In this Special Episode of the Open Culture Voices series, CC hosts a conversation among five open culture experts from around the world.

• Dr. Andrea Wallace, Professor, University of Exeter Law School, United Kingdom
• Dr. Nkem Osuigwe, Director, African Library and Information Associations and Institutions, Nigeria
• Medhavi Gandhi, Founder, The Heritage Lab, India
• Evelin Heidel (Scann), Program Lead at Wikimedistas de Uruguay, Uruguay
• Michael Peter Edson, Founder and Director at the Museum of Solutions, USA/India

Topics addressed range from the fundamental issues surrounding open culture, its transformative impact, and the challenges it faces in a world undergoing profound changes.

The conversation takes place at a pivotal moment in the open culture movement: while 2022 saw the adoption of the MONDIACULT Declaration by UNESCO member states, which recognizes culture as a global public good, only 1% of the world’s cultural heritage institutions have open access policies. The experts reflect on whether open culture can fulfill its commitment to inclusive and global access to culture and participation in cultural life.

Some of the key points discussed in this episode include:

• The disruptive impact of new technologies, such as generative AI, on the open culture ecosystem, raising concerns about sustainability, accessibility, and equity.
• The need to sketch a blueprint for open culture and better sharing to guide the direction of open culture in the coming years.
• The observation that the open movement has stalled and is at a crossroads, requiring a realistic assessment of accomplishments, challenges, and future directions.
• The importance of reflecting on and rethinking the mission, structure, and practices of cultural institutions in the digital age.
• The need for a more equitable approach in open culture, addressing the bias in data representation and the lack of voices from underrepresented regions.
• The sector’s need for active support and collaboration to address complex issues such as decolonization and inclusivity.
• The importance of open culture in creating awareness, understanding, and appreciation of diverse cultures and knowledges.
• Challenges include the need for more participatory practices, addressing issues of interoperability, and overcoming barriers to access in developing countries.
• The role of open culture in contributing to addressing the climate crisis and preserving cultural heritage in emergency situations.
• The environmental impact of digital technologies and the labor invisibilization associated with digital extraction.
• The importance of considering local and intentional digital activities in open practices.

Overall, the first part of the conversation highlights the need to expand the reach and impact of open culture, address inequalities, and actively shape the future of openness in the cultural heritage sector. As the open culture movement evolves, it must address issues of representation, equity, and resource distribution and by embracing diverse perspectives and forging partnerships, the blueprint for open culture can be shaped to create a more inclusive and equitable future for all.

When asked why open culture is important, here’s what they had to say:

“For me, open culture is really important locally because it’s a way to think creatively about how to make connections among collections, individuals, histories, narratives. That previously hasn’t actually been possible because of the analog nature of heritage and heritage management.”  Andrea Wallace

“I started my career working with artisans and craftspeople, and my main interest was in building participation with the arts…I realized that the knowledge of the craft was at museums, like the background knowledge and contextual knowledge. And so we started taking artisans and crafts people to museums.” Medhavi Gandhi

“Open content was this thread that ran through all our thinking about the future role of institutions and in the digital age… And for me, that’s a very very local and intimate challenge.” Michael Peter Edson

“I think it’s very important that we put out our stories and our heritage in ways that actually represent our culture.” Evelin Heidel (Scann)

“In my culture, some things are open and some are not, and I’m wondering how we can open up…there are some areas where women are not even allowed to join, and I’m wondering how open culture can help us achieve that.” Nkem Osuigwe

Part 2 will be release at the end of July 2023. Stay tuned!

Closed captions are available for this video, you can turn them on by clicking the CC icon at the bottom of the video. A red line will appear under the icon when closed captions have been enabled. Closed captions may be affected by Internet connectivity — if you experience a lag, we recommend watching the videos directly on YouTube.

Want to hear more insights from Open Culture experts from around the world? Watch more episodes of Open Culture VOICES here >>

For more information on CC’s Open Culture work head to our information page or join the platform.

