I had the privilege of participating in the second Institute for Open Leadership (IOL), held in Cape Town and hosted by Creative Commons and the Open Policy Network. The institute was attended by people from various places around the world, all with incredible projects. For the last nine years I’ve been active in the area of documentation and museum collections management. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Museology and a Master’s in Information Science. Currently I work as collection manager of Museu da Imigração de São Paulo (Immigration Museum of São Paulo). I also teach Museology at the ETEC Parque da Juventude, where I instruct classes on museums and databases.

At the Institute for Open Leadership, I came in contact with a world little known by me: the world of initiatives supporting open knowledge, open science, open education, and much more. Moreover, as a GLAM professional (“GLAM” is an acronym for “galleries, libraries, archives, and museums”), I had the opportunity to get varied feedback on my open policy proposal I had prepared for the institute. The IOL meeting was very important for me, and in a sense was a watershed moment for the project I am leading at the Immigration Museum.

Lithuanian necklace selected to be part of the exhibition, by Conrado Secassi. CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Initially, my project was focused on the following problems: what can we explore by sharing the contents of a large, rich cultural heritage collection if we do not have much information about the underlying author’s rights, rights of publicity, or personality rights? How do we begin to transform the Museu da Imigração into an institution interested in opening its collections despite these limitations?

Many professionals working in GLAM institutions constantly face problems related to intellectual property and authors’ rights in the content of their collections. We are thus led to focus on restriction rather than sharing, which deserves attention, but for which there is no simple, prompt solution. By directly addressing these questions within the scope of my project, I hoped to find advice and best practices from other related GLAM professionals. I needed to get a better answer for how to share other than “it cannot be done.”

As I met IOL participants and learned about their projects, I heard many interesting stories about how universities and other research institutions were able to establish open policies through short, medium, and long-term initiatives. I also learned that the design and implementation of successful open licensing policies will (and should) work through different stages and levels. Finally, I learned it’s crucial to start small with my project, and to work with materials that will bring benefits for the people directly involved. And this, I can now say, was the real turning point for the Museu da Imigração’s project.

Ryukyu hat selected to be part of the exhibition, by Letícia Sá. CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Instead of focusing on the thicket of IP concerns with some of the part of our collection, I revised my project to instead explore those materials that could be used and shared in a more open way. In other words, the project was redesigned to start with items from the collection which were already free from any author’s rights restrictions, and which could, for instance, be photographed by the Museu da Imigração’s current team. The museum could— as the author of photos, texts, images, and audiovisual materials about the collection—make those objects available on the web through blogs, social media, and other platforms. At the same time, the museum could establish how this content could be re-used by anybody  through the adoption of Creative Commons licenses.

Upon my return to Brazil, my first major task was to educate the Museu da Imigração’s technical teams on Creative Commons, and to get buy-in with them on what should be done to adopt an open policy at our museum. My colleagues immediately agreed that we should pursue the project, and we decided that our pilot initiative would start with all of the content produced for a temporary exhibit called O Caminho das Coisas (The Way of Things).

The main reason for choosing this particular exhibition as our pilot project was the possibility of involving several professionals in the development of content and materials to be made available online under open licenses. Everybody could see—in a relatively short period of time—the impact of their work to increase the visibility of the collections and of materials produced by the teams. Another important motivation was the fact that this exhibit was the result of a joint research effort between the Museu da Imigração, migrant communities and their descendants, partner institutions, and former donors in order to obtain additional historical information about the institution’s collections.

We agreed to use Creative Commons licenses because the licenses are a clear, objective way of telling the public what can be done with the museum’s content we make available on the web. Moreover, by using Creative Commons licenses, the museum joins the great movement promoted by CC toward sharing, remix, and reuse of knowledge on a global scale.

Based on this decision, the images of objects selected for the exhibition were produced by the team, along with the exhibit’s accompanying educational materials. We also decided that the museum’s blog and its profile on Medium should be licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 from that moment on.

