Creative Commons CEO Catherine Stihler welcomed the EU’s publication today of its Media Freedom Act.

Catherine said: “An independent, plural media is central to a healthy, functioning democratic system which in turn is the bedrock for citizens’ trust and confidence in politics and values. Creative Commons applauds the EU in its efforts to protect journalists from intimidation and to safeguard the independence of the editorial processes.

“As we explored in our Open Journalism series this year, nonprofit and public service media have a critical role to play in ensuring better sharing of information in the public interest, and we are grateful that the proposal focuses on the importance of a strong, independent public service media sector.

“In an ever more digitalized world, the protection of online content is vitally important. We welcome and support efforts to counter mis- and dis-information and will look in detail at the legal text in order to ensure that the provisions included on this are fit for purpose and do not, unintentionally, inhibit or restrict creativity and better sharing in the public interest.

“With that in mind, we do have concerns about provisions that could create loopholes for purveyors of harmful misinformation and undermine media pluralism. Under Article 17, large online platforms would be expected to give special, advance notice and consideration to media providers when it comes to removal or restriction of their content. Many groups (including Creative Commons) raised concerns about these same concepts when they were proposed and rejected as part of the debates over the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, in particular because they could require platforms to carry and give prominence to harmful content simply because an entity claims to be a media provider. Moreover, because large publishers are most likely to have the resources to engage with companies and regulators on enforcement of these tools, this provision may tilt the competitive playing field in their favor, cutting against the pluralistic goals of the Act to support publishers of every size. The Digital Services Act already provides opportunities for anyone to seek redress from a platform, and it is premature to reconsider the balance struck there.

“We will look in more detail at the legal texts and look forward to constructively contributing to the process as the EU develops this important framework. With war on the European continent, it is now more than ever obvious that urgent action needs to be taken to defend our values — media freedom is an essential part of that.

“In fact, around the globe, media freedom is in great peril. In March 2022, UNESCO published an alarming report titled World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development, which shows that 85% of the world population experienced a decline in press freedom in their country over the past five years. Guided by our organizational value of global inclusivity, Creative Commons will continue to uphold universal freedoms and the free flow of ideas for a free and democratic world.”

The post Statement on the Introduction of the EU Media Freedom Act appeared first on Creative Commons.

Come join CC’s legal team for open office hours. Everyone is invited to meet with General Counsel Kat Walsh and Counsel Yuanxiao Xu to discuss legal issues related to CC licenses, CC0, and open sharing in general.

We’ll start off with a few minutes talking about CC and some current topics and then open the floor for anything you’d like to chat about. As usual, CC will not be able to offer specific legal advice.

This is a casual conversation session, and there is no formal presentation — what we talk about is entirely up to you. We want to hear the questions that our FAQs have never really answered, what you’d like to see CC doing, the interesting resources you’ve found, the issues that you’re seeing as you try to share and reuse works, how you’re using and interacting with CC licenses and legal tools, and more. Or just a chat to get to know more of you in the CC community!

Our first office hours session will be on Friday, 16 September 2022 at 10am Pacific Time (17:00 UTC). Register at any time and get it on your calendar or join us at the last moment if your time frees up. If you can’t make this session, don’t worry, we are planning additional sessions on the third Friday of every month. Office hours will be held in Zoom to make it easier for the broadest possible community to participate.

The post Open Office Hours with CC’s Legal Team appeared first on Creative Commons.

Do you know about the Creative Commons Open Culture Platform?

It’s a space for open culture and cultural heritage practitioners, advocates, and enthusiasts to share resources, hold conversations, and collaborate on matters related to open access to cultural heritage, especially heritage held in galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAMs).

As we were curious about our members’ experience with the Platform, we recently asked a few of them to complete this sentence: “The CC Open Culture platform has been an opportunity for me to…” Here’s what they answered.

“… work on critical cultural heritage issues together with a knowledgeable international community and get support and expertise in the setup of intangible heritage documentation projects in the Balkans.”
— Mariana Ziku, Greece

“… connect with a diverse community of open knowledge enthusiasts and to deepen my knowledge and understanding of the Creative Commons licenses and the open movement community in general.”
— Sadik Shahadu, Ghana

“… keep up to date with the open culture movement and contribute my expertise to other members of the group.”
— Maarten Zeinstra, Netherlands

“… learn about practices across countries and institutions that I would otherwise not come across, and meet potential allies for collaborating in the development of future policy efforts.”
— Ariadna Matas, France

“… engage with likeminded people from different parts of the world, and improve my understanding of cultural heritage outside of a formal education system. It has equipped me with advocacy skills in working with GLAM institutions and professionals in Nigeria.”
— Isaac Oloruntimilehin, Nigeria

“… explore new ideas and learn from people across the globe.”
— Jesse Carson, Canada

“… meet people with relevant experiences and interests to discuss a specific matter and learn a lot.”
— Tomoaki Watanabe, Japan

“… meet people from all over the world who are generous with their time, knowledge and experiences, and improve my cross-cultural communication skills.”
— Revekka Kefalea, Greece

“… share my ideas and experience in international copyright law and open my views based on the ideas and experience from other participants.”
— Deborah De Angelis, Italy

Do you also want to get involved? Don’t hesitate!

