October 23 we posted about Nathan Yergler’s ccValidator web app, developed in response to our list of tech challenges.

Challenged developers have been hard at work since:

• Nathan Yergler has created mozCC, an extension for Mozilla-based browsers that reads and displays CC metadata as you browse.
• In addition to creating mozCC and fixing ccValidator bugs, the amazing Nathan Yergler is working on ccRdf, a Python library for CC metadata.
• Steve Griffin has created a C# library for CC metadata.
• Lucas Gonze has created a spec for embedding CC metadata in SMIL.

Congratulations and thanks to Nathan, Steve, and Lucas! There are more challenges to take on, including many we don’t yet know about. Post about your work and ideas here or on the cc-metadata mailing list

Today’s a big day for annoucements at Creative Commons. Earlier today in Tokyo, Japan, the launch date of iCommons Japan was finalized and we have turned on automatic Japanese translation for our current license system. Starting next month, we will be offering optional licenses that apply to laws within the Japanese jurisdiction

Even bigger news is that the Brazilian government has commited to releasing code created with public funding as free software using the new CC-GPL, or Creative Commons Gnu General Public License. The CC-GPL will improve upon the existing GPL by adding in our interface of Commons Deeds and embedded metadata. The CC-GPL page is now offered from our license page, in Brazilian Portugese only for now, but soon will also be available in English.

Date is set for release of official Japanese licenses; Creative Commons’ website now offers Japanese translation of license selection process

Tokyo, JAPAN — The Creative Commons Japan licenses will roll out on January 15, 2004, announced GLOCOM, the Japanese research institute leading the Silicon Valley nonprofit’s efforts here. Creative Commons also unveiled a Japanese translation of its licensing process, available now on its website for use with the general Creative Commons licenses.

“Building an international commons is our most important mission,” said Lawrence Lessig, Creative Commons’ chairman and professor of law at Stanford University, in Tokyo this week to promote Creative Commons’ various international projects. “GLOCOM has been the key to our launching the iCommons in Japan, and Japan is critical to our strategy internationally.”

“We are very happy to be among the first iCommons participants,” said Motohiro Tsuchiya, member of Creative Commons Japan and associate professor at GLOCOM, International University of Japan. “This is a collective work of many ‘commoners’ here in Japan, who have a unique culture of sharing creative works such as comics, animations, haikus, and more. It makes it easier for us to understand the spirit of Creative Commons.”

The Creative Commons Japan team today made its latest drafts of the Japanese licenses available for public review from the Creative Commons website, (see https://creativecommons.org/projects/international/jp/), and Creative Commons released its first content-negotiated translation of its licensing process.

Japanese-speaking visitors to the Creative Commons site now automatically view a full translation of the license choice process as the site detects the users’ web browser settings. More translations will follow shortly, said Creative Commons. (For the translated text, see: https://creativecommons.org/license/?lang=ja.)

About GLOCOM

GLOCOM was established in 1991 as a social science research institute specializing in the study of information society as well as Japanese society. From the outset it was thought that the collection and dissemination of information through the utilization of computer networks was important, and this goal was realized in 1993 when the center established an Internet connection. Ever since, by utilizing the most up-to-date information and communication technologies, GLOCOM has been able to engage in various research activities, including generation of policy proposals and involvement in education-related projects. GLOCOM has set out to be a modern information “intelprise,” an institution promoting the distribution and sharing of “wisdom.”

More at http://www.glocom.ac.jp/.

About Creative Commons

A nonprofit corporation, Creative Commons promotes the creative re-use of
intellectual works — whether owned or public domain. It is sustained by the
generous support of The Center for the Public Domain, the John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Hewlett Foundation. Creative Commons is based at Stanford Law School, where it shares staff, space, and inspiration with the school’s Center for Internet and Society.

For general information, visit https://creativecommons.org/.

Contact

Motohiro Tsuchiya
iCommons Japan Project Lead, GLOCOM
taiyo@glocom.ac.jp

Christiane Asschenfeldt
iCommons Coordinator, Creative Commons
christiane@creativecommons.org

Glenn Otis Brown
Executive Director, Creative Commons
1.650.725.2565 (tel)
glenn@creativecommons.org

The Brazilian Committee for the Implementation of Free Software will release code under the Free Software Foundation’s General Public License, with Creative Commons providing new human- and machine-readable packaging

Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL, and Tokyo, JAPAN — The government of Brazil today announced its adoption of the CC-GPL, an innovation on the Free Software Foundation’s (FSF) General Public License, for the release of publicly funded software. Brazil is the first adopter of the new CC-GPL, which combines the proven utility and popularity of the GPL with Creative Commons’ innovative user interface.

