With these welcoming words, Creative Common’s CEO Ryan Merkley confirmed I was in the right place. It was my first time at the global Creative Commons summit, and though I knew a bit about Creative Commons, this was my first adventure into meeting and learning from the community.
Image by Sebastian Ter Burg, CC BY
The open data community that I’m part of has a lot of overlap with the Creative Commons space. Not just because we both talk about licenses for data or content, but moreso due to our community’s enthusiasm to use tech and data and information to further our shared values – chief amongst them, a belief that open is better.
In Canada we’ve got great momentum going in terms of applying this belief to how our government works. Code for Canada has recently launched, we’ve got a new chief digital officer in Ontario, and adoption of the Open Data Charter at the federal and provincial governments. Cities across Canada are showing renewed focus on their open data plans. So how to build on this momentum of openness?
By increasing our political action. Many of us have a handle on how tech and systems work, how they can be open, how they can be applied – and yes, we’ve got lots of opinions on it all too. As a community, we need to show up more to support our governments in their work to do tech right.
When I needed a jolt of inspiration in doing this work a few years back, I watched the Internet’s Own Boy, a documentary about Aaron Swartz, in Lawrence Lessig’s words, “one of the early architects of Creative Commons”. To help share this inspiration and keep the discussion moving along, we’ll be hosting a joint movie night, put on by the Toronto Public Library, Creative Commons Canada, and the Open Data Institute of Toronto – details will be shared as we have them.
Aaron had a fierce political belief in the power of opening up information. It’s on us as a bigger and broader open community to think strategically about what we can do politically to make sure this happens. I’m excited for our communities to continue to converge and collaborate and I’m grateful for the summit experience that confirmed another global community of people keen to do this work.
In the United States, there are two bills making their way through Congress that would require all government data to be made available in open and machine readable formats by default. The OPEN Government Data Act has been introduced in both the House of Representatives (H.R. 1770) and the Senate (S. 760). The bill would ensure that federal government data is “open, available, discoverable, and usable to the general public, businesses, journalists, [and] academics.” The legislation would codify the Obama administration’s 2013 Executive Order.
Along with the Data Coalition, Creative Commons and a group of over 80 organisations wrote to the House and Senate asking for their continued support:
First and foremost, this legislation would institutionalize the federal government’s commitment to open data and allow the United States to remain a world leader on open data. Second, adopting a policy of open by default for government data would ensure that the value of this public resource would continue to grow as the government unlocks and creates new data sets. Third, a firm commitment to providing open data as a public resource would encourage businesses, non-profits, and others to invest in innovative tools that make use of government data. And, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s review of the 2016 unanimously passed Senate bill, taking these steps would not have a significant impact on agency spending.
Another bill—the Preserving Data in Government Act of 2017 (S. 960)—has been introduced in the Senate. Similar to the OPEN Government Data Act, this bill acknowledges the importance of publishing data in open and machine readable formats. It focuses on ensuring that federal government data sets be adequately preserved for long term access and use.
The introduction of the bills are a breath of fresh air within a political environment that has jeopardized access to government data on topics such as climate change. The bipartisan support for this legislation demonstrates that sharing publicly-funded data under open licenses and in machine readable formats can be an important tool to improve access and reuse of data for both the public and private sectors.
As a Copyright and Digital Scholarship librarian, I spend a lot of time talking to people about the rights they have to the things they create, and as an active member of the open community, I often find myself encouraging others to apply Creative Commons licenses to their work. For these reasons, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to attend and speak at the Creative Commons Global Summit in Toronto. I was looking forward to meeting a community of individuals committed to openness connected through a tool that facilitates openness in scholarship and art,but I also was new to the idea of the commons, and I was drawn to the summit partially through a deep curiosity. What – or who – made up the commons? How did they work? And how could I make my way into the heart of the open movement?
But I was also wary of this environment – a microcosm of open superheroes that could easily turn into a Batman vs. Superman situation. When you have devoted your career to advocating for a cause, it can be inspiring to see how others achieve similar goals. But it can also be difficult to be open to ways others achieve those goals, especially when they conflict with your own modus operandi. On the other hand, these events can create a self-congratulatory echo-chamber, where people are unable to engage in a meaningful and critical discourse that helps to generate meaningful, future-oriented action. At events that gather smart, hard-working, and dedicated advocates, striking this balance can be tenuous.