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The CC Open Culture Team is excited to announce a new webinar series, Open Culture Live. This series will feature conversations with experts on a number of topics, from the basics of open culture to discussions about traditional knowledge, artificial intelligence, respectful terminologies in collections, and more. 

As a first session, we wanted to introduce folks to the basics of open culture – how our licenses work, and how they can be harnessed by cultural heritage institutions or GLAMs (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) to responsibly share the world’s cultural heritage. 

Back to Basics: Open Culture for Beginners

27 July, 2023, 2:00 PM UTC

Jocelyn Miyara, Open Culture Manager & Connor Benedict, Open Culture Coordinator

Why is open access important for cultural heritage institutions? The mission of many of these kinds of organizations is to share culture and knowledge – and the internet enables sharing much more widely. Open culture’s most exciting potential is to empower creators anywhere in the world to discover, share, reuse and remix cultural heritage. We see open culture as a catalyst for the dissemination and revitalization of culture, a spark for the creation of new cultural expressions and experiences, and an engine for sustainable cultural, economic and social development, where culture as a public good takes center stage. 

Register to attend here. 

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I am delighted to introduce the latest additions to the Creative Commons Board of Directors: Marta Belcher, James Grimmelmann, and Luis Villa. They each bring unique skills and experiences, and they’re all passionate advocates for Creative Commons and the open movement.

We are at a pivotal moment in the development of Creative Commons. As we focus on CC’s strategic goal of accelerating better sharing and prepare for the first CC Global Summit since 2019 in Mexico City this October, the insights of Marta, James, and Luis will be invaluable.

Their appointment was made possible through an open nomination process steered by the Governance and Nominations Committee Chair, Carolina Botero, who harnessed the insights of the CC Global Network. I would like to thank the committee for their work, and a hearty welcome to Marta, James, and Luis. Let us all welcome them with open arms as they embark on their journey with us.

 

About the new board members:

Marta Belcher

Marta Belcher holds multiple esteemed positions in the tech and legal sectors, notably serving as President, Chair, General Counsel, and Head of Policy for the Filecoin Foundation and the Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web. Additionally, she is an integral part of Protocol Labs. She also lends her expertise to the Electronic Frontier Foundation as a Special Counsel. Marta is also a Board member of the Blockchain Association and the Zcash Foundation, and a member of Paradigm’s Crypto Policy Council. Marta is a pioneer in blockchain law and policy, and has testified in Congress and state legislatures, as well as speaking in European Parliament. Marta was previously an intellectual property litigator at Ropes & Gray, and has submitted briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. appellate courts for high-profile public interest organizations, including EFF, the Center for Democracy & Technology, Public Knowledge, the Cato Institute, the National Consumers’ League, the Blockchain Association, and Project Gutenberg. Marta has been recognized by the Financial Times Innovative Lawyer awards, by Law360’s list of Top Attorneys Under 40, by CryptoWeekly’s list of Most Influential Women in Crypto, and as Business Intelligence Group’s Woman of the Year.

James Grimmelmann

James Grimmelmann is the Tessler Family Professor of Digital and Information Law at Cornell Tech and Cornell Law School. His work is primarily focused on how laws regulating software affect freedom, wealth, and power. His role often involves helping lawyers and technologists understand each other, and he’s applied concepts from computer science to tackle legal problems. He’s also written a casebook titled “Internet Law: Cases and Problems” and over fifty articles on a range of topics within computer and internet law. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and an A.B. in computer science from Harvard College. Before law school, he worked as a programmer for Microsoft; after graduation, he clerked for a federal appellate judge. He is an affiliated fellow of the Yale Information Society Project. He previously taught at New York Law School, Georgetown, and the University of Maryland. He has written for Slate, Salon, Wired, Ars Technica, and Publishers Weekly; he is a regular source of expert commentary for major news media including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and All Things Considered. He and his students created the Public Index website to inform the public about the Google Books settlement.

