Today marks my first year anniversary at CC. It is such an honour and a privilege to lead this organization whose relevance could not be more important at this time.

However, as I sit and write this reflection, I know for so many in our global community and network that our thoughts and prayers are with the women and girls in Afghanistan with whom I want to express my solidarity. I sincerely hope the international community will do all that it can to support women and girls in Afghanistan to exercise their basic human rights against a backdrop of chaos, violence and uncertainty. 

As for CC, I would like to take this moment of a year as CEO to reflect on all that we have achieved together during this extraordinary time. The global pandemic has meant that no one from this global, virtual organization has met in-person since February 2020. In fact, I’ve yet to meet a single Creative Commoner in-person since joining as CEO. However, we have not let this hamper our ambitions or restrict our achievements.

In the first four months of coming to CC, we led a virtual strategic process, which resulted in the creation of our new 5 year strategy. The theme of Better Sharing resonates now more than ever. This theme forms the central message of our 20th Anniversary Capital Campaign. It has been a privilege to support our 20th Anniversary Committee and to see the launch of the campaign in May this year. A huge thank you must go to the 20th anniversary co-chairs, Paul Brest and Ruth Okediji, whose wisdom and thoughtfulness shine through in their dedication to Creative Commons.

Our 20th Anniversary Capital Campaign was launched to a flying start, thanks to the generous support of Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin. Their $5 million multi-year gift to launch a program focused on Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (GLAMs) is a phenomenal investment in supporting openness in cultural heritage. Brigitte Vézina, who is leading CC’s work on GLAM, presented the new program at Wikimania earlier this week.

This generous gift will help us achieve our ambitious goal of raising $15 million by the end of next year. Thank you to all those who support our work – without you, we could not free knowledge and culture around the world for everyone, everywhere. 

Our strategy is our guiding map over the next 5 years, and it is great to see our priorities of advocacy, legal innovation, and capacity building start to take shape. Last week, our legal team, composed of Sarah Pearson and Kat Walsh, published an open consultation on how we will be addressing the issue of aggressive license enforcement. This has long been a topic in the open licensing community, and we are now seeing real action coming together to address this critical area of concern.

Our work in Open Education led by Dr. Cable Green continues, and it was a real success story to see California adopt what we have been advocating for in open textbooks. We hope that over the coming months, as the world looks to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), we will have something more to share with you on our open climate ambitions – watch this space. It has been exciting to watch our work with Grant for the Web mature in the second year of the collaboration. The program is thriving under the strong leadership of the Interledger Foundation.

Over the past year, we have also seen the successful transition of CC Search to Automattic, and our stewardship of the Open COVID pledge transferred to American University. It is a testament to CC to see projects which began here grow and prosper under the leadership of organizations that share our values. We have also seen staff too move onto new and exciting opportunities, and I want to thank each and every one of them for their tireless efforts at CC. It has been great to welcome Kat Drew, Kat Walsh, Marlena Reimer, Brylie Oxley and Ony Anukem to CC. Our global community remains a strength that no matter where you are in the world you will find people who share our values over the importance of sharing knowledge and culture. I am excited about our 20th Anniversary Summit, which is now just a month away. I invite you all to join the Creative Commons team, global network, and broader open community to discuss key issues and learn together, the week of September 20th.

And so for the next year, my key priorities remain the 20th Anniversary Campaign, to meet our goal of $15 million by the end of next year, implementing our strategy of Better Sharing, and continuing to raise the profile and awareness of Creative Commons across our world. I look forward to the year ahead and thank you again for your support, friendship and commitment to the powerful cause of sharing knowledge and culture.

The post Reflections from my first year as Creative Commons’ CEO appeared first on Creative Commons.

At Creative Commons, openness, diversity, inclusion, and democratization are at the heart of everything we do. We strive to create an inclusive experience at each CC Global Summit, ensuring that each event is as accessible as possible and that underrepresented groups feel welcome in the CC community.

 Over the years, Creative Commons has built a diverse and globally representative Summit audience by dedicating resources to increasing diversity and accessibility. This year being virtual is no different – we are pleased to offer the Summit Access Fund to tackle accessibility issues in the virtual space. 

The Summit Access Fund will support community members and presenters who need financial support to access our tools and platforms, including reliable internet, in order to meaningfully participate in the event. Haven’t had a chance to register yet? Register here >>

We will be offering small dollar amounts of $50 and $100USD, and all applications will be reviewed by a volunteer committee from around the globe.

Whether you don’t have access to home internet, lack bandwidth due to living in a multiple occupant household, or live in an area with connection issues, we hope this funding will help make access to the summit more equitable. Priority will be given to delegates who are CC Global Network Members and those residing in the global south, but applications are welcome and encouraged from all participants.

