Though internet as infrastructure may have seemed radical only a short while ago, many technologists are now taking a different tack: as a vital part of modern life, access to reliable internet is essential to the development of a just and equitable society. Built in response to proprietary measurement datasets, M Lab has assembled the world’s largest collection of open internet measurement data, all under a CC0 license.

A collaborative project from New America’s Open Technology Institute, Google Open Source Research, Princeton University’s Planet Lab, and many others, M Lab’s success stems from their insistence on open data and an open web, maintaining the tests that keep the web free and open. From researchers to consumers, MLab’s data is the backbone of the internet, an example of open collaboration that benefits consumers, researchers, and the future of the web. 

To read MLab’s reports and try their tools, visit the website.  Thanks to Chris Ritzo, Georgia Bullen, Alison Yost, Collin Anderson, and Stephen Stuart for their time in answering these questions.

Why does Internet measurement matter? What is the ultimate goal of this project?

Measurement Lab’s goal is to provide an open, publicly available dataset and the platform on which to gather it. There have always been proprietary data sources about the quality of consumer broadband connections, but those were and are the intellectual property of companies like Ookla, Akamai, Google, and network operators themselves. New America’s Open Technology Institute, Google, and Princeton University’s Planet Lab formed a consortium to build a data collection platform that could host a common base of internet measurement experiments developed and vetted by the academic research community, be deployed globally, and over time provide what is now the largest open, publicly available internet measurement dataset in the world. Today we run over 100 measurement points around the world and collect an average of over 9 million tests per month worldwide.

From a consumer perspective, are you getting the speed and quality of service you purchased from an ISP? Using a speed test or internet health test provides data to help answer that question. For regulatory agencies, measurement is a means of keeping state on broadband speeds, health, consumer protections, anti-competitive practices and more. For network operators, measurement is paramount to understanding how to provision infrastructure and services. For civil society groups and human rights advocates, it is a means of assessing disparities in accessing the internet, in the quality of available internet services, whether internet traffic is surveilled by state actors or others, and whether and where the internet is censored or blocked. The research community is also keenly interested in openly available internet measurement data, in order to understand and answer many of these issues, and in many cases how they might devise ways to make the internet function better.

How did you make the decision to use CC0 data? How does your organization support the commons?

M-Lab uses a CC0 license on the data for experiments that we maintain or contribute to: NDT, Paris Traceroute and Sidestream. We don’t require researchers hosting other experiments to use the same license, but we do require data to be provided openly. In some cases M-Lab will agree to embargo data for an agreed upon period of time such that the researcher can be the first to publish on the data their test collects. But the most popular tests we maintain on our platform are licensed with CC0 because we think that this data should be in the public domain, and using a CC0 license allows anyone to freely use it without restriction, particularly those in the academic community.

The choice to use a CC0 license goes back to our beginning. The academic community interested in researching the internet needed a data source and couldn’t get that from private companies. Providing that data would have violated companies’ terms of service with their users, and even if it was legally possible, anonymizing it had been proven questionable, if not ineffective. Initiatives like Planet Lab at Princeton University had made some progress toward the idea of a research platform that could be used to collect such data, but didn’t necessarily measure at the scale of the consumer internet. Instead the M-Lab core team engaged with academics, company reps and others to map out what an internet measurement platform might look like to support the work of the research community, that would situate infrastructure to measure the consumer internet, and would provide open data in the service of the public interest. This was the genesis of M-Lab. So from the very beginning we’ve always supported the commons.

The M-Lab core team engaged with academics, company reps and others to map out what an internet measurement platform might look like to support the work of the research community, that would situate infrastructure to measure the consumer internet, and would provide open data in the service of the public interest. This was the genesis of M-Lab. So from the very beginning we’ve always supported the commons.

On your “About” page, you write that “transparency and review are key to good science.” Can you elaborate on that? How do you feel that your project participates in the scientific process to make the Web better for everyone?

