We are thrilled to announce that the Creative Commons 4.0 License Suite and deeds have been officially translated into two new languages: Danish and Frisian, bringing the total number of official translations of the legal codes to 30! This achievement wouldn’t have been possible without the dedication and hard work of our community volunteers. We want to express our gratitude to all the volunteers who have helped us with translation. If you would like to get involved in future translation efforts, contact legal@creativecommons.org.

The addition of these translations is a significant milestone, as it enables even more people to access and use Creative Commons licenses in their native tongue. The Danish translation of CC 4.0 licenses and deeds was first started in 2019 by a team of official translators from the European Commission, coordinated by Pedro Malaquias. In 2022, the Danish Agency for Digital Government requested the translation to be completed, with the aim of recommending the use of CC licenses to public authorities and administrations. Peter Leth led the effort to complete the Danish translation.

Here is the CC BY 4.0 deed. 

In addition, the Western Frisian language is now available for CC 4.0 licenses and deeds. Spoken by about 350,000 people in Friesland, a province in the north of the Netherlands, the Western Frisian language is closer to English than Dutch or German, making it a unique language on the European mainland. This translation was made possible thanks to the initiative of Friduwih Riemersma, a poetry translator, with help from CC Netherlands volunteer and copyright lawyer Maarten Zeinstra. This translation allows for greater inclusivity and accessibility for the Frisian-speaking community.

Here is the CC BY 4.0 deed. 

Finally, the CC0 public domain release and deed are now available in German. The lack of an official German translation of CC0 was a significant barrier to the adoption of Creative Commons legal tools in Germany, and the translation will now enable the German-speaking community to use CC0 as a standard legal tool for their work. The German translation was made possible thanks to the hard work of Till Jaeger, Ruth Oppenheimer, Paul Klimpel, Stefan Kaufmann, Maximilian Gausepohl, and John Weitzmann.

Here is the CC0 deed. 

We hope these translations will allow more people to understand and use the Creative Commons licenses and other legal tools, leading to a more open and accessible world. Congratulations to all the teams involved in these efforts, and a big thank you to all the supporters and contributors who made these translations possible.

Contributing to the translation of CC licenses is an excellent way to show your support for our work and help make the world a more open and accessible place. To get involved with our future translation projects, please reach out to legal@creativecommons.org.

The post New official translations of CC legal tools published in Danish, Frisian, and German appeared first on Creative Commons.

As we gear up for Open Education Week 2023 (6 – 10 March), Creative Commons wants to recognize the contributions of our open education and related open communities. In the past several, our community members have shared their knowledge and inquiry through lightning talks, panel discussions, presentations, and working groups. The list below offers a glimpse into some of the areas of knowledge shared, and is not exhaustive. While most events focus directly on open education topics, we recognize the rich areas of overlap with our open culture and copyright communities, and have shared a glimpse into some related efforts as well.

Community-Led Efforts

• CC Open Education Lightning Talks: Seven-minute presentations that offer glimpses into our open education community’s expertise. Over the last year, community members have presented on topics ranging from OER and the “work for hire” doctrine, building OER into capstone courses, funding opportunities within open education, open educational resources (OER) as tools for social justice, work/life balance, climate change and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as the LibreTexts and Curationist platforms. Learn about open licensing and OER, copyright, the public domain, and more in these pithy tutorials!  
  • August 2022 CC Open Education Lightning Talks: Included discussions on building OER into capstone courses, funding opportunities within open education, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
    • “Open Syllabus: UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science” by Jennifer Miller, civic technologist and open knowledge advocate.
    • “More OER for Free!” by Jonathan Poritz, former mathematics faculty member and OER Coordinator at a public university in Colorado, USA, and ongoing facilitator for the CC Certificate course.
    • “Open Climate Campaign” by Dr. Cable Green, Director of Open Knowledge at Creative Commons, and Dr. Monica Granados, Assistant Director for Creative Commons Open Climate program.
    • “Building OER into Capstone Courses” by Dr. Carolyn Stevenson, faculty member and faculty advisor for Purdue University Global, School of General Education, Department of Professional Studies.
    • “Improve It Challenge” by Jamison Miller, Open Education advocate and PhD candidate at William and Mary School of Education. 
  • February 2023 CC Open Education Lightning Talks: Topics included reimagining open education as social justice, using machine translation algorithms for non-English language OER textbooks, and integrating values and ethics in OER for climate change and the SDGs. 
    • “Reimagining Open Education as Social Justice” by Ravon Ruffin, Educational Programs Manager at MHz Foundation, and Amanda Figueroa, Community Director at MHz Foundation.
    • “LibreTexts 101: Building the Textbook of the Future” by Delmar Larsen, Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Davis, and Founder and Director of the LibreTexts project.
    • “Using Machine Translation Algorithms to Effectively generate Non-English language OER Textbooks” by Delmar Larsen, Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Davis, and Founder and Director of the LibreTexts project.
    • “Integration of Values and Ethics in OER for Climate Change and the SDGs” by Dr. Suma Parahakaran, head of the Faculty of Education at Manipal Globalnxt.
    • “OER as a Social Justice tool, the case of digital accessibility” by Nicolas Simon, Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Criminology, and Social Work at Eastern Connecticut State University.
    • “Get the Balance Right: Using Mindfulness OER for Intentional Work and Life Practices” by Dr. Carolyn Stevenson, faculty member and faculty advisor for Purdue University Global, School of General Education, Department of Professional Studies. 
• Anticolonial Knowledge: Discussion with Stacy Allison-Cassin: a Q&A discussion led by moderator Jen Hughes, CC Certificate Facilitator and Archives, New Media and Educational Initiatives Librarian at Salt Lake Community College, and featured Stacy Allison-Cassin, PhD, Assistant Professor at the School of Information Management at Dalhousie University. The discussion focused on the challenges and considerations for anti-colonial knowledge efforts within knowledge institutions. Watch the recording. 
• February 2023 SDSN US Summit on Transformative Education, Panel Discussion: Sustainability Education: Nonformal and Informal Education (Dr. Green’s slides): The Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) spans six continents and draws upon the knowledge and educational capacity of over 1,600-member institutions. The panel speakers included CC’s Dr. Cable Green, Amlata Persaud of Childhood Education International, Karen Robinson of Human Rights Org, Toland Kister of Hudron Riverpark.org, and Tim Mahoney (moderator). Watch the recording.

