We are deeply saddened and completely outraged to learn today that our friend and colleague Bassel Khartabil has been executed by the Syrian regime.

Bassel was Creative Commons’ Syrian project lead, an open source software programmer, teacher, Wikipedia contributor, and free culture advocate. He was also a devoted son and husband, and a great friend to many people in the open knowledge community around the world. The projects and communities he helped to build live on across the globe, and will remain a tribute to his leadership.

In March of 2012, Bassel was taken from the street in Damascus amid a wave of military arrests. He was jailed for several years, during which time he was allowed to infrequently communicate with family members. Then, in October 2015, he was abruptly transferred to an undisclosed location. At that time, all communications between Bassel and the outside world ceased. The Creative Commons board publicly called for Bassel’s immediate release, and the MIT Media Lab offered Bassel a research position in its Center for Civic Media. His family and friends prayed for his safe return, and are heartbroken today to learn the awful and terrifying news of his execution.

Over the past several years, a variety of human rights groups called for Bassel’s release. Amnesty International launched a campaign through its Urgent Action network that encouraged the public to write letters to Syrian authorities and urge them to grant Bassel access to his family, a lawyer, and medical attention. The US State Department singled him out on International Human Rights Day in 2015 as a “prisoner of conscience.”

Additionally, since his detention, an international community of Bassel’s friends and colleagues have worked to raise awareness about Bassel, his projects, and his story through the #FreeBassel campaign. As an extension of this project, a massive 3D-printed rendering of one of the Palmyra Tetrapylons was created for and exhibited at this year’s Creative Commons Global Summit. The rendering was a tribute to Bassel and was made directly possible by Bassel’s work in the founding of #NEWPALMYRA, an effort to digitally capture and remodel the endangered ruins of Palmyra.

Around the world, activists and advocates seek the sharing of culture, and open knowledge. Creative Commons, and the global commons of art, history, and knowledge, are stronger because of Bassel’s contributions, and our community is better because of his work and his friendship. His death is a terrible reminder of what many individuals and families risk in order to make a better society.

The post Statement on the death of CC friend and colleague Bassel Khartabil appeared first on Creative Commons.

Last month we announced the Community Activities Fund as part of our ongoing efforts to support the activities of CC communities and beyond. Creative Commons is committed to building and fostering a vibrant global commons through the activities and projects they undertake. Our fund was created in response to direct community requests, and we could not be happier to announce that the following projects have been granted financial support through this fund:

Uruguay: Copyright Reform Brochures

CC Uruguay is currently in the middle of a hard fight for a copyright reform in Uruguay that includes strengthening limitations to copyright for purposes of citation and parody, as well as exceptions for libraries and education, freedom of panorama, orphan works, and others. The CC Community Activities Fund will help the team print brochures that explain the copyright reform work and the CC Licenses.

Zimbabwe: First CC Community Meetup

Until recently, Zimbabwe did not have an active Creative Commons community. We’re supporting a small group to host the first CC event in Bulawayo which will bring together various stakeholders and interested parties with a view to kickstart a broader CC Zimbabwe team.

Uganda: OER Workshop

In Uganda, like many places in the developing world, access to education is increasingly limited to the few that can afford it as instructional resources becomes more exam-oriented and teacher centered. We’re supporting a team from Uganda to host an OER workshop for high school teachers to expose them to the benefits of OER and strategize how to adopt it in their schools.

Tanzania: CC Training for Young Lawyers and IT Students

Awareness-raising about Creative Commons remains a top priority in Tanzania, and the CC TZ team is  targeting young lawyers at the Institute of Judicial Administration (IJA) – Tanzania. Their goal is to train these lawyers on CC licenses and get them involved the in CC community in Tanzania, and globally.

India: CC Outreach to Startup and Business Communities

We received several applications from India and we’re glad to be supporting an initiative to reach out to the startup and business communities  in the Coimbatore and Bengaluru to talk about open issues.

Nepal: Introduction to Creative Commons Event

Until recently, Nepal is another country that hasn’t had an active CC presence. We’re supporting a team there to host a two day CC Nepal event themed “Introduction to Creative Commons in Nepal”. This event will be an orientation for students, researchers, lawyers, open advocates, activists and professionals from different fields about the core concepts of Creative Commons.

Ghana: Summer Open School

Returning to the theme of awareness-raising, a team in Ghana is planning a Summer Open School—a three day conference to bring students together and introduce them to the Open Movement, with lessons on two main subject areas: Creative Commons and Wikipedia. We’re supporting some of the logistics to put on this event.

So far, we’ve received and reviewed over 200 applications from all 5 regions around the globe. The highest number of applications came from USA, India, Nigeria, Canada, France, Tanzania, Australia and Ghana. Of those that applied for the grant, 76 applicants are CC affiliates and 128 are not CC affiliates.