The platforms used for publicizing the images were Flickr (which is heavily used in Brazil by both professional and amateur photographers and institutions), Pinterest (not very popular in Brazil, although it has faithful followers), and Wikimedia Commons. As to the latter, we were happy for the valuable assistance from Rodrigo Padula, coordinator of the Brazilian Wikipedia Group on Education and Research, who helped us in loading the images and educational materials into Wikimedia Commons.

General overview of the exhibition, by Juliana Monteiro. CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

O Caminho das Coisas opened on May 21 with a beautiful design meant to stir the public into reflecting on the historical path followed by the items through the lives of their owners until they reached the museum. In addition, QR codes were posted at various locations, inviting the public to view the images in the platforms I mentioned above. We also hoped viewers would share the images and tag the museum on social media.

Our pilot project was launched nearly two months ago, and we have already gained some interesting insights. The first is that the experience has been indeed very exciting and successful. In our team’s view, the 40+ images of key items in our collection that we posted to Flickr, Pinterest, and Wikimedia Commons have opened numerous possibilities for the material’s reuse. In addition, it represents a positive step forward in making the museum’s collections more widely available to different audiences. We are also planning new initiatives by reviewing and analyzing the data and research we’ve gleaned from this pilot.

Other aspects of the exhibition have shown our team that we still have a long, productive way ahead. We identified a major challenge for GLAM institutions in Brazil is to have the capacity and knowledge to be able to consider the “openness” of all collections as a normal, everyday activity. Right now only a few of our institutions are promoting open initiatives, and the public does not always understand what can be created with these type of materials. Also, the lack of tools to encourage people to do this may be a contributing factor to this scenario. Sure, we manage to secure likes on Facebook and shares on social media, but we still don’t know if or how the images are being reused in other contexts. Finally, there is a lack of knowledge about Creative Commons licenses—both on the part of the public and by institutions as well.

With this in mind, we know it is not enough simply to upload images onto the web – we need to tell people about them, contextualize them, and get feedback and cooperation from various audiences. Our use of social media in this experience showed us that we must adapt our way of communicating about open content in order to reach new and diverse groups of people. We have already learned, for instance, that it is not worth showing photos of details of objects on Wikimedia Commons, as these types of images are not useful for illustrating Wikipedia articles. However, they can be explored on Pinterest, where the public is more accustomed to searching for these kinds of specific detailed images.

We know that Flickr is a useful tool for photographers—even those interested in licensing photos for commercial use. At the same time, we might focus on using alternative popular platforms to talk about the project and invite the public to view, enjoy, and comment on our images. Of course, apps and sites such as Instagram and Facebook are quite popular in Brazil.

We are learning by trial and error. We want to test our ideas and see which ones will mature. My IoL grant made it possible for us to include the proposal of opening our collections as something the museum should address more systematically in our internal policies and public mission. We believe that through these steps we will be positively promoting a more open cultural heritage that is increasingly accessible to all.

The post Creative Commons and Museu da Imigração: notes on a Brazilian experience appeared first on Creative Commons.

Durante o Institute for Open Leadership, pude entrar em contato com um mundo até então pouco conhecido por mim: o mundo de iniciativas pró-conhecimento aberto, ciência aberta, educação aberta e muito mais. Além disso, enquanto profissional da área GLAM (“GLAM” é um acrônimo, em inglês, para “galleries, libraries, archives, and museums”, ou “galerias, bibliotecas, arquivos e museus”) tive a chance de receber diferentes retornos a respeito da proposta que apresentei para o instituto. Posso dizer, assim, que o IOL representou um momento importante e, de certa forma, um divisor de águas para o projeto que estou liderando na instituição onde atuo.

colar Lituano selecionado para fazer parte da exposição, por, by Conrado Secassi. CC BY-SA 4.0. Fonte: Wikimedia Commons.

Inicialmente, o projeto era focado nos seguintes problemas: o que podemos explorar em uma coleção grande e rica por meio de compartilhamento de conteúdos, se nós não tivermos informações sobre os direitos de autor incidentes, bem como os direitos de reprodução ou de personalidade? Como podemos transformar o Museu da Imigração em uma instituição interessada em abrir suas coleções apesar das limitações envolvidas?