“Brazil’s adoption of the CC-GPL is extremely significant,” said Lawrence Lessig, Creative Commons’ chairman and professor of law at Stanford University, from Tokyo, where Creative Commons is presenting its projects in Japan this week. “Brazil has recognized that code produced and funded by the people should be made available to the people, and it has pioneered a tool that provides the best of both the Free Software Foundation and Creative Commons.”

“Brazilian government adoption of the GPL is an enormous step forward in the cause of software freedom,” said Professor Eben Moglen of Columbia Law School and General Counsel of the Free Software Foundation. “We welcome the chance to work together with Creative Commons to make the GNU GPL even more attractive to governments, which are recognizing that the principle of ‘share and share alike’ is the most efficient, most equitable, and most pro-development licensing strategy for software the public pays to create or to acquire.”

The first piece of software Brazil will release under the CC-GPL is TerraCrime 1.0, which analyzes and creates statistical reports on criminal activity in a particular geographic area, cross-referencing the data with other variables such as population, time of the incident, etc. The software was developed by the Laboratorio de Estatistica Espacial (LESTE — Spacial Statistics Laboratory) of the the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) and by the Divisao de Processamento de Imagens (DPI — Image Processing Division) of the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE — National Institute of Space Research).

With the CC-GPL, Creative Commons has applied its three-layer user interface to the FSF’s classic software license. First is the Commons Deed, a plain-language summary of the GPL’s key terms. Next is the Legal Code, the full license in all its detail — in this case, the General Public License, provided in both English and a Portuguese translation by the Brazilian government. Third is Creative Commons’ metadata, a machine-readable expression of the license, so that users can search for and sort CC-GPL-licensed code by terms of use.

Lessig said Creative Commons and the FSF will begin offering the CC-GPL to the general public shortly.

About the Brazilian Committee for the Implementation of Free Source Software

The Information Technology Institute (ITI – Instituto de Tecnologia da Informacao) is an administrative entity connected directly with the Presidency of the Republic in Brazil. It has appointed a Committee for the Implementation of Free Software, and it is responsible for steering the free software policy in Brazil.

About the Free Software Foundation (FSF)

FSF is the principal organizational sponsor of the GNU Project, an effort launched in 1984 to develop a complete Unix-like operating system which is free software: the GNU system. (GNU is a recursive acronym for “GNU’s Not Unix”; it is pronounced “guh-noo.”) Variants of the GNU operating system which use the kernel Linux are now widely deployed; though these systems are often referred to as “Linux,” they are more accurately called GNU/Linux systems. The Foundation also develops, publishes, and secures compliance with the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) and GNU Lesser General Public License (GNU LGPL), which are the world’s most widely used free software licenses.

For more, see http://gnu.org/.

About Creative Commons

A nonprofit corporation, Creative Commons promotes the creative re-use of
intellectual works — whether owned or public domain. It is sustained by the generous support of The Center for the Public Domain, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Hewlett Foundation. Creative Commons is based at Stanford Law School, where it shares staff, space, and inspiration with the school’s Center for Internet and Society.

For general information, visit https://creativecommons.org/.

Oyez, the supreme court audio archive previously featured on this site, has recently released all the audio from the Eldred vs. Ashcroft case. Recorded last Fall, the audio of this case is available under a Creative Commons license.

Also featured on that page are SMIL versions of the audio, which display images of the speakers and show the running transcript as it plays, and a recent videotaped lecture from Lawrence Lessig on the subject of copyrights.

This week’s featured content is the photoblog Photo Pix Today, done by Christoph Föckeler from Germany. The site features a great variety photos of life in Munich, and all licensed under Creative Commons.

Today’s Wired News features an article profiling our featured content from a couple weeks ago, Loca Records.

GET CREATIVE!

Enter the Creative Commons Moving Image Contest.

Make a 2-minute moving image that describes Creative Commons’ mission.

Win a computer, a digital video camera, or an iPod.

An amazing panel of judges will select winners.

Please read the official rules.

Deadline for entries is December 31st, 2003

On the heels of our recent start of work on licenses in China, Taiwan, and Ireland, today we added Italy to the mix. The discussion has just begun, thanks to volunteers at the Department of Law of the University of Turin and the CNR Institute of Electronics and Information and Telecommunications Engineering.

The Department of Law at the University of Turin will lead the license translation, while the CNR Institute of Electronics and Information and Telecommunications Engineering (IEIIT-CNR) will take the tech lead.

