We are thrilled to announce our official translation of 4.0 into Polish. The translation process was time-consuming (Polish is a tricky language, believe us), but now all Polish speakers can benefit from the 4.0 licenses in their national language. The latest version has become increasingly popular in Poland (especially among public administration) since its release, but until now, we lacked translation of legal texts – not any more!
Creative Commons Poland coordinated the translation process. The translation draft was prepared by the CC Poland legal team. The draft was put to public consultation from 30 July to 31 August 2016, and at the same time translation was sent directly to the people involved in the earlier translations of CC licenses, IP lawyers, librarians and representatives of cultural heritage institutions. Blogs, social medias and mailing list were used to inform about translation process.
Thank you to the members of CC Poland involved in translation process:
Marcin Serafin – lawyer, legal lead of Creative Commons Poland, a subject-matter expert in the legal translation process. Katarzyna Strycharz – lawyer, Creative Commons Poland, coordinator of the translation process responsible for managing the process of translation and communication among team members, contact with Regional Coordinators and CC Legal. Natalia Mileszyk – lawyer, Creative Commons Poland, responsible for process of comments from CC Legal, final publication and contact with CC Legal Filip Rak – volunteer in Creative Commons Poland, legal help in translation process.
We want to also thank for invaluable help, comments, and support to Alek Tarkowski (policy advisor Creative Commons, public lead in Creative Commons Poland), Klaudia Grabowska (Open Access Lead for Creative Commons Polska) and Kamil Śliwowski (project lead of Creative Commons Poland).
HowlRound was founded five years ago as the “knowledge commons” for the theater community to better include the voices of artists and creators working for inclusivity. The HowlRound organizers we interviewed, Jamie Gahlon, Vijay Mathew, Adewunmi Oke, and Ramona Ostrowski, exemplify the concept of the commons through their commitment to community action, creative output, and creating meaningful, lasting resources for artists and creatives working in theater and beyond.
HowlRound is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license and run through Emerson College in Boston. They gladly welcome contributors to their Knowledge Commons.
Why a knowledge commons for the theater community? What prompted this project? Why did you decide to license the content via Creative Commons?
When we started HowlRound in 2011, the US nonprofit theatre field was suffering from an imbalance of resources and scarce and elitist access to information and knowledge. It felt like many conversations were happening in institutions behind closed doors and leaving artists out altogether. In order to know what was happening in the world of theatre outside of your own professional network, you had to be invited into elite conferences and festivals. We adopted the model of commons-based peer-production (best exemplified by Wikipedia) and the Creative Commons license as a practical way to usher in, amplify, and reveal the incredible ideas, conversations, and experiences of theatremakers across the country—no matter their previous social standing and access to resources in this microcosm. We also used commons-based peer-production and the Creative Commons license as a critique of and an antidote to the capitalistic values that many nonprofits ironically absorb as organizational behaviors: competition, creation of artificial scarcity, advancement at the expense of others, and individualistic self-advancement.
Using and promoting the Creative Commons has been a way for us to community-organize our field around shared goals and concerns around collective advancement, and collaboration that benefits the whole.
You produce a lot of content but you also host meetups, chat on Twitter, and provide other community events and actions. How do you balance the online community on your site with the in person aspects of your work?
The online platforms (the Journal, HowlRound TV, the Twitter Chats, the forthcoming World Theatre Map) and the in-person convenings amplify each other; all follow the same model of commons-based peer-production. We see our online platforms and in-person work as complementary pieces of a whole. The agendas and content are shaped and managed by the same community of people who self-elect to participate. Our role as HowlRound staff is that of community organizers, facilitators, and systems designers.
What kinds of outcomes have you seen from the commons-based approach that you take?
The democratization and disruption that these platforms have created has made highly visible space for a multiplicity of viewpoints, perspectives, and practices.
It’s been truly revelatory in terms of generating a diversity of narratives about contemporary theatremaking that have been previously marginalized and unheard. People’s stake in and care of this commons is palpable. HowlRound has helped to incubate self-organized movements for equity and community advancement (the Latina/o Theatre Commons is a great example of commons-based practice in action). An orientation towards collective resources that can benefit not just a few, but many — is now our mainstream culture and narrative for this community.
What are you most excited about currently? Any collaborations that are particularly motivating or exciting to you that are upcoming?
We are extremely excited about The World Theatre Map, a user-generated directory of the global theatre community, which will launch in mid-January 2017. Theatre artists, designers, practitioners, and administrators around the world can create profiles, see each other, and find out what kind of theatre is happening in real-time across the globe, and in their local communities. Our hope is that this map will foster connections and collaborations in the global theatre community in a way that hasn’t been done before. All in all, it’s our largest foray to date towards building a truly international knowledge commons for the theatre. It’s also a true test of the commons model—it will only be as valuable as the data and information the community puts in it.
“Chuck Kennedy captured this scene at dusk as the President entered the Outer Oval Office with Shaun Donovan.” (Official White House by Chuck Kennedy) United States Government Work
In the unlikely chance you haven’t noticed, it’s Election Day in the United States. For the past few months, we’ve been sharing resources from the commons to help you get informed, get excited, and most importantly, get voting!