The Creative Commons Global Summit has set a gold standard for this balance. From the moment a smiling volunteer handed me a name-tag, I felt warm, welcome, and safe in this space. Even before the opening remarks, I met and connected with brilliant people both within the Western library world that I was familiar with, but also people from outside of libraries and academia, and people from all over the globe. So rarely can an organization succeed at creating an aura of effortless inclusivity. From the Women of the Commons colouring book under every chair, to the unveiling of New Palmyra, every action taken by the organizers was brushed with these undertones. It was unspoken but evident in each action.
This commitment to inclusivity made Ashe Dryden’s keynote all the more powerful. She began with primer on time travel –light and accessible – then she dug a little deeper. As she spoke about the importance of bringing in new voices to open, about giving people an opportunity to express themselves and to shape this space, she not only empowered every person in attendance who did not feel they had a voice in the community to speak, but the also mandated those with a voice to take a breath, step back, and listen. Her talk enabled us all to be individuals, and allowed us to feel like we are the commons. I came to Creative Commons looking for an in, but the door was always open.
Andrew Malcolm is an author and a freelance communications specialist. His creative writing is published on his website, along with his author bio.
When I walked into the large ballroom to attend the author salon, I was pleased to find the attendance was modest enough that we could sit with all three authors in a circle and have a discussion that, as Paul Stacey described at the end of the session, “Felt more like a podcast than a workshop.” With each question igniting long conversations, and the discussions ultimately illustrating shared objectives and processes behind the three books, we all walked away happy to have the lively dialogues recorded, if not on our computers, at least in our memories.
The authors of the three books, Paul Stacey and Sarah Pearson, Maira Sutton, and Matt Thompson write about the commons, sharing, and economic models for working open. While Stacey and Pearson’s book Made with Creative Commons was the only one completed and in the hands of every attendee, all three authors shared intimately about their process as creators. Paul began the salon and said, “We started writing a book about open business models that were successfully earning profits, but as we interviewed entrepreneurs, creators and organizational leaders using CC licenses, we were surprised to find that our initial framework for understanding their success was misguided. Yes, they were earning profits, but that was never the objective of the work – their objectives were always something more socially conscious, and their earnings were meant to sustain the pursuit.”
Maira Sutton, talking about sharing cities, said she hoped to see the same diversity of objectives take the place of profiteering in our economies. As Manager of Community Engagement at Shareable, she campaigns to promote sharing and solidarity economics, and is working with them on a book called “Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons” – a collection of case-studies and policies that exemplify commons-based sharing services.
Matt Thompson, a Mozilla Fellow, also introduced his book as one that advocates for a change in the way people work, though some specifics were still coming together: “My book is called Working Open: And I’ve had about a million ideas for a subtitle, but nothing solid yet.” All three projects seemed to bring surprises in the research that changed the author’s own understanding of what their work was illustrating, so a constantly shifting subtitle was understandable. Matt is interviewing people who are part of the most exciting open source projects and writing about how they are exemplifying the power of collaboration.
Needless to say, I was thrilled to have a chance to speak with authors who are working on the leading edge of a new era in publishing and licensing, but our conversation quickly turned to the biggest challenge each author faced – overcoming resistance to change.
Maira said, “What we want to do is convince cities to create policies that regulate the sharing economy so that they’re more conducive to community organizations, non-profits and coops. Still today most people think of companies like Uber and Airbnb when they think of the sharing economy, but their profit only objectives are proving to be bad for fairness, equality, and even safety for both providers and customers.”
Matt asked Maira, “Do you find city counsellors and policy makers are resistant to changing the rules to accommodate grass roots movements instead of companies?” This is how we know when an author salon is going well – when the authors start asking each other questions.
“Yes, but once we can point to other projects that are successful, they become much easier to convince. They’re just trying to make decisions that are best for the city, but it’s difficult for policy makers to decide to do anything new themselves. Once you can show that other cities have adopted policies and projects that work, that bring real value to their citizens, then it’s easy to get them on board,” she responded.
Matt said, “That’s what I find with many of the business leaders I’ve interviewed. The idea of working open, of revealing all their companies’ secrets and inviting outsiders in, really scares them. But they’re starting to notice that working open is actually creating the best possible products, that Wikipedia really is the best knowledge resource ever created. And despite GM and other large corporations investing heavily into developing the best self-driving cars, it’s OSVehicle’s open source platform for Edit that’s set to lead the way for the industry.”