Additional community efforts from the fields of open culture, open climate and copyright 

• CC’s copyright platform 2022 working groups share their highlights: Led by André Houang and Emine Yildirim, the two working groups presented their position papers on international user rights and data sharing policies. View their highlights. 
• CC’s open culture platform 2022 five working groups share their highlights: In 2022, CC’s open culture platform had five working groups, each focused on different areas of interest. These included the Digital Community Heritage Working Group led by Bettina Fabos and Mariana Ziku; the Traditional Knowledge and Copyright Intersections Working Group led by Connor Benedict and Alhassan Mohammed Awal; the Open GLAM for Smaller Organizations Working Group led by Connor Benedict and Abdul Dube; the CC Licenses for Cultural Heritage Institutions Working Group led by Deborah De Angelis and Tomoaki Watanabe; and the Practical Resources for the Open Culture Sector Working Group led by Revekka Kefalea and Jesse Carson. View their highlights. 
• Open Culture VOICES Archives: A series of short interviews with open GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) experts from around the world. CC asks each guest four questions about the benefits, barriers, inspiration, and advice to share about open culture. Watch the latest episode from season 2.  
• February 2023 Scanning 3D: Cultural Heritage Preservation, Access and Revitalization: In February 2023, we hosted a global Q&A and panel discussion on 3D scanning for cultural heritage preservation, access, and revitalization. The discussion focused on the legal, policy, cultural, and ethical considerations surrounding this topic.
  The speakers included Michael Weinberg, Executive Director of the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy at the NYU School of Law; Cosmo Wenman, an open access advocate and 3D design and fabrication consultant; Teresa Nobre, Legal Director of COMMUNIA; Thomas Flynn, Cultural Heritage Lead at Sketchfab; Jonas Heide Smith, Head of Digital at SMK – National Gallery of Denmark in Copenhagen (Statens Museum for Kunst); and Jennryn Wetzler, Director of Learning and Training at Creative Commons, who served as the moderator. Watch the recording. 

CC is grateful to community members in these conversations and others. Their thoughtful presentations enrich Open Education Week, and our broader open knowledge and open culture work.

 

To find out what else Creative Commons is doing to celebrate Open Education, visit the Open Education Week website. 

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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 March, we’re excited to showcase “Better Sharing, Brighter Future” by Mexican illustrator and cartoonist, David Espinosa. The piece, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, was inspired by a quote from Catherine Stihler, Creative Commons CEO:

“Better Sharing, Brighter Future is happy and joyous open sharing where creativity, knowledge and innovation can prosper.”

 

Meet the artist:

David Espinosa, also known as El Dee, is an illustrator and cartoonist based in Cholula, México. With an impressive track record of success, his graphic novel “Nido de Serpientes” was awarded Tierra Adentro’s Young Graphic Novel of the year in 2018, cementing his position as one of Mexico’s most promising emerging artists. David’s work is characterized by its intricate details, bold colors, and thoughtful storytelling. Drawing inspiration from Mexican culture, pop art, and underground comics, his illustrations and comics are visually stunning and emotionally resonant. Whether he’s creating a new masterpiece or collaborating with fellow artists, David is dedicated to pushing the boundaries of his craft and inspiring the next generation of Mexican artists.

Follow David on Instagram: ​​@el.dee
Follow David on Twitter: @eltwitilustrado

 

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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Charles shares that “open access [in cultural heritage] allows institutions to shine a light on lesser known works” that would otherwise go unnoticed. In this episode we get to learn about how a major French cultural institution creates value by making incredibly detailed data of collections available to the public online.

Open Culture VOICES is a series of short videos that highlight the benefits and barriers of open culture as well as inspiration and advice on the subject of opening up cultural heritage. Charles is the Digital and Open Data Project Manager at Mucem where he works to increase the usability and engagement of the museums collection.

