strengthen the CC licenses with a focus on technical infrastructure, legal robustness, accessibility features, and supporting materials. This includes refining open tools and learning materials to strengthen collaborations and community-led solutions, improve knowledge, provide benefits, solve global challenges, promote the public good, and address systemic disparities and biases. 

 

About the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation:
Support for Better Sharing is provided, in part, by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is committed to improving health and health equity in the United States. In partnership with others, we are working to develop a Culture of Health rooted in equity that provides every individual with a fair and just opportunity to thrive, no matter who they are, where they live, or how much money they have. For more information, visit www.rwjf.org.

About Creative Commons:
Creative Commons is a global nonprofit organization that enables sharing and reuse of creativity and knowledge through the provision of free legal tools. Our legal tools help those who want to encourage reuse of their works by offering them for use under generous, standardized terms; those who want to make creative uses of works; and those who want to benefit from this symbiosis. Our vision is to help others realize the full potential of the internet. CC has affiliates all over the world who help ensure our licenses work internationally, and who raise awareness of our work. Learn more at www.creativecommons.org.

 

See our article introducing this series.

This article is part of a series of five articles detailing breakout sessions from the 2021 Creative Commons (CC) Global Summit related to imagining a Better Internet. Throughout 2021, community partners interested in building a “better internet” have been coming together for conversations. Some partners joined as an opportunity to mark the 10th anniversary of the US-based fight to defeat the legislation known as SOPA/PIPA. 

INTRODUCTION

During the 2021 Creative Commons (CC) Global Summit, organizations, activists, advocates, librarians, educators, lawyers, technologists, and others participated in workshops on “creating a better internet.” During the breakout conversation on “Access to Information and Knowledge,” participants discussed problems, generated ideas, and formulated solutions about re-imagining the internet. 

VISION FOR THE FUTURE

In 2003, The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities issued an international statement about open access and access to knowledge, “the mission of disseminating knowledge is only half complete if the information is not made widely and readily available to society”. This ideal holds true today.

The emerging vision for access to information and knowledge, in all disciplines, includes free, equitable, openly licensed, and trusted information that serves the public’s interests. 

Benefits: Open access to information and knowledge (as opposed to closed, subscription, paid access, or censored access) is vital for solving the world’s biggest challenges through increased readership, wider collaboration, and faster results for institutions, researchers, nations, and citizens. It strengthens the valorization of knowledge and could be a critical step in advancing UNESCO’s sustainable development goals. 

In order to reach this vision, a number of critical barriers were discussed during the workshop. 

BARRIERS TO OVERCOME

In 1984, Stewart Brand said, “Information Wants To Be Free. Information also wants to be expensive. Information wants to be free because it has become so cheap to distribute, copy, and recombine—too cheap to meter. It wants to be expensive because it can be immeasurably valuable to the recipient. That tension will not go away. It leads to endless wrenching debate about price, copyright, ‘intellectual property’, the moral rightness of casual distribution, because each round of new devices makes the tension worse, not better.”

As you can see, the balancing act between social impact and profit is not new; however, today cultural shifts are happening. Purpose-driven consumers support and are demanding business models to change for the betterment of society. COVID-19 accelerated this shift as more and more companies are creating social impact statements and delivering tangible action on those statements. Why can’t that be the case for the dissemination of information?

Publication Business Model: In a print-on-paper business model, journals sold through subscriptions were a way to recoup cost. Only those who could afford to pay the charges were able to read the articles. The internet changed the cost of distribution, but not necessarily the model. Research findings could be freely shared without printing costs. Publicly-funded research should be freely accessible so that society can benefit from the results. 

Most journal publishers, not the authors, own the copyright to the articles in their journals as authors must transfer their rights. The status of publication and peer review is an incentive for many authors. This is an old business model. 

For libraries, educational institutions and other organizations, they must negotiate with publishers to share paywalled research with their stakeholders. Even then, in many cases the article cannot be reused or built upon by researchers, students, or taxpayers without permission, and often more fees, from the publisher.

