CC in the box of letters / Kristina Alexanderson / CC BY-SA For how popular they are worldwide, it’s striking how rarely CC licenses’ validity has been questioned in court. We consider that a testament to the care with which we craft the licenses: we try to find every possible area of contention or ambiguity…

This post originally appears on the Communia Association blog. Creative Commons is a founding member and active participant in Communia. Last week Thursday the European Commission launched its much anticipated public consultation on the review of the EU copyright rules. This consultation is the first visible sign of the second track of the Commission’s attempt…

The following is a guest post by Jessica Smith, National Copyright Officer for the National Copyright Unit of Australia. She ran the Copyright 4 Educators (AUS) course with Delia Browne as part of the School of Open’s second round of facilitated courses in 2013. The School of Open is a community of volunteers focused on…

We’re pleased to announce a new suite of Creative Commons licenses specifically designed for intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). IGOs produce a wide array of valuable information and content, ranging from scholarly and scientific papers to environmental data. Just like other creators who seek wide dissemination of their works to achieve maximal impact, IGOs benefit from using…

Our friends at Musikpiraten e.V. just let us know that the Free! Music! Sampler is now shipping. You might remember this year’s Free! Music! Contest. The winners have been chosen, and the heavily exclamatory compilation album looks gorgeous. You can listen to all the tracks and download the album from Musikpiraten’s Bandcamp page. While you’re…

If you’re scurrying for gifts this year, consider giving open. We’ve put together this list of a few of our favorite openly licensed gifts. What did we miss? Add your favorites to the comments. Sita Sings the Blues merchandise Not only is Sita a great film, but it has some of the most unique and…

Billy Meinke with our 92 donors. Are you number 93? Today, nonprofits and donors around the world are celebrating #GivingTuesday. When you’re deciding what organizations to support this year, we hope you consider Creative Commons. We have a lot to celebrate together this year. Last week, we unveiled Version 4.0 of the Creative Commons license…

Milton Keynes / CC BY I took up residence in Milton Keynes, England, for one week in October as the Linked OER Research Hub Fellow for the School of Open. The School of Open is a community of volunteers from all around the world who are developing free education opportunities on the meaning, application, and…

[written in collaboration with Erine A. Gray, founder, Aunt Bertha and the Open Eligibility Project] Text-based search is powerful. However, as more and more information is digitized and made available on the internet, the effectiveness of text-based search could stand to be supplemented with other technologies. Aunt Bertha, an Austin, TX–based B Corporation, focuses on…

Today the JURI (legal affairs) committee of the European Parliament approved the compromise text of the proposed directive on collective rights management in the EU (478 KB PDF, passages in bold are changes from the original proposal). The main objective of the directive is to facilitate the licensing of music throughout Europe (which is currently…