The three books advocate to different audiences: Paul and Sarah’s to creators and organizations that could benefit from applying Creative Commons licenses to their products, Matt’s to business leaders who would benefit from creating open-work environments, and Maira’s to civic leaders who could create true sharing cities. Despite the disparate audiences, by the end of the session a commonality emerged – it’s examples and case studies that are most effective at changing minds and showing the value of commons-based approaches.
There are already people and organizations around the world working to ensure that the global economy is driven by something more than profits and growth. But they’re still the minority, and if that’s ever going to change, clearly we need to keep looking for those who are on the leading edge of social justice movements and telling their stories. Those stories can show leaders that objectives based in achieving equal rights to housing, food, knowledge, a sustainable environment and all our hopes for social change are already driving people to innovate and create with far more originality and ambition than ever before.
Gratitude brings lasting transformative change and greater well-being to communities through providing recognition, reflection, and grounding. Creative Commons focuses on uniting a community of makers in gratitude, and this year’s CC Global Summit was reflective of this focus as well as our renewed organizational mission “to build a vibrant, usable commons powered by collaboration and gratitude.”
From April 28-30, nearly 400 commoners gathered in Toronto, Canada in support of the commons for three days of connecting, collaboration, and debate. The summit outlined some big, audacious goals for the commons, and the community showed its enormous capacity to rise up to meet them. Together we completed the network strategy discussions to grow our movement, began designing collaborative platforms for shared global action, had hundreds of vital discussions on copyright reform, technology, education, science, and so much more.
As facilitators of the summit, we sought to maintain an inclusive, inviting space for our participants as well as thrill and delight our community and friends. While the sessions were certainly informative, other projects like the Se Oye Libre radio station, which streamed live during the summit and provided interviews and music all day, were a fun and invigorating glimpse into the incredible work our communities are doing around the world.
What makes the Creative Commons community unique is its diversity of scope and geographic breadth. From artists to activists to copyright wonks, there was truly something for everyone at the summit. In addition, through collaboration with projects like Virtually Connecting, our major scholarship program, and Gender Avenger, we encouraged participation from around the world from a variety of perspectives.
In this spirit, we opened the summit with an invocation to gratitude and an opening of the space from Whabagoon Walker, an Ojibway indigenous elder who taught us the word “Meg-wetch,” giving thanks to all around us. Deb Matthews, Deputy Premier of Ontario shared Ontario’s plan for becoming “open by default” and the government’s role in facilitating the move. Her invigorating talk was followed by David Lametti, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, who encouraged openness as part of a balanced copyright regime in Canada.
Creative Commons CEO Ryan Merkley’s opening speech outlined three main tenets in order to guide the summit and the community’s course: Everything is political, no small fights, and collective acts. These statements are at the core of his vision for Creative Commons and help us perpetuate a culture of openness. In order to underscore the importance of gratitude, Ryan also revealed a new bronze CC pin that is not for sale, but rather given as a gift to people who are promoting a culture of gratitude in the community.
Other highlights of the opening session included an unveiling of a project by CC Canada Public Lead Kelsey Merkley called “Uncommon Women,” a coloring book of illustrations of some of the women who are most important to us as an organization and network. In addition, Jane Park announced the release of the 2016 State of the Commons, our largest annual report yet. Our thanks to all the translators, volunteers, and community members who participated in this project.
After admiring the tetrapylon, participants came back for a presentation that celebrated the conclusion of the development of CC’s new Global Network Strategy from Board Chair Molly van Houweling, Ryan Merkley, Evelin Heidel (Scann), Delia Browne, Alek Tarkowski, and Claudio Ruiz. With the strategy now complete, the hard work of community implementation begins.
Scann’s discussion of diversity was particularly important to the discussion as she encouraged participants to rethink their privilege and enable new global voices in the community.
After lunch, participants broke out into to a number of sessions in the five tracks: Usable Commons, Community and Movement, Policy and Advocacy, the Future of the Commons, and Spheres of Open. Highlights from these sessions included our Awesome Funded project “Copywrong,” which discussed copyright in performing arts spaces, an overview of Anna Mazgal’s research into what makes Creative Commons communities work, Paula Eskett’s talk on CC for education, and Maira Sutton’s talk on Sharing Cities, a new initiative from Shareable. Jesse von Doom from CASH music also ran a popular session on CC in the arts community.
