Free Software Linux

Slightly less than a year ago the count of CC-licensed images at Flickr surpassed 100 million. Over 35 million have been added since then. Now is a good time to look at changes over the last four years (for which we have data), in particular changes in the distribution of licenses used. We’ve heard many anecdotes about photographers switching to more liberal licensing after getting comfortable with and experiencing the benefits of limited sharing, and wanting more. Are these anecdotes borne out in aggregate?

CC BY-SA by Film Annex

Last October, Film Annex, “an online film distribution platform and Web Television Network,” launched CC license support, enabling filmmakers to release their films under one of our licenses.

Creative Commons depends on a lot of free software to scale our activities on the web. One of the most important pieces is CiviCRM which we use to manage our contributions and contacts. CiviCRM has been on an amazing trajectory since we first started using it in 2006: new releases continue to bring functionality our users ask for, and the developers and community have been great to work with.

The United States Department of Education 2010 National Educational Technology Plan (pdf) includes the following:

Open Educational Resources (OER) are an important element of an infrastructure for learning. OER come in forms ranging from podcasts to digital libraries to textbooks, games, and courses. They are freely available to anyone over the web.

Photo by tibchris, licensed CC BY 2.0

Creative Commons is once again seeking bright, enthusiastic students to work at the San Francisco office for ten weeks this summer. Students have the opportunity to work with CC staff and international volunteers on various real-time projects. Assigned tasks and projects will vary depending on interns’ skill & experience, as well as organization needs. If you are a currently enrolled student (College, Graduate levels, or somewhere in between) interested in applying, please read the descriptions carefully and follow the instructions below.

This image by Cable Green has been dedicated to the Public Domain using CC0

Made of glass from Vendel parish Up (SHM Invnr 7250) | Photo: Christer Åhlin SHMM | CC BY-NC-ND

Earlier this week Swedish museum Historiska Museet announced the adoption of CC licenses for their digital catalog (Google translation here).

At Creative Commons, we are always looking for new and interesting ways to find out just how much CC licensed content is out there on the web. Our latest project, the Open Database of Educational Projects and Organizations (or ODEPO), needs your help!

The event I blogged about in December, TEDxNYED, is happening this Saturday, March 6, in New York City. TEDxNYED is “an all-day conference dedicated to examining the intersection of education, new media, and technology.” For those of you who can’t attend, the conference will be livestreamed from 10am EST to 6pm EST at http://tedxnyed.com.

Flat World Knowledge, a commercial textbook publisher who uses CC licenses, aims to transform the way professors and college campuses think about textbooks through a new internship program for students. They asked for applicants last year, and launched the program last week with 19 students from colleges like New York University, Ohio State University, Auburn University, Indiana University, University of Denver, University of Florida and the College of Charleston. From eSchool News,

Voci Globali is a new collaboration between Italian newspaper La Stampa and Global Voices Online that aims to expose Italian audiences to citizen media from around the world. GVO will assist in translating select international blogs into Italian, releasing the stories they publish under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

The Peer 2 Peer University, “a grassroots education project that organizes learning outside of institutional walls” by leveraging social software and existing open educational resources, launched its second pilot and a new website today. The first pilot launched last September with seven courses, ranging from Creative Nonfiction Writing to Behavioral Economics. Due to high demand, P2PU has doubled its course offerings for the second round. From the press release,

Last time we checked in on FrostWire, an open-source Bit Torrent and Gnutella client, we noted a distinct promotion of CC-licensed music and content to their community. This push has grown drastically in the months following with FrostClick, FrostWire’s curated blog/directory, constantly featuring new and exciting work released under the full spectrum of our licenses.

Photo: Metric mania by batega / CC BY

Like code and numbers? Creative Commons is working to make its websites more metrics-driven and data and reporting on CC adoption globally and within fields such as Open Educational Resources and Open Access publishing more available and regular.