New NAFTA Would Harm Canadian Copyright Reform and Shrink the Public Domain
Late yesterday the U.S., Canada, and Mexico reached an agreement on a new North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The agreement (now rebranded as the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or “USMCA”) obligates Canada to increase its copyright term by an additional 20 years if the deal is passed.
Canada currently observes the minimum term of copyright as required by the Berne Convention, which is life of the author plus 50 years. USMCA requires all signatories to agree to a term of at least life of the author plus 70 years.
The extension of already-lengthy copyright terms will discourage new creativity in Canada. It will further prevent Canadians from accessing and using the rich pool of resources in the public domain, which means they can be used free of any copyright protections. Creativity always builds upon the past, and the public domain is our shared cultural commons used to create new works of art and science. Like a sedimentary rock, the “Commons” in Creative Commons starts with the public domain. Fulfilling our mission of protecting and expanding the public domain is why we’ve developed tools to better mark and dedicate content to the public domain. We continue to advocate for changes to copyright policy that promote a robust and accessible public domain.
During the opaque renegotiation of NAFTA, weurgednegotiators to ensure that the copyright provisions in the agreement should not be expanded to create new (and likely more onerous) copyright rules. We worked with international groups to release theWashington Principles on Copyright Balance in Trade Agreementsto restate the obvious fact that further copyright term extensions make no sense: “there is no evidence to suggest that the private benefits of copyright term extensions ever outweigh the costs to the public.”
The end of copyright protection in a work allows for the production of new works. That is why term length is a balance to be struck — and one which Canada has handled well. Ian Fleming’s literary character James Bond, for example, entered the public domain in Canada on January 1, 2015. This allowed Canadian authors David Nickle and Madeline Ashby to produce License Expired, an anthology of unauthorized 007 stories for ChiZine Publications.
The introduction of the life +70 year copyright term is particularly damaging for Canada, which is in the middle of a national copyright reform process. Before these negotiations took place, an increase in copyright term was not on the agenda for the Canadian reform. Last year, Canadian ministers responsible for the copyright review indicated some support of the public domain, stating that an updated law “should ensure […] that users benefit from a public domain.” In our submission to the public consultation, we wrote:
We believe that Canada has been right to push back against any extension of copyright term or expansion of the scope. The copyright term of life of the author + 50 years is already far too long. Extremely long copyright terms prevent works from entering the public domain, where they may be used by anyone — including CC licensors — without restriction as the raw material for additional creative works.
If the USMCA is adopted, it will clearly violate the direction of the Canadian copyright reform, which decided to leave the existing term as is.
The USMCA text shows the powerful hand of U.S. copyright interests. A copyright term extension was floated in earlier versions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and Creative Commons joined with dozens of other organisations to push back on it then. After President Trump withdrew the United States from the TPP last year, many of the most damaging intellectual property provisions were suspended, including any call for a copyright term extension. But USMCA shows a swing back in the other direction, almost surely a result of U.S. pressure to ratchet up copyright protection and enforcement measures.
There are countless competing interests in a massive new trade agreement like the USMCA, and this concern is only one. But from a copyright perspective, it is discouraging to see the inclusion of yet another ill-advised term extension, especially at a time when Canada is actively debating a more progressive future for its own copyright law.
There is no reason for any more copyright term extensions, which would harm the commons and are contrary to the policies and values supported by the Creative Commons community.
Updated: Board statement on harassment, openness, and CC community
UPDATE (October 19, 2018): The Audit Committee recently received a submission alleging violations of our policies. Following a thorough review by the Audit Committee, the Board of Directors has unanimously concluded that the organization acted appropriately and adhered to its policies, and that there was no violation of the code of conduct. We reaffirm our commitment to cultivating a safe, healthy, and respectful community. We look forward to working together to that end.