Great strides have been made in terms of access to research with publishers adopting open licensing options, but often the cost of the publication then falls to the author or their home institution, shifting the burden of the cost, allowing the publisher to retain their margins. This is a known challenge and Creative Commons anticipates further conversations in the coming year exploring these tensions of open access.

Digital Divide: The digital divide is the gap between demographics and regions that have access to information and technology and those that have restricted access based on region or barriers. This unequal equity divide can be based on education, income, geography, language, and internet access. In 2021, nearly 37% of the world’s population had never used the internet (source: United Nations 11.20.21). While open and freely distributed access to information and technology would help close the divide, it doesn’t solve all of the problems with equity. 

Permissions: Copyright can unreasonably restrict a user’s access to content and doesn’t have to be a barrier to open access if the copyright holder gives consent through Creative Commons licenses. These “some rights reserved” permissions, that focus on the end-user and their ability to access copyright material, empowers the content holder and elevates the public interest impact of access. This also safeguards public institutions which promote the preservation of and public access to information, knowledge, and culture; but as those in the open movement know all too well, great swaths of human history, culture, and knowledge still remain locked away despite already being in the public domain.

Trusted Information: Today’s internet is rife with concerns about privacy, confidentiality, violence, misinformation, bias, excessive profit and polarization. There are ideological and competing differences between autocracies and democracies. While global connectivity accelerates the benefits of sharing information and knowledge, it has also created problems that have harmed citizens. Misinformation was one of the topics discussed during the workshops and the outcomes of those discussions will be explored in-depth in a separate article.

Censorship was not comprehensively discussed during the breakout session, but Creative Commons plans to explore this topic in depth during future workshops. 

In order to make progress towards better access to information and knowledge, here are some action steps to realizing an affirmative vision. As mentioned before, this is not a comprehensive list but highlights from the workshop conversations.

REALIZING THE VISION

The vision of access to information and knowledge includes the free, equitable, openly licensed, and trusted information that serves the public’s interests. How can we get there? 

Better access to information and knowledge prioritizes policy and advocacy, an ethical cultural shift, and public interest commons.

The overarching, guiding principle of all work focuses on what best serves the public’s interests and clarifies the use of the internet to preserve the benefits and limit, or eliminate, the harms we as a society have allowed to grow online. 

Policy and Advocacy: Policy and advocacy should focus on what is best for public interest. This work for a better internet can include: open access licensing, progressive intellectual property law reform, access regulations, digital divide, helping UNESCO’s members implement Open Education and Open Science recommendations, freedom of expression, and access to affordable communications tools and creative works, to name a few that were mentioned during the workshops. Creative Commons anticipates organizing and discovering many more policy and advocacy priorities as discussion around a better internet continues.

Open Internet for Democracy: The internet is an information domain, and supporting an open and accessible internet is fundamental to the success of democratic societies. Digital spaces should serve the public’s interest. In order to get there, all sectors of society, including governments, the tech industry, publishers, and civil society, should focus on trusted information, ethics, privacy and transparency that value people over profit. Accurate, fair, and trusted information should be digital age norms and considered as an essential service. Truth is knowable and citizens should be able to access information in a language they can consume and discern sources.

Global access, accurate news, and fact-based public information spaces could help inform citizens, strengthen democratic self-governance, close the digital divide, and help address the world’s problems. More discussion took place on the topic of misinformation, which touched on a lot of these, and will be explored in a future article. Access to information and access to accurate information are two different but related challenges.

CONCLUSION

A recurring point that emerged during the workshop was a desire for a public interest commons that supersedes commercial interests. Aspiring, constructing, and reinforcing better access to information and knowledge, to solve social and community challenges, will require prioritizing democratic self-governance, public good, innovative technological solutions, education, advocacy, and policy work. To reach this goal, it is important to educate others, including policymakers, publishers, authors, and creators, so they have a better understanding of open source licensing, and how better sharing of information, knowledge and culture is in the public’s best interest to advance society. This includes using shared language and translations, without legalese, so that all citizens have equal opportunities to learn and contribute. 

