The Creative Commons Legal Database is a collection of case law and legal scholarship to help our users learn more about legal issues surrounding Creative Commons (CC) licenses and legal tools. This information has been contributed by many dedicated members of the CC Global Network and the CC Legal Team. It was shared in a public beta site, and we have been working to release a new version to finally graduate the project as an official CC product.
What did we want to improve on the beta site? First, we wanted to integrate Vocabulary, the CC’s design system, and through this unify the look and feel with other CC websites and applications undergoing the same process. Second, the management of the information by CC Legal Staff (reviewing and publication) was a cumbersome process, so we wanted to reimplement it providing a friendly administration interface.
Explore the new site
Now you can access the revamped CC Legal Databasesite and enjoy the smooth experience. Browse resources that aim to help you understand the enforceability and precedents set by courts around the world concerning Creative Commons licenses, including legal scholarship discussing the CC licenses and public domain tools.
On listings, you can search specific content by keywords or filter by topics clicking on tags. See details by clicking on the case name or scholarship title.
You can also contribute relevant information to the database within the site, a project that the CC Legal team will be rolling out in the near future. Once active, you can submit a legal decision or article with a link and other basic information. Many fields are optional but the more you fill in the better.
Also, as mentioned before, we reimplemented the whole site to make the information management easier by the Staff. Although this is something not everybody can see, we hope the automation of tasks and a cleaner admin interface will help speed up the process of providing more information for the public.
What’s next?
There is always room for improvement. For this project, these are some points where we can still improve on a technology level:
Improve the search─Currently, the search feature is quite limited on the terms that can be queried, which means if users make a mistake, i.e. exchanging two letters, they probably will not find what they wanted. Additionally, the search can be improved by showing recommendations when nothing is found.
Make tables sortable by columns─Give more power to the user to explore and scan the resources. It would be nice to have features to provide more interactivity with data.
If you are interested in the process it took to reimplement the site, there is a series of posts on the Open Source blog that walks through it.
How can I contribute?
The CC Legal Database is an open-source project, so community contributions are welcome. You can find the code on a Github repositoryand report bugs or suggest new features there. Please read the contribution guidelines before doing so. We also have a Slack channel to discuss the specifics of the project, you can join #cc-dev-legal-database if you want, we will be waiting for your valuable feedback. Finally, please stay tuned for an announcement by the CC Legal team that will include a call for contributions.
First, I’d like to offer my sincere congratulations to you and to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. This has been such a difficult year for so many around the world, and in this time of extreme polarization it is encouraging to hear you both talk about bringing people together to meet our common challenges. For many years I was a Member of the European Parliament, and I know how incredibly important it is to build bridges and work collaboratively with people we don’t always agree with.
I’m writing today as the leader of Creative Commons, a global nonprofit organization focused in part on making valuable scientific research and educational resources freely and openly available to the public. We work with universities, companies, governments, and institutions around the world to develop solutions for providing unencumbered access to knowledge.
In your 2016 speech to the American Association for Cancer Research, you quoted an article written by our then-CEO, Ryan Merkley, about the unnecessary barriers to publicly funded research. You noted that “taxpayers fund $5 billion in cancer research every year, but once it’s published, nearly all of [it] sits behind walls.” You correctly suggested that better treatments might be developed more quickly if cancer researchers, as well as the general public, had access to the rich trove of publicly funded research and data that is locked up behind prohibitive paywalls.
The COVID-19 health crisis has underscored the urgent need for scientific research and data to be shared freely and openly with others. Several of the most significant funders of scientific research, including the National Institutes of Health, the Gates Foundation, and the Wellcome Trust have long-standing open access policies. But many others do not, and as a result, many of the diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics, medical equipment, and software solutions currently being developed in the fight against the pandemic will not reach and benefit as many people as quickly and effectively as they should.
Additionally, as you are very well aware, the pandemic has massively disrupted the lives of over a billion students around the world. For many, access to educational materials is a daily struggle even in normal times. Because of a myriad of barriers, such as the prohibitive cost of learning resources, or the legal maze of convoluted copyright rules and exceptions, many students are denied their fundamental human right to education.
This year’s shift to online learning has introduced many new complexities for both students and educators. While some educators can post their existing learning materials online for their students, for others, the move to online requires access to, and the legal rights to perpetually use and adapt materials developed by others. This has brought into focus the essential need for both broad access to Open Educational Resources (OER) and broad copyright limitations and exceptions (L&E) for educators and students to freely and legally use copyright works so all students everywhere can learn.