M-Lab was created as a platform to produce open data about the health of consumer internet connections. Everything from the submission of proposed tests to the hosting of resulting data mirrors the process of submitting a paper to an academic journal. M-Lab defines the parameters that an experiment must adhere to, and academic or regulatory researchers apply to host their tests with us. Applications are reviewed by an experiment review committee to confirm that the researcher has ethical approval from their Institutional Review Board, that the test they propose conforms to M-Lab’s data privacy policy, determines whether the test has overlap with existing tests, and assesses capacity of the researcher for long term support of the test. M-Lab wants to encourage ongoing longitudinal research, not one-off projects, and make the data available openly for broad analysis and research.

We regularly support researchers interested in secondary data analysis with documentation, sample queries and tools to access, visualize and use M-Lab data, and where possible we produce our own analysis and research. This support varies from individual researchers and graduate students, to civil society and research organizations, to national regulatory agencies. In the United States, the FCC’s contractor, SamKnows, uses the M-Lab platform to host a portion of the tests for the annual Measuring Broadband America program. In Canada, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) hosts three M-Lab sites throughout Canada and has built their own national data portal using M-Lab’s data which also integrates our test.

Additionally, because our tests are open source, we support their integration into other websites, software, or other platforms. These developer integrations are key to our expansion and impact in new areas of the world and by new audiences. Most recently, Google’s Search team integrated Internet 2’s Network Diagnostic Tool (NDT) as a top level answer in their Search product. When you search for “how fast is my internet” or similar, the Google version of our test can be run immediately in your browser.

What kinds of results have you seen that are particularly exciting, surprising, or troubling from this project? What steps can people take to improve the Web? How can they use your project to do so?

M-Lab initially focused on providing the platform and data, leaving analysis to the research or regulatory community. As we’ve grown in size and interest, we have focused on building more accessible tools to run tests, visualize and download our data as well as support individuals and groups interested in using our data in their work.

The M-Lab team is also now working on our own research as well as supporting new inquiries into our data. In October 2014 the M-Lab research and operations team published a technical research report: ISP Interconnection and its Impact on Consumer Internet Performance. The data in this report helped to inform the FCC and supported its historic ruling in favor of Net Neutrality in 2015. Our data and analysis showed clear indicators of congestion and bad performance at the Interconnection points between consumer ISPs and Transit providers. We’ve since presented it to the FCC, NANOG, and at numerous international network operator gatherings. Before the M-Lab report, interconnection wasn’t even on the FCC’s radar. We’ve also supported individual researchers interested in using M-Lab data, through our support email, but also directly. In 2015, M-Lab hosted two research fellows who examined our network performance data in new ways. One fellow examined the economic geography of access by using M-Lab data and US Census data. Another worked on a machine learning algorithm that identifies anomalies in normalized M-Lab data, attempting to identify patterns in our data where known internet shutdowns had occurred.

Anyone can use M-Lab’s public data, tools and open visualizations for free.

M-Lab operates in the public interest- providing open data, open source tools, visualizations and documentation to support our own research, and yours.

People can test the speed and latency of their connection using our site: https://speed.measurementlab.net/. We also have an extension for Google’s Chrome browser, M-Lab Measure, that allows you to schedule tests to be run regularly.

Because M-Lab data is open and all of our tests are open source, developers can integrate our data or our tests into their own applications, services, web-mashups and more. We provide source code, documentation, and implementation examples to enable you to leverage our data, tests and infrastructure.  learn more about the project and how to get involved in the project on our website, and contact us for more information.

The post How fast is your internet? How MLab uses CC0 data for the public interest appeared first on Creative Commons.

The Creative Commons Awesome Fund, a series of mini-grants intended to support our global communities, supported FRANCOCAR this year. FRANCOCAR is a range of events and activities in West Africa (Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Senegal) to promote open source software, digitization, and Creative Commons licenses.

Follow #francocar if you want to stay in the loop on future activities or check the blog.

All photos from Mawusee Komla Foli-Awli, CC BY

---

FRANCOCAR est un projet :

– de sensibilisation sur l’importance du contenu numérique
– d’information et de formation sur les outils liés à la création de contenu
– de promotion des licences Creative Commons qui facilitent la publication du contenu dans un cadre légal

Il a été initié dans la cadre de l’appel à proposition de projets –Awesome Fund 2016- de Creative Commons.
Il a été lancé en Octobre 2016 – Rencontres Nationales des Logiciels Libres à Cotonou (Benin).
Il va d’Octobre à Décembre 2016 mais les activités pourraient aller au delà de cette période.

