Creative Commons

We are extending the deadline for submissions to the 25th anniversary zine to August 15! Send us your remixes, your poems, your photography, links to your songs. We want to highlight the messy, creative, playful, political live experiences of our community! https://buff.ly/ZzzMZnJ

Thank you to Gail Simpson, PhD and Arlen Feldman for being among the first to join our Keep the Internet Human campaign! The generosity of our supporters enables CC to continue to fight for a commons built for humans, by humans. You can join us in that mission! While supplies last, donors who give $125 or more will receive a signed copy of Cory Doctorow’s exclusive art book, Canny Valley! https://lnkd.in/gRyFpP6Z

As a part of our 25th anniversary celebrations, we are pleased to announce the launch of a small fund for two to three regional events in 2026 to amplify the contributions of CC communities over the last 25 years and showcase the amazing networks of open advocates around the world. Funding is limited. We invite CC communities globally to express interest, and we are especially interested in proposals from communities based in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Oceania. Read more about our selection criteria and how to apply in our recent blog post 👇️

Thank you to everyone who joined us yesterday for CC 101: A Brief History, the first event in celebration of our 25th anniversary! If you missed it, or just want to relive the experience, you can watch the recording of the event. https://buff.ly/obRwcTR If you feel inspired after watching, share your own CC origin story! We'll be compiling some highlights as part of our anniversary celebrations. https://buff.ly/HEr700s

We call this the "I Love Sharing" starter pack. For our anniversary, we've relaunched our merch store with all new designs and ways to wear your love for sharing on your sleeve. https://buff.ly/rLxvmTs Background photo: "Looking west - East Room replica - Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum" by Tim Evanson is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

This year Creative Commons turns 25! Since its founding, CC has created the legal and social infrastructure that makes open knowledge possible. CC licenses now power access to tens of billions of works online and have been used to make over half of all scientific research open and accessible. We could not have gotten here without the support of our community, and we want all of you to be a part of the celebrations! Here's how to get involved: 🙏 Make a donation - the first 250 donors who give $125 or more will receive a signed copy of Cory Doctorow’s exclusive art book, Canny Valley! https://buff.ly/Ef0ktmU 🪩 Attend an event - all year long CC will be hosting virtual events to mark our anniversary (and there's one happening today 👀 ) https://buff.ly/zMunJmm 💌 Join our newsletter list to stay up to date on CC stories and news. https://buff.ly/LpaGk5u 🎨 Submit to our Zine - we’re collecting stories from 25 years of CC to create a special zine to commemorate our community’s contributions, achievements, and memories exploring the theme “Remix is Resistance”. https://buff.ly/Ld7xiyl 📝 And don't miss our newest blog post reflecting on the past quarter of a century and why the commons is more important now than ever. https://buff.ly/4QybJTa

📢 AI4LAM COMMUNITY CALL - APRIL 21, 15:00 UTC 📢 Join us for the April Community Call on Tuesday, April 21: 🕗 8:00 AM (California) | 11:00 AM (Washington, DC) | 16:00 (UK) | 17:00 (Oslo & Paris) | 01:00 (Sydney) We’re excited to welcome two speakers: • Brigitte Vézina (Creative Commons) – on the Open Heritage Statement • Julien Homo (GRAPHIA) – on the GRAPHIA knowledge graph Don’t forget to register. See you there! https://lnkd.in/e2BMGWny

Earlier this week, CC’s Director of Technology, Timid Robot Zehta, submitted a proposal to update the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) AI Preferences vocabulary*. The goal is to define a minimum set of protected uses as part of the IETF’s AI Preference Working Group. This proposal is not intended to change a core principle of the vocabulary: usage preferences are advisory, and it is ultimately up to the data user to decide whether to follow them.  As opt-out laws and policies evolve around the world in response to how AI systems use data, it’s important to clarify the uses and users that should be exempt from opt-outs no matter what. Protected uses are situations where data can still be used, even if someone has opted out, because the benefit to individuals or society outweighs the preference to exclude it. We refer to these as public interest uses. In Timid Robot’s proposal, public interest uses include things like ensuring that end users can use data for internationalization and localization (for example, translation or accessibility tools); allowing cultural heritage institutions to preserve and analyze content; and supporting not-for-profit research and educational organizations in conducting analysis and research. At CC, we believe that: -Some uses should always be protected from opt-outs because they provide clear public benefit -Outside of these protected uses, creators should generally have the right to decide whether their work is used by AI systems -Creator agency (meaning choice) is a key part of a healthy creative commons -Opt-outs should be respected even when they are not legally enforceable -Maintaining a human-centered internet requires meaningful guardrails, upheld collectively -Public interest uses are most effective when supported by clear, standardized definitions and applied consistently, so it’s easier to understand what AI systems can and cannot use Opt-out tools are designed to give people control over their data, but AI systems don’t operate in isolation. Protected public interest uses create a middle ground: they respect individual preferences while still supporting systems that rely on shared data (for example, tools that detect malicious content) all the while contributing to collective knowledge and progress. This is an ongoing process, and we invite you to follow along. Timid Robot’s proposal will be discussed at the next IETF meeting, and we’ll share updates on next steps afterward. *This vocabulary aims to provide standardized terms for “the expression of preferences about how content is collected and processed for Artificial Intelligence (AI) model development, deployment, and use.” https://lnkd.in/gRsPNhjR

There are several 25th-anniversary events within the Open movement this month! In addition to celebrating MIT OpenCourseWare, we also get to mark the same milestone year for Creative Commons. What a catalyst year 2001 turned out to be! Join the CC celebrations: https://twp.ai/ImwZxg

From publishing the first book ever released under a CC license to supporting CC's fundraising campaign today, Cory Doctorow has been a partner and friend to Creative Commons since the beginning. In his recent post on Pluralistic, Cory writes about his history supporting CC and how CC licenses changed the internet. https://buff.ly/QDwcyMK There are still copies of Cory's exclusive new art book, Canny Valley, available to the first 250 donors who contribute $125 or more to CC's anniversary fundraising campaign. Give a gift and get your signed copy today! https://buff.ly/Ef0ktmU