The Audit Committee received a submission from a former CC employee on September 28, 2018, requesting that it review two items: the alleged poor handling by CC of a complaint made in September, 2014, that a co-worker had engaged in inappropriate workplace behavior; and the alleged violation of CC’s code of conduct regarding the CEO’s communications in 2017 with respect to the complaint. The Audit Committee (board members operating independently of staff) completed a thorough review of relevant facts and circumstances surrounding those two items. This included fact-finding involving multiple conversations with people who had first-hand knowledge of events, and review of contemporaneous documentation. The Audit Committee concluded that review on October 12. A timeline of events established during the review is available here.
As to the first part of the submission: the Audit Committee determined that the 2014 complaint was investigated and resolved within 8 business days; that the finding of misconduct and discipline imposed was appropriate; that the complaint prompted the organization to strengthen its training and procedures going forward; that the timing and conduct of this process and the outcomes were reasonable; and that the organization acted in compliance with its policies. Further, with regard to the later conduct of the CEO as raised in the second part of the submission, the Audit Committee concluded that the CEO followed appropriate procedures in accordance with our policies, and there was no violation of the code of conduct.
We take these matters very seriously. We encourage members of our staff and community to speak up about and contribute to a respectful and inclusive culture for Creative Commons and the broader open community. Our commitment to those values will continue.
*** Original Post – September 28, 2018 ***
Creative Commons is firmly committed to a workplace, community, and culture of mutual respect, free of harassment. We take all allegations of harassment and misconduct very seriously. We care deeply about the pain and anguish that is felt by victims of harassment, even many years after the fact.
CC has recently become aware that former intern and employee, Billy Meinke, has published an open letter to the Board of Directors about his experience working at CC from 2012-2013. Mr. Meinke also blogged in 2017 about his experiences. In response to that post last year, the Board carefully reviewed all the facts and processes related to Mr. Meinke’s 2014 complaint to ensure the matter had been handled appropriately and fairly. We were confident that Mr. Meinke’s claims were promptly and thoroughly investigated when first reported, that CC’s response was appropriate, and that all processes and procedures were properly followed.
We take our role as a leading organization in the open community very seriously. Our strategy, policies, content, and code are all shared in an open community. These are our values, and our commitment is to be as open as we can in all of our work, because we believe it builds healthy, collaborative communities. However, sharing anything related to such sensitive matters must always be done with proper respect for the privacy and safety of the individuals involved. In light of Mr. Meinke’s decision to make his allegations public last year, we wanted to make it clear to the community that CC responds quickly to such claims and that harassment has no place in our workplace or community. We also wanted to ensure that our policies — which are overseen by the Audit Committee of the Board — are well-communicated to our employees and the public. At the time, CC shared as much detail as we felt we could in response to Mr. Meinke’s public post.
The Board has continued confidence in our leadership and staff for their response to these matters, and their efforts to ensure a positive and safe work environment for CC staff and community. Our policies apply to all staff, board members and officers, and to community members who participate in our global network and public events. These policies are designed to prevent harassment, protect victims, respond to complaints, and ensure the fair and prompt resolution of all allegations. Our policies are available for public review on our website, and are also aggregated on our public policies page.
Any member of the public may submit complaints about misconduct via email to the CC Audit Committee at audit@creativecommons.org. Complaints received by the Committee at that address are promptly handled in accordance with our policies and procedures.
Sincerely,
Creative Commons Board of Directors (Molly Shaffer Van Houweling, Chair)
To update the experience of CC licensing and discovery to reflect the realities of how people are sharing in 2018
To anticipate and design for the future of digital content sharing
In the next two sections, I provide background on the initiative and the process we used to conduct the research. If you’re short on time, you can skip all of it and go directly to the findings. You can also peruse this slide deck for a quick visual summary.
I’m also pleased to announce that in order to further this work, I have stepped into a new role at CC. As the Director of Product and Research, I will lead the strategy, design, and implementation of CC’s product vision for CC Search and related products. Our work will be driven by a research-based approach, which you can learn more about below.
Big changes for CC Search beta: updates released today!