Muitos profissionais que trabalham em instituições GLAM constantemente enfrentam problemas relacionados à propriedade intelectual e direitos de autor relacionados às suas coleções. Por essa razão, é muito comum que sejamos imediatamente direcionados a focar nas restrições muito mais do que nas possibilidades de compartilhamento – que, claro, demandam atenção, mas que não possuem uma solução rápida ou imediata. Ao colocar tais questões no escopo do meu projeto, eu esperava encontrar respostas e boas práticas de outros profissionais GLAM. Eu necessitava encontrar uma resposta melhor à questão sobre como compartilhar melhor do que “isso não pode ser feito”.

Ao conhecer os outros projetos e os participantes do IOL, pude ouvir muitas histórias interessantes sobre como universidades e outras instituições de pesquisa conseguiram estabelecer políticas abertas mediante algumas ações de curto, médio e longo prazos – às vezes, algumas ações eram muito básicas, porém estrategicamente importantes. Pude aprender também que processos de criação e aplicação de políticas abertas podem (e devem) ter diferentes etapas e níveis. Finalmente, aprendi que seria crucial começar aos poucos o meu projeto e com aquilo que iria trazer benefícios diretos para as pessoas diretamente envolvidas. E aqui posso dizer que reside o principal turning point para o projeto do Museu da Imigração.

chapéu de Ryukyu selecionado para fazer parte da exposição, por Letícia Sá. CC BY-SA 4.0. Fonte: Wikimedia Commons.

Ao invés de focar nas questões de propriedade intelectual mais difíceis relacionadas à parte da nossa coleção, revisei meu projeto para que ele pudesse, ao contrário, explorar aqueles materiais que poderiam ser usados e compartilhados de uma forma mais aberta. Em outras palavras, o projeto foi redesenhado para começar com itens da coleção que eram livres de quaisquer restrições de direitos de autor, e que poderia, por exemplo, ser fotografados pela equipe atual do Museu da Imigração. Desta forma, o museu poderia – enquanto autor de fotos, textos, imagens e materiais audiovisuais sobre a coleção – tornar tais objetos disponíveis na web por meio de blogs, redes sociais e outras plataformas. Ao mesmo tempo, o museu poderia estabelecer como este conteúdo poder ser reusado por qualquer pessoa ao adotar as licenças Creative Commons.

Já de volta ao Brasil, a primeira grande tarefa realizada por mim foi conversar com as diferentes equipes técnicas do Museu da Imigração a respeito do que é o Creative Commons e convencê-las sobre o que poderia ser feito para começarmos uma política aberta em nossa instituição. Meus colegas imediatamente concordaram de que deveríamos ir adiante com o projeto, e decidimos que nossa iniciativa piloto começaria com todo o conteúdo produzido para a exposição temporária O Caminho das Coisas.

O principal motivo para escolher esta exposição particular como nosso projeto piloto foi a possibilidade de envolvimento direto de vários profissionais no desenvolvimento de conteúdos e materiais para disponibilização online com licença aberta. Assim, todos teriam a chance de ver – em um período relativamente curto de tempo – o impacto de seu trabalho contribuindo para o aumento da visibilidade do acervo e de outros materiais produzidos pelas próprias equipes. Outro motivo importante também foi que essa exposição era o resultado de um processo colaborativo de pesquisa do Museu da Imigração com comunidades de migrantes e descendentes, instituições parceiras e antigos doadores, cujo alvo é levantar mais informações sobre o acervo da instituição.

Nós concordamos em usar as licenças Creative Commons porque elas constituem um jeito claro e objetivo de comunicar ao público o que pode ser feito com o conteúdo produzido pelo museu e que disponibilizamos na web. Além disso, ao usar as licenças Creative Commons, o museu participa de um grande movimento promovido pelo CC relacionado ao compartilhamento, remix e reuso do conhecimento em uma escala global.

A partir da decisão, imagens das peças selecionadas para a exposição foram produzidas e selecionadas pela própria equipe, assim como os materiais educativos relacionados. Também decidimos que o blog do museu e o seu perfil no Medium  deveriam ser usar a licença CC BY-SA 4.0 a partir daquele momento em diante.

