We are pleased to announce publication of the official translation of the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication into Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese. Nearly 1.2 billion people (around 16% of the world’s population) speak some form of Chinese as their first language, so the availability of CC0 in Simplified and Traditional Chinese will bring huge potential benefits.

Representatives from CC China Mainland, CC Hong Kong, and CC Taiwan gathered during the CC Global Summit in Seoul in Oct 2015 and decided to initiate their collaborative effort to translate both 4.0 and CC0 into Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. This accomplishment wouldn’t have been possible without the hard work and dedication among the teams working on the translations, involving lots of email exchanges, many rounds of conference calls, and two face-to-face meetings made possible by grants from Ford’s International Institute of Education. The group also invited feedback and contribution from other teams such as CC Singapore and CC Macau, which support populations who speak Chinese languages in their local communities.

On December 5, 2015, the first face-to-face meeting was held at the University of Hong Kong, with the generous support of CC Hong Kong, including Ying Chan and Ben Cheng (CC Hong Kong Public Leads), Haggen So and Benjamin Zhou. Attended by Chunyan Wang from CC China Mainland and Yihsuan Lin from CC Taiwan, who had been playing a critical role in the translation efforts in their respective team, the meeting was an important milestone in the collaborative translation project which led to drafts of the two different Chinese versions of the CC0 public domain dedication, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.

The second translation meeting was held July 2-3, 2016, in Beijing, in conjunction with the CC Asia Pacific Regional Meeting hosted by CC China Mainland and attended by 19 representatives from 10 CC affiliates in the region. During this intense workshop session, the group collaborated on the final cross-checking of the draft translations created by the translation teams from CC China Mainland and CC Taiwan.

The group received feedback on their first drafts through a public consultation in July 2016, after their second face-to-face meeting in Beijing. CC China Mainland and CC Taiwan announced the two drafts and received feedback from their local communities through their mailing lists, websites, and social media. Face-to-face meeting is still critical to the success of this kind of collaborative volunteer effort, especially among members with their own unique challenges regardless of their geographical proximity. Creative Commons thanks the Ford Foundation for its generous support to make the two meetings happen.

We are deeply appreciative for the hard work of and thorough feedback from all who contributed to the success of this project, and special thanks to Ben Cheng, Tyng-Ruey Chuang (CC Taiwan Project Lead), Cheng-Jen Lee, Lucien Lin, Yihsuan Lin, Haggen So, Beibei Sun, Ally Wang, Chunyan Wang (CC China Mainland Project Lead), Xingzhi Xin, and Yi Zheng for their outstanding contribution, dedication and commitment. Personally, I am truly honored to work with all who shared their skills, wisdom and insight with patience and care throughout the process, particularly Diane Peters (Creative Commons General Counsel). Congratulations to all!

For details on this project, please visit this wiki page.

The post CC0 now available in Simplified and Traditional Chinese Languages! appeared first on Creative Commons.

Watch or listen to the recording on Vimeo, YouTube, or Soundcloud.

On February 15, Creative Commons hosted an evening of demos, discussion, and drinks in Los Angeles called, “CC as a Vehicle for Social Change in Emerging & Immersive Media.” With 200 guests registered, the evening featured demos of three virtual reality social impact projects. They were:

1. “Bronze, Brass, Jazz” (Maya Santos & Joel Quizon, Form Follows Function) “a 360 VR animation that evokes the spirit of late night jam sessions at breakfast clubs, and fabled stories about jazz great Charlie Parker, from his memorable stay at the Civic Hotel (1st and San Pedro) to a brief residency at the Finale Club (230 1/2 East First Street).”
2. “Walking With Grace” (Maya Santos & Joel Quizon, Form Follows Function) “a 360 virtual reality documentary, Walking with Grace highlight places and streets of Little Tokyo through the perspective of Grace Chikui, a blind woman and long-time resident.”
3. “NOTES ON BLINDNESS” (Alethea Avramis, Atlas V.) “Arte Experience presents Notes On Blindness, a VR journey into a world beyond sight. In 1983, after decades of steady deterioration, John Hull became totally blind. To help him make sense of the upheaval in his life, he began documenting his experiences on audio cassette. These original diary recordings form the basis of this project, an interactive non fiction using new forms of storytelling to explore his cognitive and emotional experience of blindness.”