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APPENDIX

The following is a consolidation of comments made during the 2021 CC Global Summit breakout session, Access to Information and Knowledge. If you would like to add your thoughts and participate in the conversation, use #BetterInternet on social media.

PROMPT

“I will know we have achieved a better internet with regard to Access to Information if/when…”

Barriers Locate Info.  Cost	There are no barriers to finding the information you want to find. If it existed, it’s available for you to read/listen to/watch/otherwise consume without cost.  Individual interest can’t impede legitimate access to information.  There are no more funding battles concerning libraries and their future in supporting a better internet. We do not constantly hit paywalls if we look for scientific information.
Digital Divide Equity Gov Regulation	Where you live doesn’t limit your ability to access information.  Everyone/everywhere across the world has easy access to information.   High quality information is available in a language that most people can understand and process. Governments don’t use legal means to restrict internet access for their own ends.
Education Open Licensing	Developers, researchers, others, have a better understanding of open source licensing. All information is accessible through a CC licenses. All information about and resources to solve the United Nations (UNSCO) Sustained Development Goals is openly licensed and freely available to the public.
Public Interest	We have open platform that enable smooth access but also re-purposing content – at the same time we have effective social control (no spam, no threats, no discrimination). Information is accountable to people. When publicly available information can be accessed without license or tracking. We no longer need freedom of information rules. Governments don’t use legal means to restrict internet access for their own ends. Regulations are set up to protect individuals and not to restrict access.
Publicly Funded = OPEN	All publicly funded education resources are openly licensed (CC BY).  All publicly funded research is openly licensed (CC BY on articles, 0 embargo, CC0 on data).  Publicly funded pharmaceuticals have open patents and are freely available.
Trusted Information	Every user has a known toolkit of trusted tools that they can trust to find the knowledge they want, and understand why, where, and the context of the information they’re given.  High quality (trusted) information is freely available and effectively support equal rights for education.

PROMPT

I/We are working to realize a better internet with regard to Access to Information by doing X to achieve Z.

Open Source Licenses Public Domain	Ensuring information is not locked away by law (ex: copyright) or technology (ex: 1201-empowered software).  Using openly licensed content to achieve free no barrier access to research and information.   Campaigning for the public domain to achieve a commons for all.  Removing proprietary ownership to achieve access for everyone everywhere.
Cost and publisher model	Contesting actions by publishers to propertize public information and academic research.
Policy: Work with governments Education	By helping UNESCO’s members (national governments) implement its Recommendations on Open Education and Open Science.  Ensuring that policymakers understand and believe in the importance of access to information.  Pushing back on overreaching/oversimplified information regulation.
Public Interest  and Equity and Inclusivity	Understanding how to better share to achieve freeing of knowledge and culture for the public good and in the public interest. Providing factual, trustworthy information in a language that people without university degree can understand is essential to achieve wisdom, democracy, and equal opportunities. Sharing more to achieve a more inclusive net.
Intermediary Protection	Ensuring that services and people can help provide information/facilitate information sharing/host information/etc.

 

On January 1, 2022, and throughout the month of January, Creative Commons (CC) is celebrating Public Domain Day, welcoming copyright works into the public domain, where they become freely available for the public to use, reuse and modify. 

As part of our Open Culture / GLAM program’s celebration of Public Domain Day, we are reaching out to practitioners and experts working in galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAMs) to help create a clearer picture of the use of CCs’ public domain tools, CC0 and the Public Domain Mark (PDM). To do so, we are collecting information on understandings, issues, needs, wishes and expectations via a short survey in English, French and Spanish. 

?  Take our survey in English.
?  Répondez à notre sondage en français.
?  Responde a nuestra encuesta en español.

Answers will inform CC’s license stewardship mandate and ensure the tools continue to respond to GLAMs’ concrete needs. 

The survey is open until 15 February, 2022.

 

Help us reach out to institutions from around the world: please share this call for information widely with your networks. Here’s a tweet you can retweet or adapt for your own social channels in English, French and Spanish.

