Expanding the Public Domain: Part Zero

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href="https://creativecommons.org/wp-json/oembed/1.0/embed?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcreativecommons.org%2F2009%2F03%2F11%2Fexpanding-the-public-domain-part-zero%2F&format=xml" /> </head> <body class="blog-post"> <a class="skip-to-content" href="#main-content-marker">Skip to content</a> <header> <div class="masthead"> <h1><a class="identity-logo" href="/">Creative Commons</a></h1> <button class="expand-menu">Menu</button>  <nav class="primary-menu"> <ul> <li><a href="/about/mission">Who We Are</a></li> <li><a href="/about">What We Do</a></li> <li><a href="/share-your-work">Licenses and Tools</a></li> <li><a href="/blog">Blog</a></li> <li><a href="/about/support-cc/">Support Us</a></li> </ul> </nav> <nav class="ancilliary-menu"> <ul>    <li><a class="search icon-attach fa-search" href="/?s">Search</a></li> <li><a class="donate icon-attach fa-heart" href="https://www.classy.org/give/313412/#!/donation/checkout?c_src=website&c_src2=top-of-page-banner" target="_blank">Donate</a></li> <li><button class="explore">Explore CC</button></li> </ul> </nav> </div> <div class="explore-panel">   <nav class="explore-menu"> <ul> <li> <a href="https://network.creativecommons.org/" target="_blank">Global Network</a> <p>Join a global community working to strengthen the Commons</p> </li> <li> <a href="https://certificate.creativecommons.org/" target="_blank">Certificate</a> <p>Become an expert in creating and engaging with openly licensed materials</p> </li> <li> <a href="https://summit.creativecommons.org/" target="_blank">Global Summit</a> <p>Attend our annual event, promoting the power of open licensing</p> </li> <li> <a href="/choose" target="_blank">Chooser</a> <p>Get help choosing the appropriate license for your work</p> </li> <li> <a href="https://search.creativecommons.org/" target="_blank">Search Portal</a> <p>Find engines to search openly licensed material for creative and educational reuse</p> </li> <li> <a href="https://opensource.creativecommons.org/" target="_blank">Open Source</a> <p>Help us build products that maximize creativity and innovation</p> </li> </ul> </nav> </div> </header> <span id="main-content-marker"></span> <main> <header> <h1>Expanding the Public Domain: Part Zero</h1> <span class="byline">by <a href="https://creativecommons.org/person/dianecreativecommons-org/">Diane Peters</a> </span>  <span class="categories"> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/category/uncategorized/" rel="category tag">Uncategorized</a></span>  </header>  <p>Creative Commons has spent a lot of time over the past year or so <a href="https://creativecommons.org/press-releases/entry/7919">strategizing</a>, and worrying, about the current state of the public domain and its future. In particular, we’ve been thinking about ways to help cultivate a vibrant and rich pool of freely available resources accessible to anyone to use for any purpose, unconditionally.</p> <p>Our copyright licenses empower creators to manage their copyright on terms they choose. But what about creators who aren’t concerned about those protections, or who later want to waive those rights altogether? Unfortunately, the law makes it virtually impossible to waive the copyright automatically bestowed on creators. The problem is compounded by the fact that copyright terms vary dramatically and are frequently extended. Additionally, new protections, like the creation of <em>sui generis</em> database rights in the EU, are layered atop traditional rights, making an already complex system of copyright all the more complicated. In combination, these challenges stand in the way of the vibrant public domain that CC and many others <a href="http://www.thepublicdomain.org/">envision</a>.</p> <p>Today at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology conference, our CEO Joi Ito will formally <a href="http://en.oreilly.com/et2009/public/schedule/detail/6670">introduce</a> the first of two tools designed to address these challenges. <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode">CC0</a> (read “CC Zero”) is a universal waiver that may be used by anyone wishing to permanently surrender the copyright and database rights they may have in a work, thereby placing it as nearly as possible into the public domain. CC0 is not a license, but a legal tool that improves on the “dedication” function of our existing, U.S.