Today, we’ve released a significant update to our working beta of the CC Search product. We launched the project in February 2017 to provide a new “front door” to the Commons with the ultimate goal to find and index all 1.4 billion+ CC licensed works on the web. Since then, our newly formed tech team – myself, Alden Page, Sophine Clachar, and Steven Bellamy – have been working to move this project toward its next iteration, which I am proud to share today.
More providers, better metadata
This is a work in progress — it has great new features, and also has a few bugs, which we’re working on as we go (you can leave feedback here or file issues at Github). This iteration of CC Search integrates access to more than 10 million images across 13 content providers. The data was obtained by processing 36 months of web crawl data from the Common Crawl corpus (an open repository of web crawl data maintained by the Common Crawl Foundation).
In addition, the new release contains several new features, including AI image tags generated from our collaborator, Clarifai. Clarifai is a best in class image classification software that provides tagging support and visual recognition. Clarifai’s API was integrated in the process-flow as a means to automatically generate tags for the new and existing images. This means that CC search has machine generated tags, user-defined tags, and platform-defined tags that were obtained from the web crawl data. Collectively, these will enhance the user’s search experience and improve the quality of the results. Currently, 10.3 million images have their respective Clarifai tags and the outstanding images will be integrated on an ongoing basis. Thank you to Clarifai for their support.
A New Look
The new design allows users to search by category, see popular images, and search more accurately across a wide range of content.
Users can also now share content and create public lists of images without an account using an anonymous authentication scheme. Shares.cc is a new a link shortening system that makes it easy to share cool stuff you find on our platform to social media – users can share both images and lists, no login required. In addition, the new platform provides the ability to filter by provider, license, creator, tag (including those generated by Clarifai), or title.
(Please note: If you made private lists in the previous system, they will not carry over to this release. We’re sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. If there is a list you would like us to recover, please email us at info@creativecommons.org.)
With gratitude
CC Search is made possible by a number of institutional and individual sponsors. Specifically, we would like to thank Arcadia – a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, Mozilla, and the Brin Wojcicki Foundation for their support. With the generous support of our funders, Creative Commons is able to significantly advance its work in pursuit of a more open and sharing world that illuminates the Commons and recognizes the major potential of transformative human knowledge.
Traditional Knowledge and the Commons: The Open Movement, Listening, and Learning
CC licenses and public domain tools help individuals, organisations, and public institutions better disseminate digital resources and data, breaking down the typical barriers associated with traditional “all rights reserved” copyright. At the same time, CC licenses can’t do everything for everyone. First, the licenses operate in the sphere of copyright and similar rights. They do not attempt to license, say, personality rights, trademark, or patent rights. Also, the CC community recognizes that voluntary licensing schemes will never be a comprehensive solution for access to and reuse of knowledge and creativity around the world. This is one reason why CC works on international copyright reform issues, including the protection and expansion of user rights.
Another dimension of openness that could be better understood from the perspective of the “open” community is the sharing of cultural works related to indigenous communities. This has been talked about with terms such as “traditional knowledge”. Traditional knowledge consists of a wide range of skills, cultural works, and practices that have been sustained and developed over generations by indigenous communities around the world. These communities hold entitlement over this knowledge as well as responsibility for the preservation of their knowledge, but haven’t always had the autonomy to decide what can be done with their knowledge. International and national instruments have attempted to codify the value of traditional knowledge and rights of indigenous peoples, but the place of such knowledge within conventional intellectual property structures remains deeply contested and uncertain.
These issues and more were brought up at the 2018 Creative Commons Global Summit as well, and has since started an important conversation within the CC community. I’m an attorney and doctoral candidate at UC-Berkeley Law, and over the summer I worked as a research fellow for Creative Commons to conduct an investigation into the current issues regarding traditional knowledge and its intersection with the open movement. A draft of the paper is complete, and we welcome your thoughts and suggestions to it.
In addition, we’ll be hosting a session on the topic on Thursday, September 27 at 3:00p at the 5th Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest in Washington, D.C.
