Visitors to the CC  home webpage recently were welcomed by a big black box and the message “Sorry: This video does not exist.” In the spot where CC was showcasing a custom video made last year for CC’s 20th anniversary, there was now a stark error message, making it look like the CC website was broken.

After some investigation, CC learned that the copy of the video we had hosted on the Vimeo platform had been tagged with an automated copyright violation takedown notice. Anyone who has had this experience knows that typically a service will stop delivering content that automated processes have identified as violating copyright, and then it’s up to you as the account holder to prove you have rights to share the work, or modify it so it no longer triggers automated filters. Meanwhile, your content is missing and your website may look broken.

Almost a week later, Vimeo approved CC’s detailed appeal of the takedown and the video was back on our home webpage. It’s not always easy to figure out how to file an appeal for a takedown like this — in fact Vimeo’s appeal button led to a dead link, so it actually took us at CC extra time to even figure out how to file an appeal with Vimeo.

Robot justice may be blind, but there was plenty of irony in this takedown notice, delivered to an organization like CC that knows a bit about people’s freedom to share. Irony on top of irony: the specific content flagged for copyright infringement was a sample of a musical track from The Wired CD, perhaps the most famous collection of openly licensed music ever published.

Fortunately, CC had taken great care in the production of the video, carefully tracking attributions for every sound and image. In another dose of irony, there is no good way to display the rather lengthy attributions for this video on Vimeo, and so one must look to a different host — like Flickr — for the video to display the full attribution statement.

The internet may not have missed this specific version of a short video for a few days, but this small example demonstrates the stakes of automated systems that put the interests of big copyright ahead of everyone else’s. Even with the black and white “Sorry,” the message that “this video does not exist” betrays a vision of a world where copyright reigns supreme with little to no space left for uses based on fundamental freedoms, like the freedom of expression. Because the video does indeed still exist, not only on Vimeo, where it was merely locked in private mode, awaiting appeal, but also anywhere else it might live, like on Flickr, the Internet Archive, Wikimedia Commons, YouTube (which also has the video in private mode, pending CC’s appeal), or — if you have the resources — on your own internet hosting infrastructure.

CC was embedding the version of this video hosted on Vimeo on our home webpage because Vimeo embedding has some technical advantages, but one lesson here is never to put all your web hosting eggs in a single basket — if you have the time and resources to share open content in multiple places, your content is less likely to “not exist” due to the whims of any one host.

Another lesson is that good attribution practices are not only important to meet the requirements of open licensing — giving credit to upstream creators and guidance to downstream users — but also as a record of the multiple layers of rights and permissions within your  work, ready for you to use when you get that unexpected copyright takedown notice or legal challenge. Because CC had taken such care with the attributions for this video, we were well-equipped to file a successful appeal with Vimeo.

Why wait for your next takedown notice? Brush up your skills in making good attributions via CC’s online guidance or go deeper with our CC Certificate program >

The post Sorry: This video does not exist. CC’s Open VIdeo Blocked by Automatic Copyright Robots appeared first on Creative Commons.

Marike van Roon shares that “the main benefit of open culture is accessibility” because if you are not fortunate enough to be part of organization that pays for you to have access to collections and you don’t live in city with public collections it’s almost impossible to access a lot of cultural heritage. In this episode we learn about the institutions that support opening up collections in the Netherlands and how detrimental copyright laws and pay walls are to open culture around the world.

Open Culture VOICES is a series of short videos that highlight the benefits and barriers of open culture as well as inspiration and advice on the subject of opening up cultural heritage. Marike van Roon is currently an independent art historian and has been part of the cultural heritage sector in the nNetherlands for more than 30years. She is also a Wikipedian and was a member of the board of Wikimedia Nederland.

Marike responds to the following questions:

1. What are the main benefits of open GLAM?
2. What are the barriers?
3. Could you share something someone else told you that opened up your eyes and mind about open GLAM?
4. Do you have a personal message to those hesitating to open up collections?

Closed captions are available for this video, you can turn them on by clicking the CC icon at the bottom of the video. A red line will appear under the icon when closed captions have been enabled. Closed captions may be affected by Internet connectivity — if you experience a lag, we recommend watching the videos directly on YouTube.