Following the demos, participants gathered for a panel discussion with VR creators and producers moderated by Steve Anderson, Professor of Digital Media at UCLA, whose research sits at the intersection of VR, social impact, and open systems. Speakers were Maya Santos (Creative Director, FORM follows FUNCTION Media), Joel Quizon (Producer, FORM follows FUNCTION Media), Alethea Avramis (Creative Producer, Atlas V.), and Brian Seth Hurst (President and Chief Storyteller, StoryTech Immersive). Speakers addressed questions such as:

• When you think about emerging media and tech (like VR, AR, etc., and culture/tech more generally) what is the thing you could do with it that is most useful or impactful? What is the thing that you could do that is the most delightful?
• Unlike most forms of entertainment, the whole point of VR is collaborative — to co-create the experience through your engagement. In this (seemingly) infinitely expandable universe of creativity, how do you see the Creative Commons concepts of inviting collaboration, reuse, and remix applying?
• Who ultimately owns the experience? How do you bring people into the process to more actively/fully engage with the media (beyond being an agent in the experience)? Does experience require making/doing?
• In this industry where there is no standard (yet), what is the opportunity for Creative Commons as a system of rights? What about as a system of values?
• Where do you predict VR/AR trending next?

Those in the audience included representatives from various companies at the intersection of VR and social impact, including Daydream Impact, a new program from Google offering nonprofits free VR guidance and tools to create social impact stories. For the full discussion, including a Q&A with the audience, follow the links to the recordings above! 

More photos of the event are available at Creative Commons’ Flickr page. Thank you to everyone who came out!

The post Los Angeles: CC and a panel of VR experts tackle the issue of social change in emerging media appeared first on Creative Commons.

Earlier this month Bell and a group of Canadian telecommunications and media companies submitted a proposal that asks the Canadian government to identify websites engaged in content piracy and compel internet service providers to block access to those sites.

Specifically, the proposal asks the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to set up an “Internet Piracy Review Agency.” The agency would be responsible for identifying websites that are “blatantly, overwhelmingly or structurally” involved in piracy. After the sites are identified, internet service providers would be notified and required to block access to those sites.

Today, a coalition of over 25 organisations—led by digital rights NGO OpenMedia—launched a campaign asking Canadians to voice their opposition to Bell’s plan. Says OpenMedia: “This radical proposal will lead to legitimate content and speech being censored, violating our right to free expression and the principles of Net Neutrality, which the federal government has consistently pledged support for.”

Michael Geist, the Canadian law professor, has been writing extensively (11 blog posts and counting) about the potential harms of the proposal. He described Bell’s plan as having a similar negative effects as the SOPA/PIPA legislation floated in the U.S. a few years ago. Geist says, “the CRTC should not hesitate to firmly reject the website blocking plan as a disproportionate, unconstitutional proposal sorely lacking in due process that is inconsistent with the current communications law framework.” We agree.

Why is this the wrong approach?

• Canada already has strong rules against copyright infringement, and an existing mechanism for copyright holders to go to court and get a takedown order.
• The Bell proposal seems to make up its own definition of piracy because it doesn’t reference any current Canadian legislation.
• It’s up for debate whether the CRTC actually has the expertise to conduct this sort of piracy review. CIPPIC observes that the proposal “calls upon the Commission to undertake a new role under which it will be obligated to make legal determinations under the Copyright Act, a role far removed from the Commission’s area of expertise and one with which the Commission has not had significant historical experience.”
• There could be overblocking of sites that have significant non-infringing uses, such as torrent sites that track and share open source software, openly licensed creative works, and works in the public domain.
• There’s little evidence that piracy in Canada is as bad as suggested by BellI. As OpenMedia notes, “the most effective way to stop piracy is to provide affordable, user-friendly services that give people access to the content they want, when and where they want it.”

What you can do

OpenMedia is aiming to submit 50,000 comments into the CRTC by the end of the day of action—February 28. Here’s what you can do:

1. Submit a comment to the CRTC now using OpenMedia’s easy tool, now or, go to the CRTC’s website and file your comment directly.
2. Then, ask your friends to speak out, share this link, act.openmedia.org/StopCanadaCensorship, and/or take to Facebook and Twitter.
3. Share this site, change your profile pictures and write status updates asking your friends to stand up to Bell’s censorship scheme.
4. Use this tool to tweet the companies directly that have signed on to this dangerous proposal.

 

The post Tell the Canadian government to ignore Bell’s terrible idea to block websites appeared first on Creative Commons.

Act now and support the #OneMoreVote campaign to trigger Senate review of the FCC repeal

In December 2017, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted along party lines to repeal the 2015 Open Internet Order that ensured net neutrality in the United States. Without net neutrality, broadband providers like Comcast and Verizon will have free reign to block or discriminate against content or applications that are carried over their networks.

Last week the official notice of the repeal was published in the Federal Register, meaning that now the clock is ticking. If Congress or the courts do not intervene before 23 April 2018 (60 days after the notice), net neutrality will be a thing of the past.