The tension between traditional knowledge protection and IP frameworks is exacerbated by digital technologies that have made the creation, dissemination, appropriation and remixing of knowledge and cultural artifacts easier than ever before. Indigenous communities’ preservation efforts and control over traditional knowledge sometimes also seem to conflict with the ‘open’ ecosystem, which consists of organizations, communities, and individuals supporting open and free culture, open licensing and access to knowledge. This is because traditional knowledge is often perceived as being part of the public domain by default, when it is not.
There is a colonial history of this perception. The doctrine of discovery, which was used to legitimize and expand colonization, held the assumption that indigenous peoples were “uncivilized,” and hence could not own property like European settlers. Therefore, the land and knowledge of indigenous peoples were seen as part of the commons, open for ‘discovery’ and appropriation. Another oft repeated concern that traditional community representatives have voiced at global venues like WIPO is the misuse and appropriation of their knowledge. Appropriation refers not just to taking something of value to a community, but also reaping economic benefit from it. For these reasons, the public domain may be perceived as detrimental to the interests of indigenous communities. It’s important to recognize this because it affects how these communities might perceive open and free culture movements.
Copyright law in particular is based on a number of assumptions that are sometimes at odds with the protection of indigenous knowledge. For instance, sometimes it can be difficult to identify an author of a cultural work because “ownership” might vest in a community, is sometimes continually being invented, or might be passed from generation to generation. The categories of copyright law may not encompass the kinds of expressions found in traditional knowledge. For example, a dance could be manifested in several ways and may have a sequential unique style over several performances. One sequence might be removed and placed in a western song or performance. Not only would there be no protection for this disparate piece, any social or spiritual meaning that might be attached to that dance would also be lost. Furthermore, some traditions are conveyed and preserved orally, and this might not be ‘fixed’ in a tangible form to receive conventional copyright protection.
This perceived disconnect with copyright law in particular puts Creative Commons in a challenging position with regards to indigenous knowledge. On the one hand, Creative Commons strives to make knowledge and information as widely and freely accessible as possible. It seeks to empower individuals who want to define the terms of access to their works. On the other hand, Creative Commons must grapple with ownership structures of traditional knowledge, its position within copyright law, and the terms of access of different kinds of traditional knowledge online. The CC licenses were never meant to be applied to content that is not meant to be shared broadly — so to the extent such content is not intended to be shared broadly or if open licenses do not adequately meet the needs of these communities for reasons described above, then it makes sense not to expect acceptance or use of open licenses as currently available.
Despite these challenges, digital technologies also represent an opportunity to help resolve some of the tensions between IP structures and traditional knowledge and have been used by indigenous communities. Projects like Mukurtu and Local Contexts help preserve and label traditional works while giving indigenous communities autonomy to set the terms for sharing. Local Contexts also provides guidance to indigenous communities about controlling access and preservation of their knowledge. There are flexibilities within CC licenses that could be used in empowering ways by communities that want to make their works open. The conversation needs to involve more communities, policymakers and scholars and the Creative Commons team is exploring the possibilities of working with other projects and involving indigenous communities more closely to understand the role CC licenses could play in the protection and dissemination of traditional knowledge.
With the European Parliament vote on the copyright directive, the internet lost – for now
Today the European Parliament voted 438-226 (with 39 abstentions) to approve drastic changes to copyright law that, if ultimately enacted, would negatively affect creativity, freedom of expression, research, and sharing across the EU.
The Parliament voted in favor of almost all provisions that extend more rights to the establishment copyright industries while failing to protect users and new creators online.
The Parliament voted in favor of Article 13, which will essentially force online platforms to install expensive content filters to police user uploads and remove content if there’s any whiff of unauthorized sharing of copyrighted materials. The rule covers all types of content, from music to video to images. If platforms don’t take action, they assume liability for what their uses publish online. Upload filters will limit freedom of expression, as the technologies can’t tell the difference between copyright infringement and permitted uses of copyrighted works, such as memes shared as parody, or the incidental capture of an advertisement in the background of a selfie.