Luis Villa

Luis Villa has made significant contributions to the open community since the late 90s, taking on a multitude of roles. He started as a developer, later transitioning into legal and board positions. His experience spans renowned organizations like Mozilla and the Wikimedia Foundation, where he held critical positions. In addition, he has provided legal counsel to a spectrum of companies, from small startups to giant Silicon Valley firms. His involvement in the open-source community extends beyond his professional roles. As a community member and informal advisor, he has worked with organizations such as Open Street Map, the Open Knowledge Foundation, the World Wide Web Consortium, and OpenETdata.org. Luis is also a co-founder and General Counsel at Tidelift, where the mission is making open source work better for everyone, including the maintainers behind the projects we all rely on, and the enterprises benefiting from their creations.

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As part of our #20CC anniversary, last year we joined forces with Fine Acts to spark a global dialogue on what better sharing looks like in action. Our #BetterSharing collection of illustrations was the result — we gathered insights from 12 prominent open advocates around the world and tasked 12 renowned artists who embrace openness with transforming these perspectives into captivating visual pieces available under a CC license.

Each month throughout 2023, we will be spotlighting a different CC-licensed illustration from the collection on our social media headers and the CC blog. For July, we’re excited to showcase “Better Sharing For Brighter Future” by Janice Chang. The piece, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, was inspired by a quote from Tyler Green, Author, Historian, Art Critic and Producer/Host, The Modern Art Notes Podcast:

“It means understanding that sharing and open content is a means, not an end. For me, it means understanding that sharing and open content is a means, not an end, that open content and open access policies aren’t an end in and of themselves. Although within the context of an individual project, it’s an excellent end. But what we get, we the community of scholars, we the broader community of people, what we get is an opportunity to understand how this material fits within the worlds around us, allowing new and different ideas to more fully inform us. My favorite example is always going to be the more art and visual material, whether it’s photographs or engravings in 19th century magazines. The more we understand how images have worked across histories, the more we will understand how impactful artists and visual makers, engravers, whomever have been. And so I think that open access is probably the primary and most important means through which we will understand how artists have impacted the world.”

Meet the artist:

Janice Chang is a Los Angeles born and raised illustrator based in Brooklyn, NY. Much of her work takes on an honest representation of the sometimes humorous and bendy limbs of her characters as a way to engage in conversations around social and interpersonal issues. She works primarily for editorial, commercial, advertising, and motion clients, but also loves to explore painting murals, animation, and making sculptures.

Follow Janice on Instagram: @janiceechang

The full #BetterSharing collection is available on TheGreats.co to be enjoyed, used and adapted, and then shared again, by anyone, forever. View the full collection >>

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As a part of CC’s continuing engagement in policy to shape generative artificial intelligence (AI), Brigitte Vézina, our Director of Policy and Open Culture, participated in a June session hosted by the European Internet Forum: Generative AI, Art & copyright: from creative machines to human-powered tools. The panel was held in the framework of EU negotiations on the development of the Artificial Intelligence Act, one of the world’s first regulations dedicated to AI.

The panel was chaired by MEP Dragos Tudorache, Rapporteur on the AI Act, and brought together speakers representing rightholders in the creative industries, an AI developer, and CC as the only representative of civil society present to defend the public interest. The debate touched on several copyright-related issues related to AI training, transparency and safeguards, AI-generated outputs, and more.

In our panel remarks, we emphasized how, for many years, we have been examining the interplay between copyright and AI — exploring ways in which these technologies and practices could help people build on and contribute to the commons, stimulate new creativity, and foster better sharing, i.e. sharing that is inclusive, equitable, reciprocal and sustainable.

Going forward, it is clear that a diverse, global community must be involved in guiding the regulation of generative AI, with expertise spanning the fields of copyright, certainly, but also ethics, privacy and data protection, and fundamental human rights, so that AI’s promises are fulfilled and its perils, averted.

CC will continue our work to represent the public interest in negotiations around AI policy, as well as continue to engage and grow our broad, global community to refine and share understanding of AI’s impact on the commons. Join us at our Global Summit in Mexico City during 3–6 October 2023 where our theme is AI & the Commons.

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