News

Does WIPO’s New Leadership Have the Vision to Shake Up Global Copyright Policy-Making?

April 16, 2020

New beginnings at WIPO On March 4, Daren Tang was nominated director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the United Nations agency dealing with intellectual property matters. Tang is currently the chief executive of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) and his six-year term as top WIPO official will start on October … Read More “Does WIPO’s New Leadership Have the Vision to Shake Up Global Copyright Policy-Making?”

Policy / advocacy / copyright reform

Open-Source Medical Hardware: What You Should Know and What You Can Do

April 15, 2020

You’ve heard the stories: engineers 3D printing face shields in their basements; do-it-yourself hobbyists sewing face masks; and fashion designers crafting personal protection gowns. Globally, people are trying to help fill the medical supply gap caused by the COVID-19 pandemic through open-source medical hardware. It’s a heartwarming display of global ingenuity, innovation, and collaboration. In this … Read More “Open-Source Medical Hardware: What You Should Know and What You Can Do”

Open access

Update to CC’s Policy on Legal Code Corrections

April 13, 2020

Creative Commons is changing its legal code correction policy for official translations of the Version 4.0 licenses and the CC0 public domain dedication. In order to maintain the integrity of our firm commitment to honor official translations as legal equivalents of the original English 4.0 version and the original English CC0 1.0, CC will correct … Read More “Update to CC’s Policy on Legal Code Corrections”

Legal tools / licenses

Open COVID Pledge: Removing Obstacles to Sharing IP in the Fight Against COVID-19

April 7, 2020

Creative Commons has joined forces with other legal experts and leading scientists to offer a simple way for universities, companies, and other holders of intellectual property rights to support the development of medicines, test kits, vaccines, and other scientific discoveries related to COVID-19 for the duration of the pandemic. The Open COVID Pledge grants the … Read More “Open COVID Pledge: Removing Obstacles to Sharing IP in the Fight Against COVID-19”

About CC

Bassel Khartabil Fellowship Awarded to Tarek Loubani—Using Open Access to Combat COVID-19

April 2, 2020

We are thrilled to announce today that Dr. Tarek Loubani has been awarded the 2020 Bassel Khartabil Fellowship. Loubani is the medical director of Glia, a project focused on using Open Access manufacturing and distribution in order to provide lower costs and vastly increase the accessibility of urgently needed medical supplies and gear. The Fellowship … Read More “Bassel Khartabil Fellowship Awarded to Tarek Loubani—Using Open Access to Combat COVID-19”

Open access

Education in Times of Crisis and Beyond: Maximizing Copyright Flexibilities

March 31, 2020

The global health crisis is crystalizing the need for policies that support universal access to learning resources The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on over a billion learners’ lives—half of the world’s student population have seen their schools or universities close to slow the spread of the virus. As a result, many educational institutions are … Read More “Education in Times of Crisis and Beyond: Maximizing Copyright Flexibilities”

Education / OER

Dr. Lucie Guibault on What Scientists Should Know About Open Access

March 27, 2020

In response to the global health emergency caused by COVID-19, we’ve seen an array of organizations, publications, and governments make COVID-19 related research open access. For example, the U.S. National Library of Medicine recently released the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19)—a machine-readable coronavirus literature collection with over 29,000 articles available for text and data mining … Read More “Dr. Lucie Guibault on What Scientists Should Know About Open Access”

Open access

Collaborate With Us as a Google Summer of Code or Outreachy Participant

March 23, 2020

We are proud to announce that Creative Commons (CC) will once again be participating as a mentoring organization for Google Summer of Code (GSoC) and Outreachy. GSoC and Outreachy are both programs focused on introducing open-source software development to a wider audience. They provide stipends to work on a 3-month project for the open source … Read More “Collaborate With Us as a Google Summer of Code or Outreachy Participant”

Technology

Now Is the Time for Open Access Policies—Here’s Why

March 19, 2020

Over the weekend, news emerged that upset even the most ardent skeptics of open access. Under the headline, “Trump vs Berlin” the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag reported that President Trump offered $1 billion USD to the German biopharmaceutical company CureVac to secure their COVID-19 vaccine “only for the United States.” In response, Jens Spahn, the … Read More “Now Is the Time for Open Access Policies—Here’s Why”

Policy / advocacy / copyright reform

The Unicode Standard Now Includes CC License Symbols

March 18, 2020

Last week, the Unicode Consortium released the latest version of the Unicode Standard—the universal character coding system used in computer processing (which includes the international emoji portfolio 😎). We’re thrilled to announce that Creative Commons (CC) license symbols were included in this new release. The latest Unicode Standard adds 5,930 characters, including 4 new scripts, … Read More “The Unicode Standard Now Includes CC License Symbols”

About CC