They approved Article 11, which provides extra copyright-like rights to press publishers. Article 11 would force news aggregators to pay publishers for linking to their stories. The rule covers links and snippet over a single word. The Parliament’s vote also included giveaways to other groups, such as a new right for sporting event producers to lock down the sharing of fan photography and short videos at sporting events.
The Parliament refused to make much needed changes to the text that would help ensure that Europe can remain a relevant player for research and innovation. It approved only a limited copyright exception for text and data mining that restricts its use only for approved non-profit research organisations, instead of providing a blanket exception supported by libraries, research organisations, and the EU startup community that would make “the right to read is the right to mine.” As a result, investment and innovation in this space will move to outside of Europe where there’s a more conducive legal environment for text and data mining, such as the United States.
Not only does the plan approved by the Parliament fail to produce benefits for its intended frame, the digital single market, it also does almost nothing to protect user rights, improve the ability to share remixes and other user-generated content (UGC), or protect the public domain. The commonsense amendments in support of UGC, freedom of panorama, and calling for support of the public domain were all voted down.
Ryan Merkley, CEO of Creative Commons, appeared on BBC Radio this afternoon for an interview on the copyright directive vote. He reiterated that artists should be able to receive fair and appropriate compensation for their work, and that Creative Commons was formed in order to provide alternative choices for creators in how they share creativity online. But he said that most of the provisions passed in today’s EU Parliament vote only benefited major rights holders like TV networks or music labels:
If you’re a regular person or an independent artist who needs the internet for your every day life or for work or for fun, if you’re somebody who reads articles online or makes your own music or has an idea for a startup, or you’re a scientist who wants to cure a disease, you lose in this proposal. The EU is a less good place to make your art, to make your music, or to drive innovation or discovery.
What’s next?
Now the Parliament enters into closed-door three-way negotiations with the Council of the European Union (the EU Member State governments) and the European Commission (the EU executive body which proposed the original text of the copyright directive). These three bodies will work to reconcile their versions of the directive text, and the final text will again be voted on in the European Parliament probably early in 2019.
The European Parliament was given the chance to fix copyright for 500 million Europeans, and signal to the world that progressive changes to law can empower new creators and champion creativity and the open web. Instead, they chose to side with the most powerful corporate rights holders whose sole objective is to minimize the impact brought about by digital technologies and the internet on their legacy business models.
The fight for the future of the internet is far from over. While today’s Parliament vote was a major setback, it’s up to all of us to continue to organize and advocate for the free and open web we want and need, in the EU and beyond.
Spanish Translation of 4.0 now available (La traducción al castellano de la versión 4.0 de las licencias está ahora disponible)
Se Oye Libre Radio by @creativecommons Colombia @monequerias @julianitaquetal y su invitada especial @pepebrrs director #iff Creative Commons Instagram
CC licenses reach 1/2 billion more creators and users!
After more than three years and many rounds of consultation with legal experts throughout Latin America and Europe, including Spain, Creative Commons is proud to announce the release of the Spanish language translation of the CC 4.0 license suite. This process included standardizing legal terms across multiple Spanish speaking-countries with differing legal systems, and involved the active participation of dozens of community members from different countries. Check out the CC Attribution license (CC BY) in Spanish.
Spanish is the second most-spoken language in the world, with approximately 447 million native speakers and an estimated 570 million total speakers worldwide. It is also one of the most geographically widespread languages, reaching a vast number of countries that recognize Spanish as an official language. This brings the total number of people who are able to understand our 4.0 licenses in their first language to more than 2.2 billion.
Spanish speaking communities have been active ever since the launch of Creative Commons in 2001 and some of the oldest chapters were formed in Latin America and Spain. Under the new structure of the CC Global Network, we’re seeing an increase in the number of Spanish-speaking chapters. As more chapters are formed to promote the licenses and the communities that depend on them for sharing, we expect that the Spanish license suite will help more institutions, creators and artists in these countries embrace CC licensing.