Palo Alto, USA and Turin, Italy — Creative Commons, a nonprofit dedicated to building a body of creative works free for copying and re-use, announced today that it would expand its International Commons (iCommons) project to Italy.

“We’re very excited to have Turin’s Department of Law working with us to bring iCommons to Italy,” said Lawrence Lessig, Chairman of Creative Commons and professor of law at Stanford, at the CSI-Piemonte convention on ‘Knowledge as Public Common Property.’ “Our cultural commons, needless to say, would not be complete without their participation.”

“In a world where the space for creativity is shrinking dangerously, Creative Commons is acting to keep this area open. There was a dire need for this initiative, and we are proud to participate in the project,” explained Professor Marco Ricolfi, project lead and professor of intellectual property law at the University of Turin.

Professor Marco Ajmone Marsan, Director of IEIIT-CNR said: “We are glad to offer the technical skills of our Institute in the field of Information and Communication Technologies to support the activities of Creative Commons in Italy.”

First announced in March this year, iCommons is Creative Commons’ project to make its machine-readable copyright licenses useful worldwide. As the affiliate institution for iCommons in Italy, Turin’s Department of Law will coordinate public efforts to translate the Creative Commons licenses literally and legally — so that they are accessible in the Italian language and suit the Italian legal system.

In taking up iCommons, Italy joins Brazil, Japan, Finland, Ireland, China, and Taiwan in the international effort.

The Department of Law at the University of Turin will field comments in archived email discussions on the Creative Commons website:

http://www.creativecommons.org/discuss#italy

More about Creative Commons

A nonprofit corporation, Creative Commons promotes the creative re-use of intellectual works, whether owned or public domain. It is sustained by the generous support of The Center for the Public Domain and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Hewlett Foundation. Creative Commons is based at Stanford Law School, where it shares staff, space, and inspiration with the school’s Center for Internet and Society.

For general information, visit https://creativecommons.org/.

For more information about iCommons, see https://creativecommons.org/projects/international/.

More About the Department of Law at the University of Turin

The Department of Law at the University of Turin, headed by Professor Gianmaria Ajani, coordinates legal research activity at the University of Turin. The Department also deals with fundraising for research purposes, the management of all PhD programs and continuing education in the area of law. It is part of the University of Turin, which, founded in 1404, is one of the oldest universities in the world. Today the University boasts 65,000 students, 1,300 professors, and nearly 800 researchers and assistants.

The Department of Law coordinates the research work of more than 130 law professors in different areas of law.

At present, the main research programs are in the fields of:

• EC Private Law and Harmonization of Contract Law;
• International Human Rights;
• Criminal Jurisdiction;
• Harmonization of Civil Procedure; and
• Intellectual Property Law.

For more information about the Department of Law at the University of Turin, please visit:

http://www.dsg.unito.it/.

More about IEIIT-CNR

The Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (National Research Council of Italy), founded in 1923, is a multidisciplinary public research institution. The IEIIT is a CNR institute founded in 2002 by merging the forces of several preexisting CNR institutes and centers.

The IEIIT-CNR headquarters are located in Torino, with territorial sections in Genoa, Milan, Bologna and Pisa; the Institute is directed by professor Marco Ajmone Marsan. The IEIIT-CNR pursues advanced, multidisciplinary research in the field of information and communications technology (ICT).

For more information about IEIIT-CNR, please visit:

http://www.ieiit.cnr.it/.

Contacts

Christiane Asschenfeldt (Berlin)
Creative Commons, iCommons Coordinator
christiane@creativecommons.org

Prof. Marco Ricolfi (Torino)
iCommons Italy Project Lead, Legal aspects
Department of Law, University of Turin
info@creativecommons.it

Marco Ciurcina (Torino)
iCommons Italy, Legal aspects
Lawyer, University of Turin
ciurcina@studiolegale.it

Antonio Amelia (Milano)
iCommons Italy, Legal aspects
Trainee Lawyer
antonio.amelia@creativecommons.it

Juan Carlos De Martin (Torino)
iCommons Italy, Technical aspects
Principal Research Scientist, IEIIT-CNR
juancarlos.demartin@ieiit.cnr.it

Lorenzo De Tomasi (Sesto Calende, Varese)
iCommons Italy, Communication and creative initiatives
Communication Designer
lorenzo.detomasi@creativecommons.it

Glenn Otis Brown (Palo Alto)
Creative Commons, Executive Director
glenn@creativecommons.org