Introduction
In this week’s issue of Commons Notable News: Adoption and Attribution we cover several stories about organizations that have adopted Creative Commons licensing for different purposes. And, we cover a story about a project that seeks to become a source for attribution of materials that are in the public domain or under a re-sharable license.
IDB adopts Creative Commons licenses
The Inter-American Development Bank is an organization that is trying to reduce poverty and inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean. They do this by financing development projects in these countries that can achieve measurable results, with increased transparency and accountability.
Yes, that’s a lot of buzz-words, mostly derived from the IDB About page. But, even so, the idea seems, at least at first reading, to be an admirable cause. An organization that is not only putting ideals forward, but the actual funding to help projects with the goal of helping people is a move in the right direction.
So, where does Creative Commons fit into this? They are making a number of their publications available under Non-Commercial No-Derivatives, or Non-Commercial Share-Alike licenses. This is to encourage the distribution and sharing of their materials. Seems trivial, doesn’t it? Something that should be a no-brainer, right?
When is the last time you went to Chase or Wells Fargo banks here in the U.S. and picked up some materials from them that had a Creative Commons license on it? Never, right? I thought so.
Ford Foundation Expands Creative Commons Licensing for All Grant-Funded Projects
The Ford Foundation is an independent grant-making organization working with people on social change. Their primary mission is to promote democratic values, and reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation and advance human achievement.
Again, another buzz-word filled description from the press release. So, what makes them different? Well, in this case, they are putting the results of their funding into the Commons. To quote from the press release:
Effective February 1, grantees and consultants will be required to make foundation funded materials subject to a Creative Commons license allowing others, free of charge and without requesting permission, the ability to copy, redistribute, and adapt existing materials, provided they give appropriate credit to the original author.
So, people who receive grants from the Ford Foundation will be required to release their works under a Creative Commons license. But not just any license: the most liberal of the Creative Commons licenses: CC BY 4.0. Unfortunately, there is some rather sticky wording that would exclude part(s) of those works:
In certain situations, such as when the expected product contains sensitive or confidential material, the Creative Commons license will not be a requirement. Additionally, the change will apply to all materials not subject to third-party ownership on the Ford Foundation’s website.
But, even given this loophole, there will still certainly be a lot of materials that will be coming out of these grants. Now I wonder who will start tracking these grants and the materials to make a reference site of them available?
Elog.io: give credit to creators or die trying
Elog.io cuts to a topic that has been on my mind for many years. I’ve written before about how I Curate A CC Music Library because I wanted to make a point about the metadata that is stored in the media of the objects that we are dealing with. Elog.io is a step in the direction that I have wanted to see for a while: a way to identify the sources of images that are in the commons, or under a share-able (Creative Commons) license.
Now, admittedly their scope of the project is quite pointed, and it could be claimed that it is fairly narrow. They aren’t going after all of the works released under a Creative Commons license, or even for that matter all of the images that are in the public domain. However, they are taking steps towards building a a large database of many images (the goal is 500 million, eventually), by going after smaller chunks at a time.
Part of the reason for their approach is simply the complexity of the task. Just identifying the full images is a complex process. And, moving forward it will likely become a more and more complicated task. But the one thing that they are putting first and foremost is the accuracy of their information. They don’t want to have the information in their database be questionable. And that is a good thing in my book. I value the concept of being able to ascertain accurate information above being able to find information that is spotty at best.
So, they are looking for some funding for Elog.io. Now, most projects would be making big claims about what they will do with the money, setting themselves up for goals that are impossible to obtain. But not Jonas Öberg and Artem Popov. Instead they are attempting to raise enough money to support several months of work, with the goal of adding several million more images to their database. In fact, for $6,000US they believe they can add another 18-20 million images to their database. That’s around 3,000 images for each dollar donated to the project. And that is a real return on your investment, in my book. Check out their IndieGogo Campaign.
Currently they are a little ove one third to the way towards their goal. If everyone who reads this article donated $10, they could be over half the way to their goal. So seriously, go check out the Elog.io IndieGogo Campaign.
There is an interesting alternative take on Elog.io in a Mike Linksvayer article. He believes that Elog.io isn’t so much about attribution. Instead, he believes that it would be better seen as a means for achieving a form of provenance for images under a CC license. It’s an interesting article, which I have some reservations about, but is definitely worth a read if you still aren’t convinced of the value of the Elog.io project.
Conclusion
Well, that’s a wrap for another installment of Commons Notable News. I’m impressed by the range of things that I am finding out there relating to the Creative Commons. It’s interesting to see the licenses being applied in a context that I wouldn’t have considered, like the case of the IDB, or how it is being used to fundamentally change some of the socially oriented activities such as with the Ford Foundation grants.
Elog.io is a case that is very interesting. How the emergence of the Creative Commons and defense of the Public Domain is actually driving a new form of technology that has been needed for decades. Now, hopefully, they can receive the funding needed to carry on their work. Or, maybe, someone will pick up some of the technology they’ve had to set aside and run with it.
But all of these cases show that there is a lot of impact from these licenses. There is a lot of change that is either being provided by the licenses themselves, or that is coming about due to the impact that the licenses have had on the world. Either way, it’s a really nice thing to see.