We would like to thank the incredible leadership of María Juliana Soto (CC Colombia) and Ignasi Labastida (CC Spain) in drafting the first versions of the translation, and the work of several contributors around the CC Community, including: María Paz Canales (CC Chile); Claudia Cristiani (CC El Salvador); Evelin Heidel (a.k.a. Scann, CC Argentina), as well as the support of CC Staff to bring this forward.
¡Felicitaciones por el trabajo realizado, equipo!
En Español:
La traducción al castellano de la versión 4.0 de las licencias está ahora disponible
¡Las licencias CC ahora alcanzan a 500 millones más de usuarios y creadores!
Luego de más de tres años y varias rondas de consulta con expertos legales a lo largo de América Latina y España, Creative Commons se enorgullece en anunciar el lanzamiento de la traducción al español de las licencias CC 4.0. Este proceso incluyó estandarizar el conjunto de las licencias a lo largo de múltiples países hispanoparlantes, con la participación activa de decenas de miembros de la comunidad de varios países. Pueden ver la licencia CC Atribución (CC BY) en español.
El español es la segunda lengua más hablada en el mundo, con alrededor de 442 millones de hablantes nativos y un estimado de 570 millones de hablantes en el mundo. También es uno de los idiomas más difundidos geográficamente, alcanzando un gran número de países que lo reconocen como su idioma oficial. Esto lleva a que más de 2.200 millones de personas puedan entender nuestras licencias 4.0 en su idioma materno.
Las comunidades hispano-parlantes han estado muy activas desde el lanzamiento de Creative Commons en 2001. Algunos de los capítulos más antiguos fueron formados en América Latina y España. Bajo la nueva estructura de la Red Global de CC, estamos viendo un incremento de capítulos hispano-parlantes. A medida que se forman más capítulos para promover las licencias y las comunidades que dependen de ellas para compartir, esperamos que las licencias en español ayudarán a más instituciones, creadores y artistas a adoptar CC en estos países.
Nos gustaría agradecer el increíble liderazgo de María Juliana Soto (CC Colombia) e Ignasi Labastida (CC Spain) en armar los primeros borradores de la traducción, y el trabajo de varios colaboradores en la comunidad de CC: María Paz Canales (CC Chile); Claudia Cristiani (CC El Salvador); Evelin Heidel (a.k.a. Scann, CC Argentina), así como el apoyo del staff de CC para completar esta tarea.
¡Felicitaciones por el trabajo realizado, equipo!
It’s now or never: EU copyright must protect access to knowledge and the commons
We’re coming up on a crucial decision on changes to copyright in the European Union that will govern how creativity is accessed and shared for years to come. On 12 September the European Parliament will vote on the draft Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market.
If you’re in the EU, go to https://saveyourinternet.eu/ and tell your MEPs to stop the harmful Article 13 upload filters and support a balanced copyright reform
MEPs should vote against Article 13 upload filters, which would scan all content uploaded to online platforms for any copyrighted works and prevent those works from going online if a match is discovered. It will limit freedom of expression, as the required upload filters won’t be able to tell the difference between copyright infringement and permitted uses of copyrighted works under limitations and exceptions. It puts into jeopardy the sharing of video remixes, memes, parody, and code, even works that incorporate openly licensed content.
MEPs should vote against Article 11, the unnecessary and counterproductive press publishers right that would require anyone using snippets of journalistic content to first get a license or pay a fee to the publisher for its use online.
MEPs should support amendments that expandArticle 4, the copyright exception for education, and Article 3, the exception for text and data mining, which needs to be broadened so that the “right to read is the right to mine.” There’s also some last minute amendments that should be supported, such as the exception that would improve the ability to share remixes and other user-generated content, as well as an exception to enable the commonsense practice of being able to take and share photographs of works of art in public spaces, called “freedom of panorama.”
Even though the Parliament’s Legal Affairs committee approved some of the most harmful measures on the docket back in June, the 5 July plenary vote opened up the debate on the directive to the full Parliament. Hundreds of thousands of people made their voices heard, urging for a better and more progressive copyright that will stop the backward proposals like the content filters suggested by Article 13.