Les pays ciblés pour cette phase sont le Togo, le Benin, le Burkina Faso et éventuellement la Côte d’Ivoire et le Sénégal.

Les activités organisées dans le cadre du projet sont :

– le lancement Rencontres Nationales des Logiciels Libres 2016 à Cotonou (Octobre)
– la première édition de “Sous Arbre à Contenu” à Lomé (contribution sur Wikipedia) (Octobre)
– la participation à la Semaine des Cultures numériques à l’Institut Français du Togo (Novembre)
– la première édition de “Sous Arbre à Contenu” à Cotonou (contribution sur Wikipedia) (Novembre)

Merci à Creative Commons pour l’initiative et aux apports des uns et des autres (LMP LE LOGOS, SOGESTI, BLOLAB, ECOHUB, Institut Français du Togo).

Nous sommes ouverts à toute collaboration pour des activités allant de le sens des objectifs du projet.
Vous pouvez lire les détails des activités sur http://afrozen.wordpress.com.

#Francocar
Francocar site
Facebook
Email

The post FRANCOCAR: An Awesome Fund Project in West Africa appeared first on Creative Commons.

Below is an update from Creative Commons Indonesia, who recently worked with their national copyright office on proposed changes to law that will secure the ability of creators to use CC and other open licenses there.

---

In late 2014, Indonesia amended its copyright law to add several new provisions, including changes having to do with database rights, addressing copyright as an object in a collateral agreement, and making license recordation mandatory. The latter is something that could potentially be an issue with regard to the operation of Creative Commons licenses, as well as other open license in Indonesia.

“License recordation” means that licensors (even those publishing their works under Creative Commons) must report their licenses with the Indonesian Copyright Office. If a licensor does not comply with the requirement, the license that they applied on their work will not have any legal effect, and will not be enforceable against third parties. This provision is stated in Article 83 of Law Number 28 year 2014:

1. Every license agreements has to be recorded by the Ministry in the general list of Copyright License Agreement with payable fees;
2. License agreements which are not in compliance with the license agreement criteria according to Article 82 cannot be included in the general list of Copyright License Agreement;
3. If a license agreement is not recorded in the general list of Copyright License Agreement, such unrecorded license agreement will not have any legal effects, and thus not enforceable against third parties;
4. More detailed provisions on license agreement recordal will be regulated under a Government Regulation.

The Creative Commons Indonesia team realized that this provision could possibly complicate the applicability of open licenses under the copyright law. We know that creators publishing under CC do it because the licenses provide an easy and standard way to share creativity with the public, while at least retaining the right to be attributed as the author of the work. The updated Indonesian law would create an artificial barrier to sharing under CC, because it would require licensors to take an additional step in letting the Copyright Office know which of their works are under an open license.

We began to explore the possibility of requesting an exception to the rule for Creative Commons’ licensed works. When we found out that the discussion regarding the regulation had started, we visited the Indonesian Copyright Office. Our aim was to exclude open licenses from the license recordal mandate, ensuring the operation of Creative Commons and other open licenses as they are intended.

On May 23, 2016, we met with the Indonesian Copyright Office, where we were informed that there has been a discussion on the license recordal mandate by the drafting committee, and that open licenses would not be excluded from the license recordal obligation. On September 21, we had another meeting with the Office, where we were asked to provide a written explanation of the operation of open licensing, along with examples of CC licensed materials.

We returned a week later with a draft of our explanation and asked the Copyright Office for feedback and questions. The next day we filed the written request with the Office, and also gathered support from other Creative Commons affiliates by drafting a letter, in case our petition was rejected.. We planned to send out the letter of support from CC affiliates to the drafting committee as our backup plan..

However, on November 1, the Copyright Office informed us that Creative Commons licenses and other open licenses in use in Indonesia will be excluded from the license recordal mandate. The drafting committee agreed to exclude those from the regulation because they understand that open licenses are often used in for non-profit purposes. This decision will be included in the preamble of the government regulation, which is still in the drafting process, but will be finally enacted in December 2016 or January 2017.