As plataformas utilizadas para divulgar as imagens foram o Flickr (que é bastante usado no Brasil por fotógrafos profissionais ou amadores, bem como por instituições), Pinterest (não muito popular no Brasil, mas com seguidores fiéis), e Wikimedia Commons. Sobre o última, vale destacar a grande colaboração de Rodrigo Padula, coordenador do Grupo Wikimedia Brasileiro de Educação e Pesquisa, que nos ajudou no carregamento de imagens e materiais educativos no Wikimedia Commons.

visão geral da exposição, por Juliana Monteiro. CC BY-SA 4.0. Fonte: Wikimedia Commons.

O Caminho das Coisas inaugurou dia 21 de maio, com uma expografia muito bonita e feita para promover uma reflexão junto ao público sobre os caminhos que os objetos percorrem ao longo da vida de seus antigos proprietários até chegarem ao museu. Além disso, em vários pontos da exposição foram colocados QR codes convidando o público a checar as imagens existentes nas plataformas citadas anteriormente. Nós também tínhamos a expectativa que os visitantes poderiam compartilhar as imagens e taggear o museu nas redes sociais.

Nosso projeto piloto foi lançado há quase dois meses, e nós já podemos dizer que ganhamos alguns insights interessantes. O primeiro é que a experiência tem sido, sim, muito instigante e exitosa. Na perspectiva da nossa equipe, as cerca de 40+ imagens postadas no Flickr, Pinterest e Wikimedia Commons abriram inúmeras possibilidades de reuso do material. Além disso, o projeto representa um passo rumo à disponibilização cada vez maior das coleções do museu para diferentes públicos. Nós também estamos planejando novas iniciativas e analisando os dados que conseguimos adquirir a partir deste piloto.

Outros aspectos da exposição têm mostrado para nossa equipe que ainda temos um longo e produtivo caminho pela frente. Identificamos que um desafio significativo para as instituições GLAM no Brasil é a capacidade e conhecimento para considerar a “abertura” de todas as coleções como uma atividade normal, rotineira. Apenas algumas de nossas instituições promovem iniciativas abertas e o público nem sempre compreende o que pode ser criado a partir ou com os materiais. Do mesmo modo, a falta de ferramentas que encorajem as pessoas a fazer isso pode ser um fator que contribui com tal cenário. Claramente, nós queremos que as pessoas deem likes no Facebook e compartilhem os conteúdos nas redes sociais, mas ainda não sabemos se ou como as imagens estão sendo reutilizadas em outros contextos. Por último, vale dizer que ainda há uma falta de conhecimento geral a respeito das licenças Creative Commons – tanto por parte do público quanto por parte das instituições.

Com isso em mente, sabemos que não é suficiente simplesmente subir imagens na web – nós precisamos falar às pessoas sobre elas, contextualizá-las e conseguir retornos de diferentes públicos. Nosso uso das redes sociais nesta experiência nos mostrou que precisamos adaptar nossa forma de falar sobre conteúdo aberto de forma a atingir novos e diferentes grupos. Nós já aprendemos, por exemplo, que não é válido mostrar fotos de detalhes de objetos no Wikimedia Commons, já que este tipo de imagem não colaboraria na alimentação de artigos da Wikipédia. Porém, elas podem ser exploradas no Pinterest, pois o público ali está mais acostumado a pesquisar por esses tipos específicos de imagens em detalhe.

Sabemos também que o Flickr é uma ferramenta muito útil para fotógrafos – inclusive aqueles interessados em licenciar suas imagens para uso comercial. Ao mesmo tempo, podemos direcionar nosso trabalho para usar outras plataformas alternativas que falem sobre o projeto e convidem o público a visualizar, curtir e comentar nossas imagens. E do mesmo modo, aplicativos e sites como Instagram e Facebooks são muito populares no Brasil e podem ser explorados nas próximas experiências.