At Creative Commons, we believe that open access to knowledge is critical—especially during times of crisis. For nearly 20 years, we have collaborated closely with entities including the US government to make the world more equitable by overcoming obstacles to the sharing of knowledge. In these unprecedented times, our mission is more important than ever, and I look forward to working with you and your administration in developing solutions that unlock knowledge and make it possible for anyone, anywhere to access and build upon it.
The Czech CC Chapter is finally here! Our Chapter was founded by March 2020, as the first chapter meeting was held both offline and online by the core members of CC Czech Republic and CC supporters and enthusiasts in the vibrant city of Brno. The establishment of the Czech Chapter is an outcome of many previous years of interest and work of its founding members (since 2011) in the Creative Commons community, openness, and specific copyright issues.
The CC Czech Republic, supported by Chapter Lead and Representative to the CC Global NetworkLucie Smolka, will continue to develop the Czech environment of commons and other open areas. The Czech Chapter is working closely with the institutional CC Network member NGO Open Content. Board members of Open Content are Lucie Smolka as a CEO, Martin Loučka as a COO and Jiří Marek as a CMO. Members of Open Content are experienced lawyers from different “open” areas such as Open Science, Open Source or Open Educational Resources. Czech Chapter has recently submitted a statement as part of the consultation process led by the Czech Ministry of Culture on the implementation of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, and is also consulting the Implementation of Open Data Directive. We have also entered the strategic partnership with NGO Otevřená města (Open Cities). This organization deals with digitization of local governments and the Czech Chapter is bringing the necessary legal interoperability expertise. Recently, we have submitted a project proposal for the public research funding by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic with the project called Re-use System Management, that should bring the abstract re-use economy (so-called “circular economy in cyber-space”) closer to the everyday practice of local governments and NGOs. The goal for the upcoming months is to foster these projects and partnerships and to develop a Czech open community scene.
Join us!
We are looking forward to branching out further in the Czech Republic and encourage interested people to join us! You can find more information on the CC Czech Chapter website! Contact us directly at info@opencontent.cz, engage with us on Twitter or Facebook.
Generally speaking, 2020 hasn’t been a great year. That’s obvious. But we’re not here to focus on the awful things that have happened (and are still happening) this year. Instead, we’re here to tell you a good news story about 2020: a story about collaboration, innovation, and creativity. A story about the present and the future of open access to cultural heritage.
This year started with a major accomplishment for open GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) advocates. After years of collaborative efforts from members of the Creative Commons team, the CC Global Network, the Wikimedia Foundation, and more, the Smithsonian released over 2.8 million digital 2D and 3D images and nearly two centuries of data into the public domain using Creative Commons Zero (CC0). This new initiative, Smithsonian Open Access, followed previous releases across big and small institutions, as Effie Kapsalis (Smithsonian) outlined in the 2016 report that accompanied her advocacy efforts.
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"> If this was any other year, the Smithsonian’s announcement alone would’ve propelled us happily into 2021. It’s a huge, exciting win! But this isn’t just any other year…take a look at this timeline:
27 February: The Smithsonian announces Smithsonian Open Access
11 March: The World Health Organization declares the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic
3 April: Euronews reports that more than 50% of the world’s population is under a lockdown order
The rapid pace of change at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic was quite remarkable—and the challenges for GLAM institutions were immediate.
Open GLAM in 2020: challenges and opportunities
Early on in the pandemic, the open GLAM community quickly realized that this would have a significant impact on GLAM institutions, especially financially. In a May report, the International Council on Museums (ICOM) found that “nearly one-third of them [GLAM institutions] will reduce staff, and more than one-tenth may be forced to close permanently” due to forced closures and a reduction in ticket sales. Closures due to the pandemic have particularly affected institutions in African, Asian and the Arab countries. Many institutions across the world have since been forced to layoff large swaths of their staff and cut programs.
The GLAM community also recognized that the pandemic would disrupt millions of children and young adults’ education and bar access to cultural heritage, amplifying existing inequalities and inequities. ICOM acknowledged, “We are aware that this is not simply a matter of keeping our institutions alive but also of mobilising their efforts and capacities to support community resilience and an effective recovery.” Over time, it’s become clear that this global challenge will have ripple effects for years, if not decades, to come. In response, Douglas McCarthy (Europeana) and Dr. Andrea Wallace (University of Exeter) made the case for open access:
“Providing open access to digital collections transfers significant power from institutions to the public they exist to serve. As the Covid-19 pandemic progresses, it has never been more vital for museums to explore how they can make new connections with audiences and support creators, educators, scholars and innovators working through this difficult time.”
“Rose-Breasted Grosbeak” (1889) by Joseph Barthmolomew Kidd via the Smithsonian American Art Museum Collection (CC0).