Journalism provides a crucial public service. Access to verifiable information and stories that question the underlying terrain of power is critical to democratic societies. Yet, journalism as we know it faces existential new challenges. Increasingly, journalists face work-halting financial and ethical challenges, as well as threats to their physical and digital safety, when sharing information online. Misinformation and disinformation campaigns in the media challenge collective notions of ground truth. They challenge the bedrock and meaning of open internet.

Journalism also faces newfound opportunities, as the tectonic plates of power shift in our shared digital landscape. We witness the rising role of nonprofit media sources, filling gaps where traditional media organizations have shuttered; the rising power of crowdsourcing information and fact checking, and a powerful new role an open internet can play in knowledge sharing.

Introducing our Ground Truth in Open Internet Series

Join us as we explore what public, open options our news needs, and how to take advantage of these options. Through particular cases in Brazil, Croatia, India, the US, as well as global examples, the webinar series explores topics of: 

• Online narrative power as social power
• Access to information and paywalls in the time of COVID
• How to address mis & disinformation campaigns shifting the focus of traditional news audiences
• The rising role of nonprofit media and the gap they fill
• Open licensed media

This webinar series will culminate in a ½ day training providing: 

• Copyright basics for journalists
• Tools for open access research
• Access to usable photo and media archives
• How to best use openly-licensed media

Key Dates and Session Information

Open Internet and Journalism

• January 20, 7:00 pm UTC/2:00 pm EST
• Speaker: Ashley Edwards, US Partnerships Manager, Google News Initiative
• Speaker: Catherine Stihler, CEO of Creative Commons
• To kick off the discussion series, Google News Initiative and Creative Commons will reflect on the challenges and opportunities at the intersection of technology, journalism, and social power.

Addressing Misinformation and Disinformation Campaigns: a Community Led Approach

• January 27, 4:30 pm UTC/ 11:30 am EST 
• Speaker: Kate Levan, Disinformation Specialist – Trust & Safety, Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) 
• Speaker: Diego Saez-Trumper, Senior Research Scientist at Wikimedia Foundation (WMF)
• This conversation will highlight Wikimedia Foundation’s technical perspective and community-led approach to addressing mis and disinformation campaigns on Wikipedia, highlighting the Croatian Disinformation Case and the Biden Campaign Disinformation Retrospective. 

Risks with Digital Platforms: Language and Narrative Power 

• February 8, 2:00 pm UTC/ 9:00 am EST
• Speaker: Puthiya Purayil Sneha, Senior Researcher at the Centre for Internet and Society
• Speaker: Torsha Sarkar, Policy Officer at the Centre for Internet and Society
• Speaker: Peter B. Kaufman, MIT Open Learning
• Speakers will explore risks of digital platforms: further marginalizing languages, spreading disinformation, and perpetuating power structures in India and globally. Speakers will also describe new ways journalists can work with digital knowledge institutions. Conversation will draw from the Centre for Internet and Society’s Global Disinformation Index’s (GDI) study into the risk of disinformation on digital news platforms in India, a forthcoming collaborative report on the State of the Internet’s Languages, and Peter Kaufman’s recent book, ” The New Enlightenment and the Fight to Free Knowledge” (CC licensed version here). 

*Unfortunately the recording for this session is not available*

Gunfire and Ground Truth: Investigative Journalism Using Creative Commons

• February 15, 2:00 pm UTC/ 9:00 am EST
• Speaker: Cecília Oliveira, Investigative Journalist and founder of Fogo Cruzado
• Cecília Oliveira will discuss developing and using crowd-sourcing on an open platform as an investigative tool in journalism focused on drug and arms trafficking. In 2016, frustrated with the lack of publicly available data, she began mapping every shooting in Rio de Janeiro. This effort turned into Fogo Cruzado, an open data platform on armed violence that is spreading to every major city in Brazil.

CC licenses and Combatting Disinformation Campaigns

• March 3, 2:00 pm UTC/ 9:00am EST
• Speaker: Shalini Joshi, co-founder of Khabar Lahariya and Program Director at Meedan, a global technology non-profit (India)
• Speaker: Joel Abrams, Director of Digital Strategy and Outreach at The Conversation (US)
• This discussion will explore how CC licenses increase information sharing in global journalism. Speakers will share anecdotes from Meedan’s The Checklist, a weekly roundup of global misinformation news—open-source investigations, industry resources and event information. Discussion will also target The Conversation, a nonprofit network of 8 international news sites publishing hundreds of useful articles of news and analysis each week, all written by experts, in 4 languages, and all available under the Creative Commons license, CC-BY-ND.