Estamos aprendendo por tentativa e erro. Queremos testar nossas ideias e verificar quais delas vão amadurecer. Minha bolsa para participar do IoL tornou possível para nós incluir a proposta de abrir nossas coleções como algo que o museu deveria incorporar de forma mais sistemática em nossas políticas internas e missão pública. Acreditamos que por meio destes passos nós conseguiremos promover um patrimônio cultural cada vez mais aberto e acessível para todos.

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Prince performing in Brussels during the Hit N Run Tour in 1986, CC-by-2.0

Today at Copyright On!, Britton Payne discussed the unique copyright situation surrounding Prince’s estate. This potentially long and bitter battle could shape the future of music copyright to come. Prince fought a number of legendary copyright battles, which makes this current fight over the ownership of his works particularly interesting.
As Payne writes, “Prince was a tireless advocate of his rights as an artist, using copyright law to control and protect his artistic footprint, even when it seemed like it would cost him more than it would gain. For different reasons, it appears that more contentious exploration of copyright law will continue to be part of his legacy.”

The tl;dr of Payne’s post:
I Feel for You (I think I want my copyright back): The termination of transfer law

After 35 years, artists can reclaim copyright from the copyright holder, which essentially gives them another “bite at the apple” to control their own work. While this law was created to protect artists in 1978 (coincidentally the year Prince’s first album was released), there has been little guidance on the execution of this law.

Prince reworked his contract with Warner Brothers in 2014 to regain access to his early back catalog, which resets the clock on this law. However, every year more of Prince’s back catalog will be up for termination of transfer law, which means that his estate can gain ownership of an increasing number of works, and by extension, control the money that continues to pour in from his most popular titles.

How come U don’t call (a lawyer) anymore: Prince didn’t leave a will
Prince’s will has yet to be found, which means that several conflicting laws surrounding his unpublished back catalog are coming into effect. Because he also left no living heirs, his estate and copyright is now in the hands of his sister, Tyka Nelson, and his five recognized half siblings. (More than 700 people have claimed to be Prince’s half-siblings, but none are recognized by the courts.)

However, siblings cannot execute termination of transfer unless they are the “administrator” of the estate. The title of “administrator” is currently in the hands of a “court appointed ‘special administrator’” called the Bremer Trust. In six months, a more permanent administrator will be found (possibly Tyka, Prince’s sister.)

My name is Prince, but also Joey Coco, Alexander Nevermind, and Jamie Starr
Prince collaborated with many artists and also wrote music under a series of pseudonyms including Alexander Nevermind, Joey Coco, and Jamie Starr. These collaborations as well as his “works made for hire” are covered by different copyright statutes than his solo composed music. There are several issues complicating these works:

• Many of his co-authors are deceased
• Pseudonymous works have a longer copyright statute than works written under Prince’s own name
• Prince’s “works made for hire” are covered by different copyright law than his other work

In short, Prince wrote thousands of songs, many of them unpublished, jointly published, written for other artists, or written for hire, and hundreds of them are potentially affected by different copyright laws.

The Beautiful One(s): The PRINCE act and post mortem rights of publicity
A new act in Minnesota may protect Prince’s likeness for the next 50 years. This act, called “Personal Rights in Names Can Endure”(PRINCE) will keep Prince’s likeness in the hands of his estate. This precedent will be the first to protect deceased celebrities to limit commercial rights to his likeness, so be sure to hang on to your vintage Purple Rain t-shirt. (It’s worth noting that Prince never endorsed merchandising in his lifetime, so most of the apparel floating around the Web is bootleg.)

Tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 2086
In 2086, most of Prince’s works will enter the public domain. Copyright law has been progressively expanded to protect the rights of artists, so any changes to the law will likely benefit his heirs.

Prince’s music in the public domain seems like a long way off, but imagine the next generation discovering this video, and it all seems pretty worth it.

Read more at Copyright On!

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On May 22nd, more than four years after his detention and six months after his disappearance, Bassel Khartabil (Arabic: باسل خرطبيل‎) will turn 35 years old. Bassel’s imprisonment by the Assad regime is a brutal human rights violation and the continued lack of answers about his fate is a hindrance to the fight for free information in the Middle East and beyond. While Creative Commons has been actively involved in the Free Bassel Campaign since the beginning, Bassel’s rumored death sentence makes today’s call to action particularly pressing.