---

Screwdriver And Wrench by To Uyen, CC BY 3.0 US
Copyright by Marek Polakovic, CC BY 3.0 US

The post Making Creative Commons Licensing Work In Indonesia appeared first on Creative Commons.

Last week in Geneva, Creative Commons participated in the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) bi-annual meeting of its committee on copyright and related rights.

CC has had “observer status” at WIPO since 2011, which means that it can attend the proceedings and at times offer written or oral feedback on activities of the committees.

WIPO’s agenda has included at least some discussions around limitations and exceptions to copyright for education and research—essentially, how to pursue a legal or normative mechanism that will improve access to and use of copyrighted works in service of teaching and learning.

While we continue our outreach and advocacy on open education policy and practice, we have always known that voluntary licensing schemes will never be a comprehensive solution. Nor should they be. Governments and others need to take a leadership role to enshrine within the exception and limitation framework the rights of those who teach and those who learn to take advantage of knowledge worldwide without fear of infringing. For this reason, CC believes that fundamental law and regulatory reform is needed, regardless of the success of the CC licenses and their utility in promoting a more equal, just and fair society. We support mandatory, flexible exceptions to copyright to sustain and empower education and research.

Delia Browne, National Copyright Director for Australian Schools and co-lead for Creative Commons Australia, attended the meeting on behalf of CC. She presented the statement below at the meeting.

Also last week WIPO announced it would adopt an open access policy “in support of its commitment to the sharing and dissemination of knowledge, and to make its publications easily available to the widest possible audience.” Through this announcement, WIPO joins intergovernmental organization such as UNESCO, the World Bank, and the Commonwealth of Learning in making their publications available under open licenses. We congratulate WIPO and these intergovernmental organizations, and call for other publicly-minded institutions to support open access and distribution of works they develop.

---

Creative Commons – Statement in relation to Limitations and Exception on Education
Friday 18 November 2016
Presented by Ms. Delia Browne

Thank you Mr Chair. I speak today on behalf of Creative Commons, the global nonprofit organization that is dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.

We warmly welcome and congratulate the World Intellectual Property Organization new Open Access Policy which will make all of its publications available under Creative Commons Inter Government Organisation (IGO) licences. We welcome WIPO’s commitment to make its publications as widely accessible as possible and we were delighted to be represented here person to hear the public announcement by the WIPO on Wednesday.

We also thank the Chair for the extremely helpful chart on Limitation and Exceptions for Education, which we will consider with great interest.

Creative Commons believes that in the digital era, universal access to education is possible. To this end we are working extensively with governments, educational institutions, companies and individuals; sharing free licenses and legal tools that promote access to knowledge and information. Today:

• Creative Commons licenses underpin millions of open access and open educational resources, from academic papers through to quality educational videos and higher education courses. Governments, charitable and philanthropic organisations are increasingly requiring research to be openly licensed in return for funding support.

• The Creative Commons public domain mark is used to label millions of out-of-copyright works shared on platforms such as Europeana.

• Governments and organizations are proactively using the using the CC0 dedication on data sets, in order to remove copyright restrictions that would otherwise hamper research

All this material is easily discoverable by teachers, students, and self-learners, who are using it to study, research, build upon and distribute further, increasing the knowledge commons.

We are proud of the opportunities provided by Creative Commons resources, but we understand that licensing alone is not, and never can be, the full solution. Creative Common’s licenses only apply to a fraction of necessary educational resources, works whose creators make a conscious decision to affirmatively openly license their work. And licencing, open or otherwise, cannot replace the essential work of educational exceptions and limitations.

Therefore Creative Commons supports mandatory, minimum standards for educational limitations and exceptions.

We congratulate Professor Seng on his study on copyright limitations and exceptions for educational activities. While we understand that there is still further work to be done before all 189 member states’ legislation is reviewed, already three key point emerge:

• There is a broad agreement that education is an area where exceptions and limitations are necessary;

• There is a divergence on how to protect educational rights, and which exact rights are protected;

• Many countries’ exceptions have not kept pace with technological advances – and while some older exceptions have managed to adapt to new technologies in areas where new rights holder rights have been introduced, such as technological protection measures, corresponding educational protections have not kept pace.

