Open access

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

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

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

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

Save the Date: Public Domain Day 2020 Is Happening in January in Washington, D.C.

Creative Commons is thrilled to announce that the second Public Domain Day celebration is happening on January 30, 2020 in Washington, D.C. We’re working with our friends at the Internet Archive, the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at American University Washington College of Law, Creative Commons USA, the Institute for Intellectual Property & …Read More“Save the Date: Public Domain Day 2020 Is Happening in January in Washington, D.C.”

Arts / culture
The New UNESCO House in Paris

NGO Network to Support Implementation of the UNESCO OER Recommendation

The UNESCO Open Educational Resources (OER) Recommendation was unanimously adopted on November 25 by 193 UNESCO member states at the 40th UNESCO General Conference. This milestone offers a unique opportunity to advance open education around the world. Why does it matter? This Recommendation is an official UNESCO instrument that gives national governments a specific list …Read More“NGO Network to Support Implementation of the UNESCO OER Recommendation”

Education / OER
Bust of Nefertiti

Reproductions of Public Domain Works Should Remain in the Public Domain

It has come to the attention of Creative Commons that there is an increased use of CC licenses by cultural heritage institutions on photographic reproductions and 3D scans of objects such as sculptures, busts, engravings, and inscriptions, among others, that are indisputably in the public domain worldwide. A recent example is the 3000-year-old Nefertiti bust …Read More“Reproductions of Public Domain Works Should Remain in the Public Domain”

Legal tools / licenses

Access to Information Is Not Universal: Here’s Why That Matters

Today is the International Day for Universal Access to Information (IDUAI). You may be wondering why this day is necessary—particularly in 2019, when the average person is inundated with an estimated 34 gigabytes of information every day, from emails and text messages to Youtube videos and news programs. In fact, it’s easy to take information …Read More“Access to Information Is Not Universal: Here’s Why That Matters”

Open access

Announcing an Open Call for Proposals: The Bassel Khartabil Fellowship

Today the Fabricatorz Foundation announced an open call for applicants for the Bassel Khartabil Fellowship. The Fellowship supports outstanding individuals developing free culture projects in their communities under adverse circumstances, honoring the legacy of beloved artist, open source technology innovator, free culture advocate Bassel Khartabil. Bassel was Creative Commons’ Syrian project lead, the cofounder of …Read More“Announcing an Open Call for Proposals: The Bassel Khartabil Fellowship”

Arts / culture

European Commission forging ahead to boost public sector information and open science

While the EU copyright reform teeters on the edge of turning into a complete disaster, last week the European Commission published a proposal for a revision of the Directive on the reuse of public sector information (PSI Directive), and a recommendation on access to and preservation of scientific information. Both of these documents are …Read More“European Commission forging ahead to boost public sector information and open science”

Open access

A Thank You to Everyone Who Supported Diego and Open Access to Knowledge

In December Diego Gómez was finally cleared of the criminal charges levied against him for sharing an academic research paper on the internet. The Tribunal de Bogotá—the Colombian appellate court—affirmed the lower court’s acquittal. Gómez is a scientist from Colombia who had been criminally prosecuted for the last three years for sharing an academic paper …Read More“A Thank You to Everyone Who Supported Diego and Open Access to Knowledge”

Open access