As Lawrence Lessig wrote in 2012, “We distract ourselves with a million other things, but distraction doesn’t change reality: thousands have died; thousands more are being held; tyranny still lives.”

Bassel Khartabil is a Palestinian-Syrian Free Software and Free Culture activist and project lead for Creative Commons Syria. Bassel’s work on Mozilla Firefox, Wikipedia, Fabricatorz, and other open culture projects with his research company Aiki Labs has been credited by the European Parliament with “opening up the Internet in Syria and vastly extending online access and knowledge to the Syrian people.” Shortly after his detention, Bassel was named one of the top 100 global thinkers by Foreign Policy for “insisting, against all odds, on a peaceful Syrian revolution.”

This weekend, we’re joining with his friends around the world to continue to demand his immediate return to life as a free global citizen.

Take action at the Free Bassel campaign website.

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Last week Creative Commons hosted the second Institute for Open Leadership. The Institute is a training and peer-to-peer learning opportunity that brings together up-and-coming leaders to develop and implement an open licensing policy in their institution, province or nation. We were thrilled to welcome a diverse group of fellows from 14 countries to Cape Town, South Africa.

• Jane-Frances Agbu – National Open University of Nigeria – Nigeria
• Rim Azib – British Council, Tunis – Tunisia
• Steve Cairns – Greenpeace International – Netherlands
• Amanda Coolidge – BCcampus – Canada
• Daniel DeMarte – Tidewater Community College – United States
• Paula Eskett – CORE Education – New Zealand
• Mostafa Azad Kamal – Bangladesh Open University – Bangladesh
  Roshan Kumar Karn – Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital – Nepal
• Vincent Kizza – Open Learning Exchange Uganda – Uganda
• Fiona MacAllister – University of the Witwatersrand – South Africa
• Katja Mayer – University of Vienna – Austria
• Caroline Mbogo – The World Agroforestry Centre – Kenya
• Niall McNulty – Cambridge University Press – South Africa
• Juliana Monteiro – Museu da Imigração do Estado de São Paulo – Brazil
• Alessandro Sarretta – Institute of Marine Sciences – Italy

In addition to the fellows, we invited seven mentors with open policy expertise from various open sectors. We even brought back two IOL #1 fellows (Klaudia Grabowska and David Ernst) to be mentors at this year’s Institute.

Prior to arriving in Cape Town, all of the fellows proposed an open policy project, which they then developed with their mentors and other fellows during the week. A natural focus for the week was understanding open licensing and the potential for open policies to expand public access to knowledge, data, culture, and research around the world. But licensing is not the only component to a successful open policy adoption. Much of the week involved hearing how openness is perceived within different sectors and institutions, and coming up with strategies and tactics for addressing the important social, cultural, and technological challenges to open policy adoption.

 IOL2 session by Kelsey, CC BY

In addition to learning and working with the mentors and other fellows, there were several interesting speakers that came to talk with the group, including Adam Haupt and Caroline Ncube from the University of Cape Town, Mark Horner from Siyavula, Ralph Borland with Africa Robots, and Barbara Chow, TJ Bliss, and Dana Schmidt from the Hewlett Foundation.  

Over the coming months, the Institute fellows will share regular updates here about their projects, including the progress they are making in implementing open licensing policies within their institutions and governments.

Thank you to Paul Stacey and Kelsey Wiens—who helped facilitate the week-long workshop—and to Kelsey in particular, who helped arrange all the logistics for the meeting in Cape Town. We also appreciate the assistance from the Open Policy Network and the ongoing support from the William and Flora Hewlett and the Open Society Foundations in making the Institute for Open Leadership possible.

IOL2 fellows and mentors by Kelsey, CC BY

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Creative Commons (CC) believes publicly funded education, research and data resources should be shared in the global commons. The public should have access to what it paid for, and should not be required to pay twice (or more) to access, use, and remix publicly funded resources.

This is why we are pleased to announce that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has adopted a department-wide Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license requirement on intellectual property developed under a competitive Federal award process.