Below are some of our favorite election related resources from this year from the commons:
Our profile of Creative Commons political photographer Gage Skidmore
Coral Project’s open source “Tell our next president” feature to encourage voters to share their feelings about the election.
Emergency Kitten, a website that delivers a CC licensed photo of a kitten every time the page is refreshed, which is a perfect antidote to election news fatigue.
Open knowledge and intellectual freedom have been key issues this primary season. Creative Commons is proud to provide the tools to release the world’s knowledge through equitability and accessibility. We stand with the American people as they cast their votes today.
In October, CC Mongolia ran a workshop to promote national culture and language in the Buryat Republic of Russia as part of their Awesome Fund grant. A full report on their activities can be found here, and a short report by Batbold Zagdragchaa, CC Mongolia coordinator, is below.
If you’re interested in getting involved with our global community, join our Slack to find out more.
The project objective was to promote CC outreach among the national minority group Buryats, in Siberia, Russia. Buryats are ethnic Mongolians who comprise 30% of the population of the Buryat Republic. Young urban Buryats are becoming less proficient in their native language in favor of the Russian language. There is a need to promote Buryat culture, traditions and language. Using CC licenses and adopting principles of openness and sharing can enhance these activities.
There are some factors that can contribute to increasing interests and wider acceptance of CC licenses in Russia and in its Buryatia Republic. CC has been officially adapted into Russian legislation since October 2014. The official websites of the Russian President and the governmentare under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, for example. In 2016, the government of neighboring Tuva Republic started using CC license in its web portals at http://gov.tuva.ru/ and http://opentuva.ru/ .
CC Mongolia organized a workshop on October 14, 2016 at Buryat State University in Ulan-Ude. Around 40 people including educators, students, web developers, and government officials participated in the event. CC Mongolia presentation comprised of two parts:
National OER program in Mongolia for 2014-2024 and its projects
CC license introduction and its use in Russia and worldwide
For the most of audience it was the first time they’ve heard about CC licenses. Several participants expressed their interest to learn more about CC licenses and their willingness to use it for their work.
During the visit, also discussions were held about future potential projects, which can use open licensing and possibilities for public and private organizations to implement an open policy.
The outcomes of the workshop are:
Raised awareness about CC licenses and principles of openness and sharing will
Promoted linguistic and cultural diversity
Potential for future partnership for joint projects
After the workshop, we will continue email communications about open access. In terms of language promotion, we hope in the future to collaborate with UNESCO affiliate institutes and preferably create a network similar to EU’s LANGOER.
In September 2016, Creative Commons Europe hosted a meeting for our European affiliates in Lisbon, Portugal.
We would like to express our gratitude to the kind folks at Escola Das Gaivotas for hosting us, and to Teresa, Fatima, André, and Diogo from the CC Portugal team for being the best hosts ever!
What happens when you put 30 passionate commoners accustomed to meeting only online in a lovely conference venue in an historic city? Lots of talking, group updates, big plans being made, old and new issues being tackled, great projects presented, and new designs of collaboration schemes.
At the end of September, 30 participants from 15 different European Creative Commons teams came together for a meeting in Lisbon, Portugal. CC Representatives from the UK, France, Poland, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Ireland, Slovenia, Greece, Belarus, Ukraine, Austria, Belgium, and Romania joined the meeting, organized by CC Portugal.
The whole group poses together in Lisbon. Saša Krajnc, CC BY
From this meeting, we learned that the CC affiliate network is interested (and involved) in much more than just licenses. CC teams are vital in new emerging “commons” activities, the sharing economy, 3D printing, open agriculture, open business models, and copyright reform.
Some highlights of the meeting:
The School of Rock(ing) Copyright, an information sharing bootcamp on copyright reform organized by Communia, with support from CC’s Awesome Fund. For a full report on this session, see Communia’s website. We all stand for creativity, innovation, access to knowledge, and development. Copyright laws can either boost or limit these goals, so we are actively involved with making progressive changes to copyright to benefit users, education, and the commons. Having some non-EU affiliates with us as well offered an interesting perspective on the importance of training and support on copyright reform in other regions and other languages than English.
Open business models are about allowing all actors gain a fair share (above and beyond monetary rewards) for their contribution to the commons. Exploring and supporting open business models can also work to tackle the related discrepancies that can possibly turn a flourishing commons into a closed, feudalistic environment. The use of CC can one aspect for creating open, regenerative, and distributed networks.
The kick off for the CC Certificates project raises fascinating challenges for CC in terms of education and validation of information about CC. A certification mechanism will formalize many of our efforts to teach about open, which is a challenge for a network with such a grassroots ethos. The project has a dedicated website where you can check for updates.
A ‘CC infrastructure’ session on what’s going on at tech and legal level. You can check the notes from this meeting here.
We also discussed the Global Network Strategy and next steps for our European community, which we look forward to continuing to work on over the next months, particularly as we prepare for our Global Summit in April in Toronto.
We’ll keep you updated as we continue our work for CC Europe in support of the commons. In the meantime, if you want to join the discussion, you can find us on Slack!
PS If you are wondering about the marvelous artworks in the photos, they’re by Vhils.
For a summary of the changes to the 4.0 license in Polish, please see this post.