Free Online Training

• March 23, 2:00 pm-6:00 pm UTC/ 10:00 am-2:00 pm EDT
• Creative Commons staff will provide free training on the basics of copyright for journalists, how to best find and reuse openly licensed resources such as research, photos, videos, music and more!  Come away from the training, understanding the flexibilities within copyright law that journalists can harness for better information sharing. Journalists will also gain the practical tools and resource lists to take advantage of open licensed content. All are welcome to join. 

2:00
Overview of CC and Community Networking

2:45
Copyright Basics: a “101” Level Training on International Copyright and CC Licenses

3:45
How to Use CC Licenses and Find Open Media

4:30
Open Practices, and Copyright: Q&A Discussion with CC Deputy General Counsel Kat Walsh and CC Director of Open Knowledge, Dr. Cable Green

5:30
Google News: Overview of Free Training Options with Google News Teaching Fellow, Mary Nahorniak

 

Join us for our Ground Truth in Open Internet series from January to March 2022 from wherever you are, as we explore what public, open options our news and media need, and how we can use these options.

Hi Creative Commoners! We’re back with the first episode of Open Minds  … from Creative Commons in 2022.

In this episode, CC’s Ony Anukem sits down for a conversation with Hessel van Oorschot, founder and “Chief of Noise” of the online music business Tribe of Noise. Tribe of Noise is a music community that connects artists, fans, and professionals. Founded in 2008 in The Netherlands, its main objective is to create fair and sustainable business opportunities for talented artists. 

Tribe of Noise are the stewards of the Free Music Archive, an online repository of royalty-free music. Established in 2009 by the East Orange, New Jersey community radio station WFMU, and in cooperation with fellow stations KBOO and KEXP, it aims to provide music under Creative Commons licenses that can be freely downloaded and used in other works. Tribe of Noise acquired the Free Music Archive in 2019.

During the conversation, Hessel shares his unconventional path to discovering his passion, his insights on the biggest opportunities for music licensing right now, how he got involved with the open movement and Creative Commons, and more. 

• Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, 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.

On January 18, 2012, the web went dark in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), two bills introduced into the United States House and Senate in the last quarter of 2011.

Why are we talking about this day ten years later?

The fight for a global internet, access to information, and better sharing that benefits public interests are far from over. Because there are still many threats and SOPA-like provisions in other bills. Because many of the feared outcomes of the bill proposed in 2012 – website shutdowns, censorship to free speech, and domain seizures – are happening today.

Here is a simplified overview of SOPA/PIPA.

SOPA and PIPA aimed to tighten U.S. laws to curb copyright infringement and counterfeiting, particularly focusing on illegal copies of media – films, TV shows, music – hosted on foreign servers. The bills aimed to block sites and order financial services to shut off anyone associated with a site. 

If passed, the U.S. Department of Justice and rights holders could use court orders to take down entire websites based upon a single piece of content, or linked content, on that site. Internet service providers (ISPs) would block users using Domain Name System (DNS) blocking. 

While the bills intended to stop piracy, they were vaguely written with disastrous consequences. For example:

• DNS blocking sets a global precedent and disrupts internet architecture.
• Cybersecurity, and the possibility of Americans opting to use foreign DNS services to reach sites, was concerning.
• Ideologically, the bills undermine the foundational structure of the global internet, cultural communication, free speech, economic innovation, and how people create, find, discuss, and share information lawfully online.

Dubbed the Internet Blacklist Bill, Creative Commons (CC) joined other like-minded organizations in 2012 to raise awareness about the dangers and fight the bills.  As Congress continued to debate before the Jan 24 vote on SOPA, organizer Fight for the Future, watchdog groups, content creators, activists, and millions of American citizens participated in a more aggressive communication strategy to get the attention of Congress – a symbolic internet blackout and messaging protest.