DOL’s new open licensing policy may be viewed in the federal register (PDF) and on regulations.gov

• 6. Revise § 2900.13 to read as follows:
  • §2900.13 Intangible property.
    • In addition to the guidance set forth in 2 CFR 200.315(d)*, the Department of Labor requires intellectual property developed under a competitive Federal award process to be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. This license allows subsequent users to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt the copyrighted work and requires such users to attribute the work in the manner specified by the recipient.

While the total dollar amount of competitive DOL Federal grants affected by this new open licensing policy is not yet known, Lindsey Tepe at New America estimates the rule change will impact somewhere between $300 and $400 million annually.

The adoption of Creative Commons licensing clarifies to the public how they may access, use, and adapt publicly funded resources. There are multiple benefits of DOL requiring a CC BY license on publicly funded resources:

• Government increases the impact, reach and scalability of its grants.
• Government creates conditions for maximum potential value created from of all resources it funds, more efficiency, and better stewardship of public funds.
• Public has access to the education resources it funded.
• Innovative and entrepreneurial uses of openly licensed materials are enabled.
• Resources are available for reuse and value-add by anyone, including individual citizens, educators, scientists, public sector employees, and entrepreneurs.

This major open licensing policy development codifies DOL’s longtime leadership at the program level where the department required CC BY licenses on multiple grants before making this a department-wide open licensing policy. Examples include:

• Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grant program
  • CC and its partners have been supporting DOL and its TAACCCT grantees for the last four years and will continue to do so for the next two. TAACCCT grantees are already sharing CC BY licensed education materials in the public Skills Commons OER repository.
• Career Pathways Innovation Fund Grants Program
• H-1B Ready to Work Partnership grant program

DOL has already begun to integrate open licensing into its existing professional development SMART training series. The CC BY license requirement is referenced in the following modules:

• Capital Assets, Equipment, Intellectual Property, and Supplies
• Procurement under the New Requirements
• Uniform Guidance: Administrative Requirements
• Uniform Guidance: Cost Principles

These resources signal that the DOL is off to a great start. Creative Commons looks forward to supporting DOL with its Open Licensing Policy Toolkit and CC certificate (to be developed) for government staff.

Creative Commons and dozens of other organizations urged the U.S. Department of Education to adopt a similar open licensing policy. We hope DOL’s policy will be a useful guide as the Department of Education as it considers its proposed Open Licensing Requirement for Direct Grant Programs.

We applaud the U.S. Department of Labor for leading the way.  Well done!

The post U.S. Department of Labor adopts CC BY licensing policy department-wide appeared first on Creative Commons.

The second annual Netlabel Day celebrating free music under Creative Commons licenses will take place on 14 July, 2016. The call for digital record labels is now open and applications will be accepted through 29 February.

First organized by the Chilean label M.I.S.T. Records in March 2015, the 2015 edition featured 80 labels from around the world and released more than 120 digital albums under CC licenses.

In addition to Creative Commons, this year’s sponsors include the Internet Archive and Free Music Archive.

Organizers will host local gigs and record label expos in Argentina, Canada and Chile.

“The goal this year is to discuss, debate, promote, and explore the state of musical management in the participant countries”, says Manuel Silva, M.I.S.T. label head and creator.

To apply, email contact.netlabelday@gmail.com. Visit http://netlabelday.blogspot.com for more info.

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We’re taking part in Copyright Week, a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy. Every day this week, various groups are taking on different elements of the law, and addressing what’s at stake, and what we need to do to make sure that copyright promotes creativity and innovation.

Every year we breathe a collective sigh of disappointment for millions of pieces of creative content that will not enter the public domain because of incredibly long copyright terms. We all know that creativity and knowledge owes something to what came before it—every creator builds on the ideas of their predecessors. Copyright terms that last decades past the death of the author will undermine the potential of the commons and needlessly limit the potential for new creativity.

