Image: "Love is Art Science 95" by Kollage Kid, licensed CC BY-NC 2.0.

Should novel output (such as music, artworks, poems, etc.) generated by artificial intelligence1 (AI) be protected by copyright? While this question seems straightforward, the answer certainly isn’t. It brings together technical, legal, and philosophical questions regarding “creativity,” and whether machines can be considered “authors” that produce “original” works. In search of an answer, we ran…

5169051592_632fc3cc6b_h Kollage Kid (CC BY-NC-SA)

Over 300 million images are uploaded to Facebook a day. Yes, just Facebook. Once other social media and photo-sharing platforms like Flickr, Unsplash, Instagram, etc. are taken into account, that number quickly grows into the billions.  A lot has changed since the dawn of photography in the 19th century—when Nicéphore Niépce (a.k.a. the “Father of…

Image by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images/Images of Empowerment, November 2017 (CC BY-NC)

Since the founding of Creative Commons (CC) in 2001, we’ve been supported by like-minded organizations and individuals who value open access, the open community, and the global commons as much as we do. As we near our 20th anniversary, we are reflecting on the past and planning for the future. What better way to do…

We are thrilled to announce today that Dr. Tarek Loubani has been awarded the 2020 Bassel Khartabil Fellowship. Loubani is the medical director of Glia, a project focused on using Open Access manufacturing and distribution in order to provide lower costs and vastly increase the accessibility of urgently needed medical supplies and gear. The Fellowship…

On 14 February 2020, Creative Commons (CC) submitted its comments on the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)’s Issues Paper* as part of WIPO’s consultation process on artificial intelligence (AI) and intellectual property (IP) policy. In this post, we briefly present our main arguments for a cautious approach to regulating AI through copyright or any new…

Earlier this week the Canadian Parliament’s Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology (INDU) released a report with 36 recommendations on the statutory review of Canadian copyright law. The report caps a year-long study, including a public consultation and committee hearings that included a variety of stakeholders. The document makes progressive recommendations that support a…

1. Preamble This Privacy Policy explains the collection, use, processing, transferring and disclosure of personal information by Creative Commons Corporation (“CC” or “Creative Commons”), a Massachusetts charitable organization. This Privacy Policy is incorporated into and made part of Creative Commons Master Terms of Use (“Master Terms”) located at https://creativecommons.org/terms. Unless otherwise noted on a particular…

Creative Commons Master Terms of Use Effective as of 25 May 2018 1. General Information Regarding These Terms of Use Master terms: Welcome, and thank you for your interest in Creative Commons (“Creative Commons,” “CC,” “we,” “our,” or “us”). Unless otherwise noted on a particular site or service, these master terms of use (“Master Terms”)…

1. Preamble This Privacy Policy explains the collection, use, processing, transferring and disclosure of personal information by Creative Commons Corporation (“CC” or “Creative Commons”), a Massachusetts charitable organization. This Privacy Policy is incorporated into and made part of Creative Commons Master Terms of Use (“Master Terms”) located at https://creativecommons.org/terms. Unless otherwise noted on a particular…

Six years ago we wrote a blog post titled WIPO’s Broadcasting Treaty: Still Harmful, Still Unnecessary. At the time, the proposed treaty — which would grant to broadcasters a separate, exclusive copyright-like right in the signals that they transmit, separate from any copyrights in the content of the transmissions — had already been on WIPO’s docket for…