In their report, ICOM found that digital communication activities “increased for at least 15 % of the museums, and in particular social media activities increased for more than half of the museums” surveyed. GLAMs that were already deeply committed to open access were able to respond quickly and creatively to the challenge presented by the pandemic. The Getty Museum, for example, launched the Getty Museum Challenge, a digital challenge to recreate public domain works with household items. The images sent from across the world were eventually compiled into a book entitled, Off the Walls: Inspired Re-Creations of Iconic Artworks, with all profits going to Artist Relief.
Of course, not everything that happened this year in open GLAM is a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many open access initiatives and projects were in-progress before any of us even knew what a “coronavirus” was. In fact, the following GLAM institutions adopted open access policies this year, effectively releasing millions of cultural artefacts to the public. These include Archives of Ontario, Petit Palais, Augustinermuseum, Museum für Neue Kunst, Museum Natur und Mensch, DAG Museums, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Anacostia Community Museum, and Wien Museum. However, the impact of this tragic and challenging moment on the movement can’t be understated: It has created a sense of urgency that has historically only been felt during human-made or natural disasters. While GLAM institutions have been implementing and benefiting from open access policies for over a decade, generating goodwill and recognition from the public and enhancing their missions and relevance for 21st-century audiences, the pandemic has shown how vital it is that institutions become “open.” This has set a new norm for GLAM.
The impact of this tragic and challenging moment on the movement can’t be understated: It has created a sense of urgency that has historically only been felt during human-made or natural disasters.
If there’s one thing we can count on as we continue to live and work in a state of uncertainty, it’s that more and more cultural institutions will choose to go “open.” CC’s Sarah Pearson expressed this idea during an Open GLAMwebinar in March, stating, “This will have ripple effects and increase people’s willingness to share more broadly, whether it is with CC licensing or not.”
There are, of course, more challenges ahead and questions to answer. For example, the majority of the GLAM workforce is still predominantly white, and issues of racial justice and equity are still hard to bring to the table. Colonialist practices extend to the digital realm, continuing to do harm to communities that have seen their heritage despoiled. That also includes Indigenous cultural heritage, as CC’s Brigitte Vézina and Alexis Muscat wrote in August, “Existing copyright law, steeped in Western concepts and values, does not adequately protect Indigenous traditional cultural expressions, nor does it sufficiently reflect or account for Indigenous cultural values.”
Open GLAM is not only about sharing cultural heritage by respecting copyright law, but also how to do it more responsibly, collaboratively, and equitably. At Creative Commons, we hope to help find solutions to these emerging and growing challenges through our Open GLAM work. Here’s a brief overview of what we’ve been working on:
CC GLAM Certificate—we’re currently in the process of launching the alpha and beta cohorts for the CC Certificate course exclusively for GLAM. Stay tuned for more information in 2021!
Declaration on Open Access for Cultural Heritage—we worked on this document throughout 2019 and 2020, including leading the public consultation process. Details here.
CC Global Network Open GLAM Platform—the CC Open GLAM Platform is a space to help coordinate efforts to connect and support open access to cultural heritage initiatives. Check out the 2020 winners for the CC Open GLAM Platform Activities Fund here!
Webinars—through Open GLAM, we hosted webinars on important topics like copyright, OpenGLAM, open access, etc. in partnership with other actors, like Europeana, the Museum Computer Network (summaries here, here, here, and here), and the UNESCO-Bangkok/Memory of the World Committee Asia Pacific (details here).
Translation sprints—through Open GLAM, we hosted translation sprints, one at the Creative Commons Global Summit (here) and one at the Europeana Conference (here).
Hack4OpenGLAM—at the 2020 Creative Commons Global Summit, Open GLAM hosted the “Hack4OpenGLAM” workshop for the first time, inviting people to get creative with open access to cultural heritage (full report here). Some highlights available here!
Is Sharing Always Caring?—we collaborated with the European Fashion Heritage Foundation and the Onassis Foundation on the 2020 symposium exploring issues regarding the tensions between digitizing fashion cultural heritage and remaining mindful and respectful of cultural rights and values. Read the summary here.
To support our open GLAM work, become a donor to Creative Commons. Together, we can unlock and share millions more cultural artefacts with the world—from 3D scans of spacecraft to 19th-century book illustrations!
During the CC Global Summit, we had our “CC Open GLAM Platform Meeting”, where we had the opportunity to present several of the activities that we are running with the Open GLAM Platform Activities Fund. We’re delighted to announce the five winners of the General Projects of the Open GLAM Platform Activities Fund.