And in the last few years, we’ve seen additional threats to the commons from prospective trade agreements such as the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership. If the TPP comes into effect, it would force member nations to set their term of copyright protection to life of the authors plus 70 years (if they do not already have that term), which increases the term an additional 20 years past the baseline required by existing international agreements. This means that works still under copyright in Brunei, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Vietnam will be automatically granted another 20 years of protection before they enter the public domain. We’re in agreement with leading economists that there is no logical reason to increase the term of copyright: an extension would create a tiny private benefit at a great cost to the public. It is estimated that the copyright term extension that would be required if the TPP is enacted would cost the public hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

At the same time, we celebrate the amazing works that are finally a part of our shared public domain. In addition to works that are now in the public domain because their copyright has expired, we’ve seen several interesting things happen this last year that is helping authors to share their works in the public domain right now. This is because major online content creation and sharing platforms like Flickr and Medium have added options to share works in the public domain using the CC0 Public Domain Dedication and the Public Domain Mark. What is CC0? It’s a tool that allows anyone to waive their copyright and place a work directly into the global public domain—prior to the expiration of copyright. What is the Public Domain Mark? It’s a digital stamp that anyone can apply to a work that’s already in the worldwide public domain—such as very old works whose copyright has clearly expired.

First stage of Falcon 9 rocket by SpaceX, CC0

What does the public get when authors share content in the public domain? We get to access and use an incredible body of content, including photos from SpaceX, NASA, and millions of others creators.

In the 2015 State of the Commons report, we noted a huge increase in the number of works dedicated to the public domain using the CC0 Public Domain Dedication and out-of-copyright works marked with the Public Domain Mark. According to the data, the total number of public domain works using these tools in 2014 was about 17.5 million. That number jumped to nearly 35 million in 2015. This means that the size of the CC-marked public domain nearly doubled over the last year. This is, in part, due to the tools being more widely and adopted by platforms like Europeana and Flickr. Of course, the public domain is not limited to content marked with CC’s public domain tools, but providing clear information about the public domain status of works alerts subsequent creators they can use those works without any restriction.

Even though copyright lasts far too long, the public domain is not lost. By fighting  for more reasonable copyright policy, and continuing to develop and steward legal tools that empower sharing in the public domain, we can help regain the public domain for all of us.

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Open Education Week 2016: Call for Participation, by: Open Education Consortium, CC BY 4.0

The Open Education Week planning committee invites your contributions to and participation in the 2016 Open Education Week (#openeducationwk), featuring online and in-person events around the world. There are many ways to participate – including but not limited to:

• host an event
• help someone find and reuse open education resources (OER)
• run a webinar
• commit to openly license your educational resources
• submit a video
• make a commitment to advance OER
• use the week to highlight the benefits of open education in your institution
  

Open Education Week is a celebration of the global Open Education movement. The purpose of the week is to raise awareness about the movement and its impact on teaching and learning worldwide, and there is always a need for the Creative Commons (CC) community to highlight how CC licensing makes OER “open.” Moreover, the CC community continues to innovate in open education and this is an opportunity to share your amazing work with the world. Participation in all events and use of all resources is free and open to the public.

Please submit your ideas on how you will contribute to Open Education Week by 12 February, 2016. You are welcome to submit multiple resources or events. Please fill out one form for each contribution.

Submitting your event / resources through this form will show the strength of commitment to openness around the world – all languages and time zones are most welcome!

Your event will be featured in the Open Education Week schedule, on the world map of events, and will be promoted through Open Education Week social media channels. You’ll also receive the official Open Education Week badge to display on your webpage or event promotional materials.

Kudos to our friends at the Open Education Consortium for organizing Open Education Week 2016!

The post Open Education Week: 7-11 March, 2016: Call for Participation appeared first on Creative Commons.

Cheers to an incredible 2015. With your support, creators around the world have now shared over 1.1 billion, including NASA’s iconic images, educational materials in every subject, scientific research, government open data, 3D models, and more. Thank you!

And as we head into 2016 and beyond, there is much more to do. We’re thrilled to have you among our community as we continue to advocate for the widespread adoption of CC licenses, open policy, and the growth of the commons. And what’s more, we’ll be working hard to build an even more vibrant, usable, and collaborative commons. We look forward to sharing all our big wins with you.

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