In this context we thank the delegation of Argentina for their interesting proposal– focusing as it does on two crucial factors, uniformity and coordination. This aim – of ensuring minimum standards that could be used in a cross-border situations – is a necessity in the digital, globalized world. Creative Commons believes there is scope in further exploring how this proposal can support work on mandatory minimum standards to protect copyright limitations and exceptions.

We must ensure that fair access to educational materials is protected globally. We offer any assistance that may help in progressing this essential topic, and thank the committee for its work.

The post Creative Commons at WIPO: Supporting a more fair copyright for teaching and learning appeared first on Creative Commons.

Popular Lebanese illustrator, webcomic author, and blogger Maya Zankoul spreads the message of the commons through her art, her design studio, and her video company wezank. Her first book, Amalgam, was published in 2009 under a CC license. The book sprung from her popular web comic exploring life, work, and art in Beirut and beyond.

Zankoul’s work touches on the connection between cultures and her illustrations are shaped by her rich artistic world. Her newest book, Beirut – New York was published this autumn and can be purchased from her online shop.

You self-published a successful book of your comics called Amalgam in 2009. Tell me about that experience. What led you to self-publish as well as license that work under a CC license?

I published my first book a few months after starting my online comic blog. After seeing the reactions to the online comics, I was encouraged to publish them in a book. I contacted many publishers who felt that an illustrated book not targeting children would not be relevant for the local market, so I decided to self-publish. I knew there was an interest in the book from the blog following, so I decided to do it on my own. Because I was already publishing my work under Creative Commons on the blog, it made sense to keep this for the book as well.

Publishing under Creative Commons allowed people to translate some of the work, to change the captions of the comics to come up with entirely different stories. It was a very interesting thing for me.

Your new book, Beirut – New York explores the cultural similarities and differences between your home city of Beirut and the city of New York, which you visited last year. Why did you decide to make these 40 illustrations? What is the motive behind showing the similarities between these “highly incompatible cities?” What kind of response have you seen to the book so far?

The idea came to me after coming back from a long overdue vacation during which I visited New York. I was going through some “post-vacation blues” and not in the mood to come back to daily life in Beirut. So I started thinking that we also have fun and cool things over here. And that’s when I started noticing all these similarities between these two cities. I made a list and decided to illustrate them because that’s how I’m most comfortable communicating my ideas. So far I’ve received great feedback about the book: many people are seeing Beirut with fresh eyes, or are interested to visit New York after seeing it. Although not the main motive, the book also shows that Beirut can be underrated by its citizens.

Why did you decide to license your popular webcomic under CC to begin with? Why do you stick with that license in light of your success?

I was introduced to Creative Commons by a friend of mine, and I loved the idea of being able to share my work more freely under certain terms. That’s why I decided to publish my blog under CC. My favorite part about publishing under CC was seeing how my work was adapted by other artists, whether translated or used to illustrate a different idea than the original comic. It allowed my work to reach a larger audience and to have a life of its own!

Since 2011, you’ve moved away from your comic work and started to work on other projects. What kinds of projects have you been working on, and how do you keep the spirit of the commons in your commercial work?

I’m still working in illustration, but most of my time is spent on commercial work, and I try to squeeze in some personal illustrations that I publish on my social media channels rather than the blog. I also co-founded wezank, a studio specialized in explainer videos. We worked on a series of videos explaining Creative Commons in Arabic through wezank.

How do you feel like your work as an illustrator unites people? How do you work to create a more equitable world through your illustration?

I find that my illustrations allow people to see things differently. It allows them to step outside the status quo.

I get a lot of feedback from people who when faced with daily situations remember my comics. That for me is the best experience because it proves that my illustrations have touched people and left a little impact in their mind. The illustrations also bring people together over certain social topics in Lebanon that are not necessarily well represented in traditional media.

Unless otherwise indicated, all images Maya Zankoul, All Rights Reserved.

The post Step outside of the status quo with Maya Zankoul: A Lebanese illustrator discusses her connection to the commons appeared first on Creative Commons.