On January 18, 2012:

• 50,000 websites went dark including Wikipedia, Reddit, Boing Boing, and Craigslist.
• 162 million people visited Wikipedia.
• 115,000 sites, including Creative Commons, altered web pages with banners and messages opposing SOPA and PIPA with links to Congress.
• Google blacked out its logo and generated over 7 million signatures on its petition.
• Electronic Frontier Foundation reported more than 1 million emails were sent to congress using their site.
• MSNBC reported over 2.4 million Twitter messages about SOPA/PIPA.
• 887,000 people phoned congress.
• Time reported that before the day had ended, “the political dominoes began to fall…then trickle turned into flood.”
• The Washington Post said, “This is what happens when you make the internet mad.”
• The New York Times said this sent “an unmistakable message to lawmakers grappling with new media issues: Don’t mess with the Internet.”

As a result, SOPA was tabled, and PIPA was postponed.

January 18 is an historic marker of solidarity, a public interest victory. 

As so, ten years later, Creative Commons again joins many organizations to reflect and continue the work. Please join us, and many others, by attending a series of SOPA Plus 10 events starting January 18, 2022. Our goal is to promote the values of free and open internet, build a better internet, improve access to information, and generate better sharing of news information.

community events
COMMEMORATING #sopa plus 10

This list will be updated as new events are added, and registrations become available. Follow #SOPAPlus10 and #BetterInternet on social media to keep up with the conversation. 

DATE

EVENT/RECOGNITION

ORGANIZER

DETAILS

January 17 (ongoing)	10 years of what SOPA/PIPA’s demise made possible	Re:Create
January 17-21	Copyright Week	Electronic Frontier Foundation	Agenda

January 18 11:00 a.m. -12:30 p.m. EST	Regulating the Internet Ten Years after the SOPA/PIPA Blackout	Georgetown Law and Wikimedia Foundation	Info and Registration
January 18 2:00-3:00 p.m. EST	How Public Interest Values Shape a Better Internet	Public Knowledge	Info and Registration The panel will be moderated by Public Knowledge President and CEO Chris Lewis and will feature: Catherine Stihler, CEO of Creative Commons Spencer Overton, President, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies April Glaser, Fellow of the Technology & Social Change Project Akriti Gaur, Resident Fellow, Yale Information Society Project
January 18 (ongoing)	Better Internet Series	Creative Commons and Global Summit Partners	CC Series Link
January 18 10:00 a.m. PT 1:00 p.m. ET	Privacy event with Library Freedom Project, George Christian of the Connecticut Four, and Sarah Lamdan of CUNY	Library Futures	More Info and Registration

January 20	Public Domain Day Observed: Celebration of Sound	Internet Archive Creative Commons Other Leaders from Open World	Celebrate Public Domain in 2022
January 20 7:00 p.m. UTC 2:00 p.m. EST	Better News: Open Internet and Journalism (webinars aimed at journalists)	Creative Commons	More Info and Registration Google News Initiative and CC will reflect on the challenges and opportunities at the intersection of technology, journalism, and social power.

January 21 11-11:30 a.m. CST

SOPA at 10 and what’s next for internet law: A conversation with startups

Engine

Register A panel on the 10 year anniversary of the defeat of SOPA and a discussion of how current legal frameworks empower startups to host content.

January 26

Event: A look back on SOPA. A look ahead for what’s next

Techdirt

More info

January 27 4:30 p.m. UTC 11:30 a.m. EST

Better News Series: Addressing Misinformation and Disinformation Campaigns: A Community Led Approach

Creative Commons

This conversation will highlight Wikimedia Foundation’s technical perspective and community lead approach to addressing mis/disinformation campaigns.

February 8 2:00 p.m. UTC 9:00 a.m. EST

Better News Series: Risks with Digital Platforms, Language and Narrative Power

Creative Commons

Speakers will explore risks of digital platforms: further marginalizing languages, spreading disinformation, and perpetuating power structures in India and globally.