Much of the copyright directive has been narrowly tailored to serve the interests of the most powerful rights holders from the entertainment and publishing sectors. These powerful actors wish to prevent any deviation from their bottom line profits by the revolutionary changes brought about by digital technologies and the internet.
These voices do not represent the incredible diversity of creativity online. On the internet, everyone is a creator, and we want to share knowledge, artistic and political expression, photos and home movies, news, and even code with others in the global commons, on platforms from Wikipedia to YouTube to open access journals to online learning websites. We need progressive policies that support this type of sharing and access if we want to achieve our vision of universal access to research and education and full participation in culture to drive a new era of development, growth, and productivity.
Now is the time for Europe to secure progressive rules on copyright that will truly protect all creators and users, not just special interests. MEPs need to listen to the countless voices that represent the future of creativity, innovation, and online sharing.
Save the date: CC Global Summit is happening May 9-11 in Lisbon!
Drumroll, please…. after two successful years in Toronto, Canada, the 2019 Global Summit will be held in Lisbon, Portugal May 9-11 2019. Please save the date!
Since 2015, the CC Summit has nearly doubled in size. We’ve lined up two great venues to host this international event. Workshops, talks, planning sessions, and small group sessions will be held in Museu do Oriente, a vibrant new museum in a refurbished industrial building on the Alcântara Waterfront. Our keynotes and our Friday night party will be held at Cineteatro Capitólio, a major Art Deco cultural landmark that recently reopened its doors. The event will be co-hosted by CC and CC Portugal, and we owe tremendous gratitude to the CC Portugal team for their insight and assistance. We also want to congratulate and thank Teresa Nobre and Timothy Vollmer, our Program Committee Chairs, for stepping up to lead our community planning.
We’ve grown the CC Global Summit every year as hundreds of leading activists, advocates, librarians, educators, lawyers, technologists, and more have joined us for discussion and debate, workshops and planning, talks and community building. It’s a can’t-miss event for anyone interested in the global movement for the commons.
Last year’s stream and keynotes from leading global activists:
Information on programming and how you can get involved coming soon. For updates, subscribe to our Summit mailing list or join us on Slack.
A warm welcome to three new staff members: Alden Page, Steven Bellamy, and Jami Vass
Please join CC in extending a warm welcome to three new members of the CC team! On our Product team, Alden Page and Steven Bellamy have joined us as Front End Engineer and Back End Engineer, respectively. On the fundraising and development team, we’re welcoming Jami Vass as Director of Development.
Alden Page is a backend software developer on CC’s Product team and strives to build the infrastructure that will power a rich ecosystem of applications on top of the digital commons, beginning with CC Search.
Prior to joining Creative Commons, Alden developed and operated a real-time market risk management system used by equity derivatives traders at Deutsche Bank. He also has experience contributing to free software, and worked in the ad-tech industry. Alden currently lives in New York City and enjoys cycling in his free time.
Steven Bellamy has over 15 years experience with developing interfaces for the web and architecting JavaScript solutions.
Previously, he worked on enterprise level applications for various startups, the Department of Defense, and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB). Steven currently lives in Alexandria VA, where he spends much of his time listening to jazz.
Jami Vass is excited to join the Creative Commons team as Director of Development, where she will lead global fundraising efforts to support CC’s mission. Jami brings over 17 years of diverse fundraising experience to CC.
Formerly, she led development efforts in the Southeast US at the ASPCA. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Social Anthropology and a Masters Certificate in Nonprofit Management. When Jami is not fundraising, she plays the piano or spends time with her horses.
Alden Page is a backend software developer on CC’s Product team and strives to build the infrastructure that will power a rich ecosystem of applications on top of the digital commons, beginning with CC Search.
Steven Bellamy has over 15 years experience with developing interfaces for the web and architecting JavaScript solutions.
Jami Vass is excited to join the Creative Commons team as Director of Development, where she will lead global fundraising efforts to support CC’s mission. Jami brings over 17 years of diverse fundraising experience to CC.