• Become a member of the CC Open Culture Platform
• Sign up to the CC Open Culture mailing list
• Join our Open Culture working groups
• Join the #cc-openglam Slack channel
• Participate in CC Open Culture Platform calls — they are announced in the Slack channel and on the mailing list

The post Members share their experiences with the CC Open Culture Platform appeared first on Creative Commons.

Unless you’ve been avoiding the internet entirely, you’ve probably heard about people buying and selling non-fungible tokens — or NFTs — unique data tokens that link to digital files, including artworks and other types of copyrightable works.

CC has been following how people are creating and trading NFTs, and how the marketplace of creative works is transforming. We keep seeing NFTs linked to works published with CC’s open licenses or the CC0 public domain dedication — so often that CC0 NFTs have their own hashtag: #cc0summer. We know that there are many in the CC community trying to figure out how CC tools interact with NFTs — as are many others who are hearing about CC for the first time as they explore NFTs.

While we always welcome contributions to the public commons, we want to ensure everyone understands how these new tools and practices might align with our legal tools and the global open commons that CC legal tools enable. Having spoken with some NFT artists and platform team members, we know there is widespread misunderstanding about what a CC license or CC0 dedication means. When a CC license or CC0 is used to share a work, the rights to reuse that work are widely or completely shared, with limited or no rights reserved.

To help clarify how NFTs are already leveraging CC legal tools, we have added a new section to our FAQ on using CC licenses and the CC0 public domain dedication with NFTs. This FAQ is intended to provide basic guidance for those who are already using NFTs and want to know how to use CC licenses and legal tools with NFT projects. We will continue to update our FAQ as our understanding and interpretation develops.

CC’s licenses and legal tools are intentionally general-purpose: we designed them to be applicable to a wide variety of contexts and works. While some may believe NFTs are a special case that call for new copyright licenses, we believe CC licenses and CC0 work well to contribute works to the public commons when used with NFTs. NFTs may introduce new relationships around who holds the rights to related works and how such rights are transferred as NFTs change hands, but those are contractual questions best handled outside open licenses or a release to the public domain.

If your creative work is linked to an NFT, you may apply one of the existing CC licenses or CC0 to let others know how they may share and reuse your work, separate from the ownership of a related token. And where this is used with intention, there are many possibilities for vibrant sharing and reuse where these works are in the public commons, with the ownership of the rights completely removed from the ownership of the token.

We are aware of other efforts in the space, including some that say they are inspired by CC’s work but are incompatible with the material already available in the commons. (In particular, some of the licenses recently produced by a16z, which claim direct inspiration but were not developed in consultation with CC.) While the approach may be similar, the effect is different: the terms of most of these licenses are incompatible with the CC licenses and with most other free and open content licenses; users of these terms will find that their works are remixable only within the narrow space of others using the same terms, rather than the much broader spectrum of works using the CC licenses and compatible licenses. This is not true of all other licensing efforts: some simply add terms about the sale and transfer of the token as an addition to a CC license or public domain release.

NFTs, and the distributed web movement they are a part of, are new and still evolving. NFTs are also hotly debated. We know many in the CC community embrace NFTs as a new way to support and enable creators. Many others offer strong and convincing criticism. Whatever your opinions about NFTs, CC licenses and the CC0 dedication are being used widely in conjunction with NFTs and works they reference. CC has a responsibility to our mission and our community to clarify how our work connects to these emerging tools and practices. At CC we are watching closely, focused on how NFTs may help or hinder better sharing: sharing that is inclusive, just and equitable — where everyone has wide opportunity to access content, to contribute their own creativity, and to receive recognition and rewards for their contributions.

Please read and share the more detailed discussion in our FAQ.

The post New FAQ on NFTs and CC0 appeared first on Creative Commons.

Hi Creative Commoners! We are back with a new episode of CC’s Open Minds … from Creative Commons podcast. In this month’s episode of the show, Jennryn Wetzler, CC’s Director of Learning and Training, talks all things Open Education and Inclusive Access Textbooks with Trudi Radtke, former Open Education Project Manager at SPARC.

InclusiveAccess.org is a community-driven initiative that launched in 2021 to raise awareness of the facts about automatic textbook billing. The initiative was developed by SPARC with generous support from the Michelson 20MM Foundation, and Creative Commons is one of the partners. 

This episode was recorded in June 2022, when Trudi Radtke was the Open Education Project Manager at SPARC. In this role, they spearheaded advocacy and implementation for initiatives to make education more open and equitable, including InclusiveAccess.org. Prior to working at SPARC, Trudi was an Education Technology Specialist, OER Specialist and open consultant in the California community college system. As an Open and OER consultant, they have assisted in the creation of over 120 open textbooks and several Z-Degree pathways. Trudi is passionate about Open and has advocated for OER at the state, regional, and international levels.

• Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, and more. You can also subscribe via the show’s RSS feed.
• Episode transcript: Text // PDF // Doc

Please subscribe to the show in whatever podcast app you use, so you don’t miss any of our conversations with people working to make the internet and our global culture more open and collaborative.

The post Open Minds Podcast: Trudi Radtke on InclusiveAccess.org appeared first on Creative Commons.