Want to hear more insights from Open Culture experts from around the world? Watch more episodes of Open Culture VOICES here >>

The post Marike van Roon — Open Culture VOICES, Season 2 Episode 30 appeared first on Creative Commons.

The European Union’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act will be discussed at a key trilogue meeting on 24 October 2023 — a trilogue is a meeting bringing together the three bodies of the European Union for the last phase of negotiations: the European Commission, the European Council and the European Parliament. CC collaborated with Communia to summarize our views emphasizing the importance of a balanced and tailored approach to regulating foundation models and of transparency in general. Additional organizations that support public interest AI policy have also signed to support these positions.

Statement on Transparency in the AI Act

The undersigned are civil society organizations advocating in the public interest, and representing knowledge users and creative communities.

We are encouraged that the Spanish Presidency is considering how to tailor its approach to foundation models more carefully, including an emphasis on transparency. We reiterate that copyright is not the only prism through which reporting and transparency requirements should be seen in the AI Act.

General transparency responsibilities for training data

Greater openness and transparency in the development of AI models can serve the public interest and facilitate better sharing by building trust among creators and users. As such, we generally support more transparency around the training data for regulated AI systems, and not only on training data that is protected by copyright.

Copyright balance

We also believe that the existing copyright flexibilities for the use of copyrighted materials as training data must be upheld. The 2019 Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market and specifically its provisions on text-and-data mining exceptions for scientific research purposes and for general purposes provide a suitable framework for AI training. They offer legal certainty and strike the right balance between the rights of rightsholders and the freedoms necessary to stimulate scientific research and further creativity and innovation.

Proportionate approach

We support a proportionate, realistic, and practical approach to meeting the transparency obligation, which would put less onerous burdens on smaller players including non-commercial players and SMEs, as well as models developed using FOSS, in order not to stifle innovation in AI development. Too burdensome an obligation on such players may create significant barriers to innovation and drive market concentration, leading the development of AI to only occur within a small number of large, well-resourced commercial operators.

Lack of clarity on copyright transparency obligation

We welcome the proposal to require AI developers to disclose the copyright compliance policies followed during the training of regulated AI systems. We are still concerned with the lack of clarity on the scope and content of the obligation to provide a detailed summary of the training data. AI developers should not be expected to literally list out every item in the training content. We maintain that such level of detail is not practical, nor is it necessary for implementing opt-outs and assessing compliance with the general purpose text-and-data mining exception. We would welcome further clarification by the co-legislators on this obligation. In addition, an independent and accountable entity, such as the foreseen AI Office, should develop processes to implement it.

Signatories

• Creative Commons
• Communia Association
• Wikimedia Europe

The post CC and Communia Statement on Transparency in the EU AI Act appeared first on Creative Commons.

If we are going to solve climate change, the knowledge about it must be open. Only 47% of research papers on climate change are open. That means less than half of all climate research can be read by the public, researchers, journalists, educators, policy makers, students and others seeking to mobilize this knowledge in mitigations and solutions for climate change. One year ago, Creative Commons and our partners — SPARC & EIFL with the guidance of the Steering Committee — launched the Open Climate Campaign to address the lack of access to climate change research. Comprising 11 goals, the Open Climate Campaign’s mission is to make the open sharing of research the norm in climate science.

The Campaign was successfully launched on 30 August 2022 and was covered by the International Science Council, Infodocket, Research Information, Nature, and Axios Brief. We began by developing campaign materials — for our target audiences — to advertise the Campaign and to persuade researchers, librarians, national governments, environmental organizations and funders the free and open sharing of the research they create and fund is key to addressing climate change. We leveraged these materials to organize and present at 39 events to connect with our target audiences. We partnered with the Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative to secure open access benchmark data for climate change publications, and drafted a report on the legal and policy barriers to open access; both activities helped the Campaign understand the landscape of open access in climate change research.

In Year One, the Campaign began working with National Governments and partnered with the Open Research Funder’s Group to offer a policy development program for funders of climate change research. The Campaign secured endorsements from several organizations including, but not limited to, PLOS, Wildlife Conservation Society, and the Digital Public Goods Alliance.