Today we’re joining the massive online campaign that will flood the Senate with calls and emails. The goal of the action is to secure the final vote needed to pass the Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution restoring net neutrality. If 50 votes are secured in the Senate, then the fight will shift to the House of Representatives.

Go to battleforthenet.com and contact Congress to stop the FCC’s dismantling of important net neutrality protections.

Creative Commons has always supported network neutrality. We joined thousands of organisations calling on everyone to make their voice heard to the FCC and Congress. A free and open internet is an essential utility of everyday life –  Creative Commons licensing is only one factor in a healthy open internet ecosystem. A strong digital commons requires universal access to basic digital infrastructure, and enforceable rules that promote fair competition and freedom of information.

The FCC repeal of net neutrality is clearly antithetical to the wishes of the public. We stand in solidarity with countless internet users, creators, teachers, startups, and information-seekers who can only thrive with strong net neutrality protections. We’ll continue the fight for the open internet for all.

The post Time is running out for net neutrality appeared first on Creative Commons.

Today we are publicly opening the doors to our renewed Creative Commons Global Network. It’s been a two-year process that was initiated, driven, and designed by CC’s international communities. We’re very proud of our work together, and we’re looking forward to inviting a broader community to join us in new ways, from international groups for collaboration on topics like open education and copyright reform, to our upcoming Summit, to governance and leadership.

The CC network was originally focused on legal support and translation of the Creative Commons licenses. The network of over 85 CC affiliates around the world was an enormous success that made Creative Commons a global initiative with enormous impact. We provided a legal infrastructure for the open web and helped Creative Commons to reach millions of new users and creators with free legal tools to be used in their own context and local languages.

Over time, the broader community grew and expanded into new spaces, including creators, activists, scholars, librarians, academics and a wide range of users. Community interests grew to include free culture, the public domain, open content, open education, copyright reform and other policies, open data, and more. In 2013, we launched the 4.0 version of the CC license suite, which eliminated the local country versions in favour of one international license. At that time, the only way to be part of the network was to be an official affiliate.

All of the momentum and activity created a tension between the formal network of affiliates and the broader expanding community who wanted to get involved, but had no structure or support for collaboration and collective action. We wanted to respond the needs of a vibrant and diverse community of contributors, and at the same time still provide the stewardship for the copyright licenses that are key for the open web. In 2015, Creative Commons approved our new organizational strategy, focused on building a vibrant, usable commons, powered by collaboration and gratitude, which includes strengthening ties with the global community and a promise to enhance our voice at a global scale.

In 2015 the existing network began drafting a new strategy. Creative Commons conducted open consultations and potential new participants and commissioned original research to understand how we could grow and be more inclusive. We worked together with affiliates from around the world to draft a new Global Network Strategy, which was finalized at the 2017 Global Summit in Toronto.

There’s no single recipe for success to have impact on a global scale. Our research showed that a strong CC network needs to make clear paths for engagement, create opportunities for new people to join and contribute, and offer opportunities to influence priorities and decisions. This new Strategy creates clear pathways in for new contributors, establishes a new way of working together, supports the work of contributors around the world, and helps us to collectively focus on priority areas.

Starting today, we are offering new ways of getting more involved with Creative Commons and its community.

1. The Network Platforms. Platforms are the way we work together. They are working groups that will create and communicate strategic collaboration to have a worldwide impact. The platforms are open to anyone willing to contribute and develop usable, vibrant and collaborative global Commons.

2. The Global Summit. The Global Summit is now an annual event. The Summit provides leaders, stakeholders, and the broader open web community an opportunity to drive the open movement forward, cross-pollinate ideas and expertise, and expand our impact. This year’s event will focus on empowering new contributors to get involved and have impact. You’re invited to participate and join us in Toronto this April.

3. Network Membership. We have created a membership model for those interested in formally participating in the decision-making and governance of the network. Membership is not required for participation in CC projects, and it is open to anyone with a track record as an active contributor to the CC movement that supports the Network Charter. Members are organized nationally into chapters (e.g., CC New Zealand, CC El Salvador, CC Canada). Individuals can apply here.

During the upcoming weeks, teams will start to establish their Creative Commons Chapters and organize locally for community actions at local and national scale. By the middle of 2018, we will host the first meeting of the Global Network Council, made up of delegates from each chapter, the main body for international network governance.

The new Global Network is the product of our community, and we are excited to join with you in increased participation and enhancement of the Commons.

Questions? Ask on Slack, IRC, or ping us on social media.

The post Creative Commons’ Global Network: How we’re Growing appeared first on Creative Commons.