Timeline:

• 10 – 24 August Applications Open
• 25 – 30 August Application Evaluation
• Early September Acceptance letters sent out
  

APPLY FOR THE SUMMIT ACCESS FUND HERE

If you can, please consider donating to the Summit Access Fund to help ensure reliable internet access for CC Summit participants who may need it, as well as translation and live language support. Donate here >>

The post Applications for the 2021 CC Global Summit Access Fund are open now appeared first on Creative Commons.

For several years, Creative Commons has been monitoring an alarming increase in enforcement actions relating to CC licenses. Today, we are announcing the next phase of our evolving response to this complex issue, and we would like your input.

There are several elements to our plans, but the centerpiece today is a draft Statement of Principles Around License Enforcement. We recognize that these principles have limited legal “bite,” given that CC does not hold the copyright to community works. However, we believe there is value in articulating what CC believes is license enforcement that upholds the spirit and intent of the licenses. We also foresee other possible mechanisms for these principles to be useful, including integration of the principles into community codes of conduct and adoption by major rights holders. 

We want to hear from you. Do these principles reflect your own values? Why or why not? How can we adapt them to better meet community expectations? You can read the principles and our wider plans on this front on the CC site, and you can leave comments on the text of the principles in this google doc. We will be improving this draft in the coming weeks, and engaging in a public conversation around them at the CC Summit in September.

The post New License Enforcement Principles for Public Comment appeared first on Creative Commons.

It’s the start of a new month, which means a new episode of CC’s podcast, Open Minds … from Creative Commons!

Our guest on this episode is Albert Wenger, managing partner at Union Square Ventures, a thesis-driven venture capital firm based in New York City. USV has invested in over 100 companies that use the power of the internet to re-shape markets, including Twitter, Etsy, Stripe, Tumblr, Meetup, and Kickstarter, among others. Earlier this year, USV announced a new $162 million Climate Fund focused on investing in “companies and projects that provide mitigation for or adaptation to the climate crisis.” In this episode, we delve into the topic of Climate Change, from what the average person can start doing today to the importance of openness and cross-sectoral collaboration and partnership to find effective solutions.

Albert is also the author of the book World After Capital, an evolving digital book project that explores a set of megatrend shifts as the global economy moves from the Industrial Age to the Knowledge Age. We discuss the open approach he adopted in writing and editing this book and get the latest updates on its progress. The book is free and available at worldaftercapital.org under a Creative Commons license.

• Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also subscribe via the show’s RSS feed.

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: Albert Wenger of Union Square Ventures appeared first on Creative Commons.

Here’s an opportunity you won’t want to miss! Grant for the Web–a global fund to boost open, fair, and inclusive standards and innovation in Web Monetization has announced a new public Call For Proposals open from Monday, July 26th, 2021, and running until Wednesday, September 15th, 2021, at 7 PM UTC. 

Grant for the Web will award projects up to six months in duration at three funding levels: Spark (up to $15K), Mid-Level (up to $50K), and Flagship (up to $100K). All funded projects will need to promote good web design principles, ensuring that the emerging Web Monetization ecosystem supports scalable, global, and open standardization.

From Grant for the Web’s announcement:

We recognize that dominant business models of the web are controlled by the same institutions, companies, and algorithms that reinforce systemic racism and inequality. We seek to support communities that have – and continue to be – systemically and deliberately excluded from opportunities around financial inclusion and empowerment. Starting in 2021, we began to mandate that all funded projects have a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) component, which can manifest itself in one of three  ways:

• The lead applicant is a person of color or the team represents a diverse group of people. 
• The output of the team benefits communities that have been historically underrepresented.
• Funds explicitly earmarked to address increasing participation of historically marginalized and underrepresented communities.

The 2021 open call for proposals requires applicants to select one of the four following categories:

Business Plans for Web Monetized Content
Exploring the relationship between specific content types and consumer appetites for monetization by offering value propositions that are different from traditional web business models. Read more.

Web Monetization API & Interledger Prototypes
Building technical infrastructure that will advance the capabilities of Web Monetization to launch new business models for the web. Read more.

Research on/with/for Web Monetization API & Interledger
Producing research, reports, and thought leadership to convince more people to adopt Web Monetization technology and practices. Read more.

Advocacy and Public Education
Helping others learn about and advocate for openly networked payments enabled by the Interledger Protocol and the Web Monetization API. Read more.

The deadline for applications is Wednesday, September 15th at 7 PM (UTC). Click here for your local time zone.

To apply and for all the information you’ll need to prepare your submission, visit Grant for the Web’s detailed Call for Proposals page.

The post Calling all creatives: Grant for the Web’s Call for Proposals Is Open Now appeared first on Creative Commons.