February 15 2:00 p.m. UTC 9:00 a.m. EST

Better News Series: Gunfire and Ground truth, Investigative Journalism Using Creative Commons

Creative Commons

Cecília Oliviera (Investigative journalist and founder of Fogo Cruzado) will discuss developing and using crowd-sourcing on an open platform as an investigative tool in journalism focused on drug and arms trafficking.

March 1 TBC

Better News Series: CC licenses and combatting disinformation campaigns through better sharing

Creative Commons

This discussion will explore how CC licenses increase better information sharing in global journalism.

March 23 2:00 pm-6:00 pm UTC 10:00 am-2:00 pm EDT

Better News Series: Free Online Training

Creative Commons

Creative Commons staff will provide free training on the basics of copyright for journalists, how to best find and reuse openly licensed resources such as research, photos, videos, music, and more!

 

On December 14, the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO) of the European Parliament adopted its position on the Digital Services Act (DSA) proposal, under the leadership of IMCO DSA Rapporteur MEP Christel Schaldemose (S&D, Denmark).

What is the Digital Services Act?

The Digital Services Act aims to update the current EU legal framework governing digital services in the wake of rapid technological, business and societal changes and the challenges brought by the increased use of services online. It intends to “create a safer and trusted online environment” and to set out the liability rules for online platforms in the EU. It plans to force online platforms to clamp down on illegal content and improve content moderation mechanisms. It is the most important reform of platform governance legislation in the EU since the 2000 e-Commerce Directive (2000/31/EC) was adopted 20 years ago. 

Creative Commons’ reaction to the IMCO report

While the DSA IMCO report presents positive outcomes, it does leave many causes for concern, as highlighted in this post by EFF along the following lines: 

On the positive side, within its “notice and action” mechanism, it maintains platform liability exemptions (safe harbors) and provides stronger safeguards to ensure the non-arbitrary and non-discriminatory processing of notices and respect for fundamental rights, including freedom of expression. It also sets standards to enhance the accountability and transparency of algorithms, and establishes limits on content removal. Finally, it protects users’ possibility to challenge censorship decisions.

On the concerning side, we warn against the use of upload filters, which absent human moderation are highly prone to error. We also do not want to see a version of the internet where sharing occurs on proprietary platforms designed to keep users within their own, non-interoperable, systems. These “walled gardens” impose strict legal terms and use technical functionality that undermine better sharing and permissive copyright licensing, as well as sharing of Creative-Commons-licensed content. When content does move across platforms, widespread norms have emerged that have reduced creator autonomy and impeded on users’ freedom to share.

We also support Wikimedia Deutschland’s views that the DSA’s rules ignore that community-based platforms geared towards the public good are different from commercial platforms and should not be harmed by such rules.

Lastly, we are very concerned about any media exemption (a content moderation carve out) requested by press publishers. Such an exception would prevent platforms from removing content produced under editorial control of a media entity, even in cases where the content is inaccurate and spreads disinformation. This raises concerns around disinformation and the interrelation with press publishers’ rights (Article 15 of the DSM Directive). MEPs must not succumb to the pressure by press publishers and broadcasters; they must continue to fight against disinformation. 

Creative Commons’ work on platform liability

Over the course of 2021, the Copyright Platform of the Creative Commons Global Network, via its Working Group (WG) on Platform Liability, developed a policy paper entitled Freedom to Share: How the Law of Platform Liability Impacts Licensors and Users. Taking a global approach and through a freedom to share lens, the WG assessed current trends and produced five recommendations: 

What’s next? 

The European Parliament now has to adopt the IMCO DSA report as its final negotiation position, before it can start trilogue negotiations with the Council under the French Presidency in the first semester of 2022. A plenary vote is likely to take place in January 2022. We at CC will be observing these developments with great interest as we work towards better sharing for a better internet.

Dear CC Community,

It’s a very special day — today marks the 20th Anniversary of Creative Commons’ founding!

Twenty years ago, Creative Commons started with a simple, radical idea: to save the internet from “failed sharing” and create a world where everyone has access to knowledge and creativity.