The CC Open GLAM Platform is a space to help coordinate efforts to aggregate, advertise, connect, and support open access to cultural heritage initiatives and projects. This year, CC launched an Activities Fund to support Open GLAM related activities by Platform members. In my role as Facilitator of the Platform, I presented a budget plan that received input and feedback from the community. We had three main allocations for the money:
Open GLAM short stories from the Global South and/or underrepresented communities;
You can read some of the Open GLAM short stories as they are being published on the Open GLAM Medium publication. We will be working with Majd Al-shihabi to create the visualization of the “Open GLAM survey”.
In this blog post, we present the five winning projects in the general category. We also warmly thank all applicants for the quality of their proposals, and to the members of the selection committee: Nicole Ferraiolo, Director of Global Strategic Initiatives, Council on Library and Information Resources; Jorge Gemetto, member of Creative Commons Uruguay and co-director of the online cultural center “Ártica”; Karin Glasemann, Digital Coordinator at the Nationalmuseum Sweden and Chair of the Copyright Community at Europeana; and Satdeep Gill, Program Officer, GLAM and Underrepresented Knowledge, Wikimedia Foundation.
The AfroCine Project: Months of African Cinema
Sam Oyeyele is a long time volunteer of the Wikimedia community, where he has been involved with The AfroCine Project, a multi-country and multi-faceted project which aims to improve and expand digital knowledge and content on the historical and contemporary cinema, theatre, and arts sectors of several African countries, the Caribbean and the diaspora, on the Internet. The vision of this project is to bridge the huge content gap and improve on the systemic bias, in respect of the African continent, by getting real African stories and viewpoints into the mainstream. This is being achieved by making: articles, citations, images, videos, and data, about the historical and contemporary African cinema, theatre and arts, to be readily available and easily accessible on online, and in different languages, through Wikipedia and other sister projects. One of their main activities is the “Months of African Cinema” global Wikipedia contest, happening now between October-November. We’re supporting some of the expenses related to the organization of the “Months of African Cinema” contest.
Heritage GLAM
Rupika Sharma is currently serving as Director of the non for profit organization Open Heritage Foundation. Open Heritage Foundation is an incorporated non-profit thematic organization to support initiatives for bringing underrepresented knowledge on the Internet, and they are an affiliated Network member of Creative Commons Global Network since 2019.
Their project will be working with a GLAM institution in India to digitize and release Punjabi public domain works on Wikimedia Commons.
Some of the works that the Punjabi community has uploaded and corrected in Wikisource through different contests.
Some of the works that the Punjabi community has uploaded and corrected in Wikisource through different contests.
But they also received funding with their project “Spreading GLAM-Wiki resources in Brazil” will develop tutorials in Portuguese to ease the task of cultural institutions willing to share collections/contents on the internet but which lack a clear roadmap to do so. The need for these resources is key in the Brazilian context, as several institutions are under-resourced (they often have only one staff person) and cannot make an extra effort to bring collections/contents to the digital realm. This scenario is directly associated with the pervasive presence of collections/contents from wealthier countries.
You can see João’s recorded presentation of their project here:
Online Ugandan GLAM Directory
Eric Nelson Haumba is the Chapter Lead of CC Uganda. In this opportunity, he is working to make an online directory of GLAM institutions in Uganda. This information will be freely available online through a GLAM directory where interested persons globally can check-in and access fundamental facts and information about Ugandan GLAM institutions. This directory is a representative source of basic GLAM statistics and a robust tool providing institutional-level data and a nationwide comparison of GLAMs in Uganda. This will allow the CC chapter and other communities to design different activities to help these GLAM institutions embrace open access to cultural heritage.
Screenshot of the current status of the online directory being designed by Eric Haumba.
Enhancing Public Domain in Indonesia: Catalog and Re-Make Project
Hilman Fathoni and Fitriayu Penyalai are longtime members of CC Indonesia. Their project wants to show the value of the public domain in Indonesia. For that, they will be creating an open-access catalog of public domain works from Indonesia, and inviting a visual artist from Indonesia to create a remix using some of the public domain works currently available online. These activities will be presented in a webinar series, where the members of CC Indonesia will explain some of the core concepts of the public domain and how it works, the function of their open-access catalog, and invite the visual artist to talk about the remix of the public domain works resulting from this project.
We look forward to seeing project results soon, and we expect these projects to fuel more Open GLAM activities in 2021 and beyond.
You can also contribute relevant information to the database within the site, a project that the CC Legal team will be rolling out in the near future. Once active, you can submit a legal decision or article with a link and other basic information. Many fields are optional but the more you fill in the better. 
) into the public domain using CC0! 
Stay up-to-date on everything we’re doing in open GLAM by following 