The CC Community Activities Fund is still open and we’re receiving and reviewing applications. Please consider submitting an application.

The post Announcing the First Round of Grants for the Community Activities Fund appeared first on Creative Commons.

The CC 4.0 licenses are now translated into Italian

The official Italian translation of the Creative Commons 4.0 Licenses and CC0 waiver is now available! Led by CC Italy, the translations also benefited from the collaboration with CC Switzerland. The working group was hosted and coordinated by the Nexa Center for Internet & Society at Politecnico di Torino, the Italian-affiliated institution of the Creative Commons international network.

During the drafting of the 4.0 licenses in English, the original CC Italy group worked closely with the CC HQ legal team determine how best to manage sui generis database rights. These discussions minimized the number of issues they faced when translating the licenses into Italian. After the public launch of the English licenses, the CC Italy working group drafted the Italian translation of the CC 4.0 license suite and reviewed the Italian translation of CC0—with the important feedback of several fellows of the Nexa Center and other members of the Italian Creative Commons community.

More details about the translation process are available on the Creative Commons wiki. The final part of the 4.0 and CC0 Italian translation process is also documented on the Nexa Center’s GitHub account. The GitHub documentation provides only part of the story, but it generates useful documentation of the linguistic and legal exercise of translation. The CC Italy team is committed to using this GitHub again and more systematically in the future. See an example of how the team used Github to improve their processes, where a suggestion from Sarah Pearson helped the team minimize the differences between the original English version and the Italian translation.

A special thank you to the following groups:

• The original CC Italy Working Group of: Federico Morando, Claudio Artusio, Massimo Travostino, Marco Ricolfi, Alessandro Cogo, and Thomas Margoni
• The fellows at the Nexa Center: Elena Pavan, Stefano Leucci, Marco Ciurcina, and Miryam Bianco for the 4.0 suite and Angelo Maria Rovati and Silvia Bisi for CC0
• Other members of the CC Italy Community: Monica Palmirani, Manuela Avidano, Maurizio Lana, Matteo Montanari, Giacomo Di Grazia, Luca Spinelli, and Simone Musarra for the 4.0 licenses and Francesco Ermini for CC0.

Congratulazioni con la CC Italia!

The post Annuncia la traduzione 4.0 della licenza in Italiano! appeared first on Creative Commons.

Last October we submitted an initial proposal to get CC license symbols into Unicode. Since then we’ve gotten some feedback from them, incorporated that into our thinking, and submitted an updated application.

Here is the new proposal. (The old one for reference here.) The new proposal presents the CC license icons as graphic symbols. We’ve discussed a bit how trademark rights come into play and think we’ve come up with an inclusive approach that permits public access to the graphic symbols, without affecting the trademark rights in the specific icons. This is similar to how companies like IBM have managed their marks with Unicode.

We also asked the public some questions about how you currently mark works with CC licenses. We thought you’d be interested in the results so here are some very simple graphs that show those results (disclaimer: I am not a data analyst). Of the 709 responses, it seems that more than half (441) use the CC license icons or buttons to indicate the license on a work. Many more (681) said they would also like to be able to use the CC license icons in text (Unicode!) to indicate the CC license. Good news—we’re working on addressing your concerns. Fingers crossed that our new proposal will be accepted by Unicode. Thanks for all your support!

 

The post Our Proposal to add CC Symbols to Unicode, Round 2 appeared first on Creative Commons.

We need your help!

Over the next year, we will be investigating and reporting on 2-3 of the most compelling stories about collaboration in the commons. We want to tell the story of when and why a creator first decides to use CC, the kinds of connections they make online, how they invite and encourage collaboration, and what makes them feel like they are valued for their work and part of a community. We’re looking for stories that are similar to the 2016 State of the Commons, but deeper, getting at the heart of what really drives collaboration online.  

This is part of our prosocial work, which you can read about in this post:

“We are broadening our focus to look more holistically at sharing and collaboration online. We will investigate the values and behaviors associated with successful collaboration, in the hopes that we might apply them to content platforms where CC licensing is taking place, thereby enhancing the experience of sharing with CC.”

Fill out this short form (it takes 3 min to complete). We are asking for story leads — not fully fleshed out stories — so don’t worry about having enough material for a case study. We plan to contact, interview, and follow these creators or projects over the next year. So if you can think of 1-2 compelling leads, please share!

We are prioritizing the following fields:

• 3D printing
• Arts & Culture
• Media & Journalism

The form will be open for submissions through 15 August, 2017. Looking forward to your ideas. Contact us with any questions!

The post We want your story ideas about collaboration in the commons appeared first on Creative Commons.