In keeping with the global focus of the Campaign, we also began recruiting for a working group of open access and climate change experts — in the global south — to ensure inclusive outcomes throughout the campaign. Finally, we made progress on the Campaign’s unbinding work by beginning to form relationships with publishers and open access tools to facilitate the opening of past climate change publications.

The Open Climate Campaign is looking forward to leveraging this success and progress into Year 2 as the Campaign continues to work on developing open access policies with national governments, funders, and environmental organizations in service of changing the culture of sharing in climate change research.

The post A Year in the Open Climate Campaign appeared first on Creative Commons.

[lee esta entrada en español >]

The CC Global Summit is now just one week away! As we make the final preparations for this first opportunity to gather in person at a Summit in several years, we are excited to unveil the program that will take place 3–6 October in Mexico City. Since 2006, the CC Global Summit has brought together thousands of CC community members, activists, creators, advocates, librarians, educators, lawyers, and technologists from around the world to discuss, collaborate, and take action to make our global culture more open and collaborative.

We must begin by honoring the very special Summit venue, the Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco, next to the Plaza de las Tres Culturas. As we gather to collaborate on the future of the open commons, we will be surrounded by rich culture from Mexico’s history. Bringing these cultural themes together is “We Are the Commons,” the illustration commissioned specially for the Summit by Mexican artist Eréndira Derbez.

You can now explore the 100s of panels, community sessions, workshops, and networking opportunities scheduled in the program, all of which connect to the Summit’s main theme, AI & the commons, and/or one of the general topics on which the CC community often collaborates: better internet, contemporary creativity, culture & heritage, education, journalism, and scholarship & science.

We are especially honored to welcome the Summit’s three keynote speakers, who have been invited to challenge us with new and reborn perspectives about open knowledge and culture, and to honor both the Summit’s location in Mexico and our community’s global scope.

• Marina Núñez Bespalova, Mexico’s Undersecretary of Cultural Development, who will open the Summit speaking on global culture from the deeply rooted perspective of Mexico and Latin America.
• Peter-Lucas Jones, whose keynote on day two draws from his work as a leading figure in Māori media and his collaborations to honor local and traditional knowledge and culture in a global context.
• Anya Kamenetz, who will close the Summit with a keynote that grows out of her work as a journalist, writer, and now, activist focused on climate education for children.

Register now for the CC Global Summit in Mexico City >

Virtual participation

If you can’t make it to Mexico City, there are several opportunities to engage with the Summit virtually. First, take a moment to register for free virtual access to make sure you get all the information about how you can participate in the Summit at a distance and at different times, including:

• the sessions that will be livestreamed
• the pre-recorded video sessions you can watch on demand
• the informal connection sessions CC is organizing with Virtually Connecting
• the opportunity to connect with participants in Mexico and around the world in the CC community slack
• and the opportunity to meet Summit presenters and participants in virtual gatherings after the Summit in Mexico is over

Register now for virtual Summit participation >

Thanks to all those who made the Summit possible

Bringing hundreds of people together for a rich program in a world capital like Mexico City is a challenge CC could not have undertaken without a lot of support from many sources.

We are deeply grateful to the team at CC Mexico — especially Irene Soria, Iván Martínez, and the team of volunteers they brought together — for their dedicated assistance large and small to make the Summit happen in their city.

We also thank the volunteers around the world who gave their time and energy on the Summit program and scholarship committees. The overwhelming interest in this year’s Summit generated big challenges for these people who stepped up to help shape a Summit that we hope is diverse, enriching, and practical. Another heartfelt thank you goes out to our friends at Wikimedia Mexico who are sponsoring a group of volunteers to help out during the event. We are grateful for this partnership and looking forward to meeting everyone next week!

Beyond all the essential community effort powering the Summit, we especially thank the sponsors who contributed financial support to make it possible to offer the scholarships that enable people from all over the world to attend the Summit and to ensure this ambitious gathering will be rewarding and successful.

CC Global Summit 2023 Sponsors: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Microsoft Corporation, Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web, Akin, Anthropic, Mozilla Foundation, The Michelson 20MM Foundation, MHz Curationist, Frontiers Media, Arnold & Porter, Crowell, Centro Cultural de España.

Are you interested in sponsoring CC Global Summit 2023? Please contact us at development@creativecommons.org.

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