From 9 to 13 May 2022, Creative Commons (CC) participated in the 42nd session of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) in Geneva, Switzerland. In this blog post, we look back on the highlights of the SCCR/42 week. Super happy to represent ⁦@creativecommons⁩ at ⁦@WIPO⁩ #SCCR42 #copyright…

Hello Creative Commoners! We are back with a brand new episode of CC’s Open Minds … from Creative Commons podcast. In this episode, we sat down with programmer, musician, and copyright attorney, Damien Riehl, and fellow musician and programmer, Noah Rubin—the creators of the All The Music project. Frustrated by accidental copyright infringement lawsuits stifling…

CC Policy Working Groups In May this year, we announced that four working groups of the Creative Commons Copyright Platform would examine policy issues affecting the open ecosystem. For the past five months, they have worked vigorously to provide clearer articulation of the issues and consider possible solutions in four areas:  Working Group 1 —…

We’re delighted to announce the six selected projects that will receive funding from the CC Copyright Platform Activities Fund in 2020! The CC Copyright Platform is an active space for copyright advocates and experts to coordinate copyright law and policy-related activities. This year, CC launched an Activities Fund to support copyright-related activities by Platform members.…

Credit: "World" icon by Guilherme Furtado (BR) via Noun Project.

We’re excited to introduce the three Creative Commons Global Network (CCGN) Platforms: Open Glam, Copyright, and Open Education! These Platforms are created with our community in mind, and everyone is free to join. Open GLAM Network Platform Following the work that started in 2017, the Open GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) Platform is currently…

WIPO Main Building (Arpad Bogsch Building, WIPO (CC BY-NC-ND)

New beginnings at WIPO  On March 4, Daren Tang was nominated director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the United Nations agency dealing with intellectual property matters. Tang is currently the chief executive of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) and his six-year term as top WIPO official will start on October…

Update: On February 7, 2020, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied Great Minds’ petition for rehearing (opinion (PDF)). As a result, the decision (PDF) of the panel in favor of CC’s interpretation of the licenses remains final. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit reaffirmed Creative Commons’ interpretation of activities that are permissible under the…

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…

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…

I first got involved with Creative Commons last year when the Creative Commons Global Summit happened in Toronto. I had just moved to Toronto, so it seemed like a great opportunity to see what the organization did firsthand.