#FREEBASSEL / Kennisland / CC BY-SA As of today, CC Syria community leader Bassel Khartabil has been in prison for two years. Today, we join the worldwide open community in honoring Bassel and insisting that he be freed. Amnesty International and Front Line Defenders have produced this excellent video about why Bassel’s story is important…

Bassel Khartabil is a computer engineer who, through his innovations in social media, digital education, and open-source web software, played a huge role in opening the internet in Syria and bringing online access and knowledge to the Syrian people. Many people reading this blog know Bassel through his work as lead for CC Syria. Coinciding…

Today Creative Commons released a policy statement expressing its support for copyright reform efforts around the world. Creative Commons (CC) has enabled a new approach to copyright licensing over the last ten years. CC licenses facilitate novel social, educational, technological, and business practices, and support productive relationships around networked knowledge and culture. We are dedicated…

GS2013 Final Day in Hall (Ibtihel Zaatouri /

#FreeBassel / David Kindler / CC BY If you subscribe to Creative Commons’ newsletter or follow us on Twitter and Facebook, you’re likely familiar with the story of Bassel Khartabil, our friend and longtime CC volunteer who’s been in prison in Syria since March 2012. Today, on the second birthday that Bassel has spent in…

In celebration of Creative Commons’ tenth anniversary, we’re writing about various platforms that host CC-licensed content. Today, we’re featuring document-sharing site Scribd. Most people reading this are probably quite familiar with Scribd. It’s an easy, reliable place to publish documents and presentations. A lot of professional publishers use it, including our friends at Pratham Books.…

Elinor Ostrom / Prolineserver 2010 / Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA A collective sigh of sadness went around the Creative Commons community yesterday when we heard that Elinor Ostrom passed away. Elinor is greatly admired for her pioneering studies on the governance of common-pool resources (the Commons) and collective action across the fields of economics,…

The World Bank has announced a new Open Access Policy! Effective July 1, 2012, the Open Access Policy requires that all research outputs and knowledge products published by the Bank be licensed Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY) as a default. Today, as the first phase of this policy is unfolded, the Bank launched a…

Nick Shockey is the Director of the Right to Research Coalition (R2RC) and the Director of Student Advocacy at the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC).  The R2RC is an international alliance of 31 graduate and undergraduate student organizations, representing nearly 7 million students, that promotes an open scholarly publishing system based on the…

CC communities throughout the Arab World displayed their rich culture and commitment to openness this past week in Lebanon and Qatar, showcasing creative works, inter-regional collaboration, and a focused dedication on legal and copyright issues in the region. Following the Digitally Open conference in Doha and a regional meeting including members of CC’s communities in…