Introduction
The world has experienced an explosion of openness. From individual
artists opening their creations for input from others, to governments
requiring publicly funded works be available to the public, both the spirit
and practice of sharing is gaining momentum and producing results.
Creative Commons began providing licenses for the open sharing of
content only a decade ago. Now more than 400 million CC-licensed works
are available on the Internet, from music and photos, to research findings
and entire college courses. Creative Commons created the legal and
technical infrastructure that allows effective sharing of knowledge, art and
data by individuals, organizations and governments. More importantly,
millions of creators took advantage of that infrastructure to share work
that enriches the global commons for all humanity.
The Power of Open collects the stories of those creators. Some are like
ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative news organization that
uses CC while partnering with the world’s largest media companies. Others
like nomadic filmmaker Vincent Moon use CC licensing as an essential
element of a lifestyle of openness in pursuit of creativity. The breadth of
uses is as great as the creativity of the individuals and organizations choosing
to open their content, art and ideas to the rest of the world.
As we look ahead, the field of openness is approaching a critical mass of
adoption that could result in sharing becoming a default standard for the
many works that were previously made available only under the
all-rights-reserved framework. Even more exciting is the potential
increase in global welfare from the use of Creative Commons’ tools and
the increasing relevance of openness to the discourse of culture, education
and innovation policy.
We hope that The Power of Open inspires you to examine and embrace the
practice of open licensing so that your contributions to the global
intellectual commons can provide their greatest benefit to all people.
.
CATHERINE CASSERLY
CEO
CREATIVE COMMONS
JOI ITO
CHAIR
CREATIVE COMMONS
.
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