What began as a simple idea and dream is today a reality worldwide. Over the past 20 years, Creative Commons has powered a global movement spanning 86 countries, developed and stewarded legal tools and licenses, and unlocked over two billion works that can be openly and freely shared.

But we didn’t get here on our own — as we’ve grown and evolved over the last two decades, we’ve built a vibrant global CC Community of advocates, activists, scholars, artists, and users working to strengthen the Commons worldwide. In 2017, we established the CC Global Network to help coordinate and provide leadership in the global Creative Commons movement. And today there are 48 CC Chapters around the world!

While we stay grounded in the vision of our founding, we also look toward the future. And for us, and many others, the future includes Better Sharing – the type of sharing that serves the public interest, creates the world the internet promised, and one where everyone has access to culture, science, and knowledge. We invite you to support our Better Sharing campaign below.

And the good news is that the celebration isn’t over yet! The 20th Anniversary of CC licenses is December 16, 2022. So throughout the year, we will continue conversations with influencers who are adding to the open movement, share insights and innovations from CC staff and partners, and host special events of celebration for our global community. Keep an eye on the CC Blog, our monthly newsletters, and on social for exciting announcements and new content.

To the entire CC Community, CC staff and board members (past and present), our 20th Anniversary Committee, CC friends, partners and donors — I thank you for your continued commitment to Creative Commons and our mission. Simply put, we wouldn’t be celebrating 20 years of CC without you.

Here’s to another 20 fantastic years! 

Sincerely,

Catherine Stihler,
CEO of Creative Commons
On behalf of the CC Team

 

Check out our special 20th Anniversary episode of CC’s Open Minds podcast, featuring Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig! Lessig reflects on how CC began, what it has accomplished, and what he hopes to see in the next twenty years and beyond. 

 

Hi Creative Commoners! We’re back with a very special episode of CC’s podcast, Open Minds … from Creative Commons. Today marks the 20th Anniversary of Creative Commons!

On this milestone episode of CC’s Open Minds podcast, join us as we celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Creative Commons’ founding on December 19, 2021. We take you back to Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig’s keynote from the 2021 CC Global Summit (watch the recording here), originally held in September 2021.

 

“Let me say thank you, 20 years is forever, and 20 years is just a beginning. The first 20 were extraordinary, but I think the next 20 could be so much, much more. Thank you so much for gathering to celebrate, and thank you for the inspiration and ideas that will make the next 20 even more important than the first.”

Lawrence, fondly referred to by many as Larry, reflects on how CC began, what it has accomplished, and is later joined by Creative Commons CEO, Catherine Stihler, for a fireside chat where he shares his hopes for CC for the next twenty years and beyond. A distinguished attorney, political activist and incredible visionary, Lawrence is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Lawrence is a Board Member Emeritus of the Creative Commons board.

• Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, 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.

Creative Commons’ statement on the Opt-Out Exception Regime / Rights Reservation Regime for Text and Data Mining under Article 4 of the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market is now available here. We’re grateful to everyone who contributed their many thoughtful comments during the public consultation period, which has now come to an end. 

We especially want to take the opportunity to thank our contributors to this statement:
Ana Lazarova (CC Bulgaria), Thomas Margoni (KU Leuven), Ariadna Matas (Europeana), Sarah Pearson (CC), Felix Reda (Shuttleworth Foundation), Brigitte Vézina (CC), Kat Walsh (CC), and Stephen Wyber (IFLA). 

Here is Creative Commons’ summary position: 

The terms of the Creative Commons (CC) licenses cannot be construed or interpreted as a reservation of a right in the context of Article 4 of the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (EU 2019/790) or any of its national transposition instruments. CC licenses do not operate as an opt-out of an exception or limitation to copyright. Both the language (legal code) and purpose (spirit) of the licenses prohibit such an interpretation:

1. The language in the licenses specifically makes clear that they are not intended to impose any restrictions beyond what copyright imposes, and that they do not override exceptions and limitations. 
2. The licenses are designed to permit more uses than the default all-rights-reserved, so any interpretation that they do reserve rights in the context of Article 4 runs contrary to the overall design and purpose of the licenses. 

Read Creative Commons’ full statement here.