Over the weekend, news emerged that upset even the most ardent skeptics of open access. Under the headline, “Trump vs Berlin” the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag reported that President Trump offered $1 billion USD to the German biopharmaceutical company CureVac to secure their COVID-19 vaccine “only for the United States.” In response, Jens Spahn, the…
Storytelling is a powerful tool because it can change perceptions and inspire action—and images are an essential component. As Depression-era American photojournalist and documentarian Dorothea Lange said, “The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” Unfortunately, finding high-quality and diverse openly licensed images, particularly those of women, is a…
Today is the International Day for Universal Access to Information (IDUAI). You may be wondering why this day is necessary—particularly in 2019, when the average person is inundated with an estimated 34 gigabytes of information every day, from emails and text messages to Youtube videos and news programs. In fact, it’s easy to take information…
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”)…
Last week the European Commission announced it has adopted CC BY 4.0 and CC0 to share published documents, including photos, videos, reports, peer-reviewed studies, and data. The Commission joins other public institutions around the world that use standard, legally interoperable tools like Creative Commons licenses and public domain tools to share a wide range of…
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…
In January, Creative Commons kicked off an exciting new initiative called CC usability with two primary goals:
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…
Photos of the event are over at Flickr. Videos of the event are over at YouTube. Co-hosted by Creative Commons and the Internet Archive, this celebration featured keynote addresses by Lawrence Lessig and Cory Doctorow, lightning talks, demos, multimedia displays and more to mark the “re-opening” of the public domain in the United States. The event took take place…
Melody Kramer is a news and public media expert with a special gift for uplifting open knowledge and demonstrating the power of the Commons.