Deep discussion of the copyright of the moonwalk going on here at copywrong #ccsummit
We ended the day with a surprise talk from Barry Threw of #NEWPALMYRA on creative reuse in cultural heritage and community autonomy through digital openness. Matthew Fielder of re:3D closed out the day by demonstrating how his team built the tetrapylon over 800 hours with the Gigabot 3D printer. Fielder’s talk also focused on how his company emphasizes social good, community, and openness for innovation.
Among the many exciting sessions at the summit, one highlight for participants on Saturday was the joint publisher’s session on three CC licensed publishing initiatives for early readers around the world. Saturday morning also included a session from Kelsey Merkley on making a living while working open, one on text and data mining, and one on CC’s role at the World Bank.
Before lunch, we had our first keynote from diversity activist Ashe Dryden called “Time Traveling: A Primer,” which discussed why compassion and sharing is more important than efficiency in building a better world. Dryden discussed the importance of intent and positivity in our communities as we struggle to reconcile the future of tech. Dryden emphasized “sustainability” and inclusivity” in communities and she drove the point home through an entertaining and often humorous talk. Oh, and there were also buff shark people.
During lunch, the filmmaker Robin McKenna graciously stopped by to screen early footage from her film GIFT, based on the Lewis Hyde book The Gift. McKenna spoke beautifully about the gift cultures around the world and shared some thoughts with Ryan Merkley about her journey to filmmaking.
After lunch, Sarah Pearson and Paul Stacey presented the first copy of their book Made with CC to the Toronto Public Library in a presentation with Pam Ryan, representing the largest library system in the world. Next, we heard a keynote by Sarah Jeong, a lawyer and journalist who Sarah Pearson of CC claimed has “The rare gift of being both very funny and a lawyer.”
Sarah Jeong’s incendiary talk “This is the way the world ends” was a fitting complement to Ashe Dryden’s future-forward talk. In her talk, Jeong outlined the issues with the current media landscape, which privileges clicks over meaningful content, encouraging participants to “fight against the monopolization of speech that exists purely for economic gain.” Creative Commons, in her estimation, “helps fight against the monopolization of our channels of speech that exist solely for economic gain.” She concluded by asserting that “Creative Commons is a way out… it’s not a hobby, it’s a moral imperative.”
Still buzzing from Sarah’s keynote, we heard talks about kickstarting a copyright platform for CC, continued Virtually Connecting, and enjoyed a vibrant “Messy Market” for creators and CC enthusiasts alike! Read more about Virtually Connecting on our blog.
Another highlight of the afternoon was the Made with Creative Commons author discussion, where Sarah Pearson and Paul Stacey discussed their process as collaborators with Ryan Merkley.
After an entire day of activities, we just couldn’t get enough, so we ended the evening with a rad party from the listener supported nonprofit dublab and international DJs Basic Soul Unit and Invisible City.
Some highlights from the Sunday morning talks included a discussion on CC’s legal infrastructure with Diane Peters in order to kick off a collaboration for legal initiatives around the world. The same set of talks also brought us a discussion on teaching 3D printing as a means of teaching entrepreneurship with the New York Public Library and Shapeways.
After the break, we had talks from Laura Hilliger, who discussed community-based design at Greenpeace and the importance of community collaboration as well as from Capture Canada and Unsplash, two Canadian platforms revolutionizing photography.
Our last keynote block opened with Ana Garzón Sabogal, a free culture activist and educator in Colombia in conversation with María Juliana. Sabogal spoke about her work in post-conflict zones in Colombia and advocating for openness through storytelling and coalition building.
Our final keynote was Hillary Hartley, Chief Digital Officer of Ontario, a last-minute keynote addition who definitely delivered! She spoke of the lessons she learned at 18f while leading a team for digital services delivery for the United States Government. In a compact, smart talk called “Transforming Government Through Openness,” she encouraged the audience to “lead by example” to transform digital spaces. Hillary’s talk discussed how “thinking like a designer” and creating an open door policy can lead to big, transformative change.
Our final few blocks of talks included sessions on patent reform, user rights, usability, and Latin American Communities. It also included a series of platform discussions on Big Thinking about the Commons, Open GLAM, and Open Education.
In the spirit of the commons, we the CC Global Summit ended with gratitude: for our event coordinators, to our staff, for our affiliates and volunteers, and finally for ourselves. Together we made this happen, and we couldn’t have done it without all of our friends and supporters.