Charles responds to the following questions:

1. What are the main benefits of open GLAM?
2. What are the barriers?
3. Could you share something someone else told you that opened up your eyes and mind about open GLAM?
4. Do you have a personal message to those hesitating to open up collections?

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 >>

The post Charles Riondet — Open Culture VOICES, Season 2 Episode 4 appeared first on Creative Commons.

In a recent post, we explained why, absent significant and direct human creative input, generative AI outputs should not qualify for copyright protection. We noted that exactly what constitutes enough human input is not entirely clear; while a simple text prompt shouldn’t be enough, other areas will present more complex questions.

Just this week, the United States Copyright Office (USCO) provided a bit more clarity, at least as to its views about US law and works generated by AI. While it affirms some of the limits that we articulated, it leaves open many questions about where exactly the boundaries of copyrightability lie.

This case involves an artist named Kristina Kashtanova who used the Midjourney platform to create their graphic novel, Zarya of the Dawn. and their application for copyright registration over their work. Kashtanova claims that they used “hundreds or thousands” of text prompts and went through “hundreds of iterations” to create their artistic vision. They also note that in some instances, they edited the images that Midjourney produced, and altogether put hours of time and care into what became Zarya of the Dawn.

However, even considering the work that Kashtanova put into producing the graphic novel, the Copyright Office ultimately held that the images produced by Midjourney lacked sufficient human involvement in the creation process to qualify for copyright protection. The USCO held that, even if a human enters text prompts into Midjourney and iterates an image until it becomes what they want, they are still at some level out of control over what the generative AI produces. And for this reason, it is not truly the work of a human author. The Copyright Office wrote that “A person who provides text prompts to Midjourney does not ‘actually form’ the generated images and is not the ‘master mind’ behind them. Instead […] Midjourney begins the image generation process with a field of visual ‘noise,’ which is refined based on tokens created from user prompts that relate to Midjourney’s training database. The information in the prompt may ‘influence’ the generated image, but prompt text does not dictate a specific result.”

As part of its decision, the Copyright Office compared Kashtanova’s use of Midjourney with the work of a photographer and their camera. The agency wrote that, unlike a photographer, users of Midjourney do not have the same degree of control over the final images. Photographers can control many parts of their photographs — the framing, the lighting, the subject, the presentation of the subject, the exposure time, the depth of field, etc — even though the camera ultimately captures the image. Midjourney users, on the other hand, cannot truly control what the AI creates. “The process by which a Midjourney user obtains an ultimate satisfactory image through the tool is not the same as that of a human artist, writer, or photographer […] the initial prompt by a user generates four different images based on Midjourney’s training data. While additional prompts applied to one of these initial images can influence the subsequent images, the process is not controlled by the user because it is not possible to predict what Midjourney will create ahead of time.”

When it comes to a ruling like this, it’s all too easy to think of it in terms of which party won or lost. But that’s too simplistic. For one thing, limitations on copyright can be helpful to creativity, growing the commons by enabling artists to build freely on these works.

What’s more, though Kashtanova lost their registration for the full work, the Office also made clear that there were ways for artists to add creativity such that they do have a copyrightable work incorporating AI-generated content. The Office concluded that Kashtanova’s original text, as well as the selection and arrangement of the text and the images together, are copyrightable. Furthermore, the Office noted that it “will register works that contain otherwise unprotectable material that has been edited, modified, or otherwise revised by a human author,” although it did not have evidence in this case of sufficient changes to reach this threshold. Determining those boundaries will have to be evaluated in future instances.

With that in mind, it’s also important to note that neither the artist involved nor Midjourney viewed this as a ‘loss’ per se. While the artist criticized the decision, they stated it is a “great day for everyone that is creating using Midjourney and other tools…. This covers a lot of uses for people in the AI art community.” Similarly, Midjourney’s general counsel declared that the decision is “a great victory for Kris, Midjourney, and artists” because the Office “clearly [is] saying that if an artist exerts creative control over an image-generating tool like Midjourney” then copyright may apply.

Looking ahead, the exact boundaries of copyrightability for AI-generated works will no doubt continue to evolve. The Office’s statements were based on only one type of tool, Midjourney and its “diffusion” model. Other tools may construct images differently, and some generative AI tools give humans more control over the works that they produce, making it more difficult to determine where in the final output the human creativity ends and the AI begins.

Additionally, the copyrightability of fully autonomously created works is currently being debated in Thaler v. Perlmutter, a case brought against the Copyright Office for refusing to register a work where the claimed author is a machine. That case may offer some guidance on these questions in the relatively near future.

Finally, a Copyright Office decision on registration is not the final determination on the copyrightability of works. Copyright in the United States (and other countries covered by the Berne Convention) does not require registration and the federal courts are not bound by any Copyright Office decision. It is, however, a valuable datapoint on how judges may think about works produced by generative AI when these issues end up before the courts. Certainly this is not the last we will hear about this issue and we will continue watching to see what happens.

The post <i>Zarya of the Dawn</i>: US Copyright Office Affirms Limits on Copyright of AI Outputs appeared first on Creative Commons.