If you’re in the EU, go to saveyourinternet.eu and tell your MEPs to stop the proposal and reopen the debate. Today, the European Parliament the Legal Affairs Committee voted in favor of the most harmful provisions of the proposed Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. The outcome reflects a disturbing path toward increasing…

Today over 70 international copyright experts released the Washington Principles on Copyright Balance in Trade Agreements. The document, endorsed by Creative Commons, urges trade negotiators “to support policies like fair use, safe harbor provisions, and other exceptions and limitations that permit and encourage access to knowledge, flourishing creativity, and innovation.” The principles were collaboratively drafted…

It’s Open Access Week, a yearly global event to raise broad awareness about the opportunities and benefits for open access to scientific and scholarly research. Open Access Week—now in its 10th year—mobilises action for progressive policy changes so that researchers and the public get immediate online access to the results of scholarly research and the…

Last week in Geneva, Creative Commons participated in the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) bi-annual meeting of its committee on copyright and related rights. CC has had “observer status” at WIPO since 2011, which means that it can attend the proceedings and at times offer written or oral feedback on activities of the committees. WIPO’s…

Today Creative Commons, CC Colombia, and over a dozen other CC affiliates and partners sent a letter to the Colombian government calling for user-friendly copyright reform. Colombia’s copyright law is being re-opened to come into compliance with the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. We believe that this is a timely opportunity to introduce positive changes to…

This post was contributed by Stuart Efstathis for Creative Commons Australia. Image by Sierra_Graphic, CC0 The Australian Productivity Commission has recommended important changes to Australian copyright law that support content creators and users in the digital age. On 29 April 2016, the Commission released a Draft Report on reforms to Australia’s intellectual property laws based…

Assignments of copyrights photostat copies by mollyali, CC BY-NC 2.0 A few months ago the United States Copyright Office issued a request for comments on an extended collective licensing (ECL) pilot program they are considering for mass digitization projects. The Office thinks that such a program would permit greater access to cultural works by allowing…

Creative Commons dedicates the text of our licenses and other legal tools, as well as the text of our Commons deeds, to the public domain using the CC0 Public Domain Dedication. While that doesn’t mean that anything and everything is allowed by those choosing to reuse these materials (as explained below), we believe that copyright…

Today a large group of companies and organizations are raising awareness about the importance of net neutrality by joining the Internet Slowdown campaign. The action asks what would happen if large internet service providers (ISPs) and cable companies get their way and are able to squash net neutrality. Net neutrality is the concept that ISPs should…

Today the JURI (legal affairs) committee of the European Parliament approved the compromise text of the proposed directive on collective rights management in the EU (478 KB PDF, passages in bold are changes from the original proposal). The main objective of the directive is to facilitate the licensing of music throughout Europe (which is currently…