-centric <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain">public domain dedication and certification</a>. CC0 is universal in form and may be used throughout the world for any kind of content without adaptation to account for laws in different jurisdictions. And like our licenses, CC0 has the benefit of being expressed in three ways – legal code, a human readable deed, and machine-readable code that allows works distributed under CC0 to be easily found. Read our <a href="http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CC0_FAQ">FAQs</a> to learn more.</p> <p>CC0 is an outgrowth of six years of experience with our existing public domain tool, the maturation of ccREL (our recommendations for machine-readable work information), and the requirements of educators and scientists for the public domain. Science Commons’ work on the <a href="http://sciencecommons.org/projects/publishing/open-access-data-protocol">Open Access Data Protocol,</a> to ensure interoperability of data and databases in particular, informed our development of CC0. It should come as no surprise that several of CC0’s early adopters are leading some of the most important projects within the scientific community.</p> <p><a href="https://proteomecommons.org/tranche/">The ProteomeCommons.org Tranche network</a> is one such early adopter. “Our goal is to remove as many barriers to scientific data sharing as possible in order to promote new discoveries. The Creative Commons CC0 waiver was incorporated into our uploading options as the default in order to help achieve this goal. By giving a simple option to release data into the public domain, CC0 removes the complex barriers of licensing and restrictions. This lets researchers focus on what’s most important, their research and new discoveries,” said Philip Andrews, Professor at the University of Michigan.</p> <p>Another early adopter of CC0 is the <a title="Personal Genome Project" href="http://www.personalgenomes.org/">Personal Genome Project</a>, a pioneer in the emerging field of personal genomics technology. The Personal Genome Project is announcing today the release of a large data set containing genomic sequences for ten individuals using CC0, with future planned releases also under CC0. “PersonalGenomes.org is committed to making our research data freely available to the public because we think that is the best way to promote discovery and advance science, and CC0 helps us to state that commitment in a clear and legally accurate way,” said Jason Bobe, Director of Community.</p> <p>John Wilbanks, CC’s vice president for science, follows Joi Ito at Etech with a <a href="http://en.oreilly.com/et2009/public/schedule/detail/7480">presentation</a> addressing the role of CC0 in promoting open innovation.</p> <p>Building CC0 into a universally robust tool has required the efforts and dedication of many over the course of more than a year. CC jurisdiction project leads in particular provided us with <a href="https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/11099">meaningful</a> <a href="http://www.communia-project.eu/node/165">forums</a> in which to openly discuss CC0’s development. They also provided jurisdiction-specific research critical to our understanding of public domain around the world. This support was invaluable to the crafting of a legally sound public domain tool for use everywhere. An overview of CC’s development and public comment process <a href="http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CC0_Development_Process#Development_and_Public_Comment_Proces">can be found</a> on the CC wiki, together with links to our blog postings summarizing key policy and drafting decisions.</p> <p>About the second tool that we refer to above, stay tuned. Funding permitting, we plan to roll out a beta public domain assertion tool this coming summer that will make it easy for people to tag and find content already in the public domain — increasing its <em>effective</em> size, even if due to copyright extensions works are not naturally added to the public domain.</p> <p>Note, one small improvement we’re introducing with CC0 is that its deed and legalcode are located at <a href="https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/">https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/</a>. The forthcoming public domain assertion tool will also be rooted under this directory. Thanks to everyone who reminded us that the public domain is not a license, and public domain tools should not be under a “licenses” directory!</p> <p>A word of thanks to our pro bono legal counsel at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Latham & Watkins. Their legal review and analysis provided the heightened level of rigor that users of our licenses and legal tools have come to expect from Creative Commons.</p>  <span class="pub-date">Posted 11 March 2009</span> <article class="tags"> <h2>Tags</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://creativecommons.org/tag/cc0/">CC0</a></li> <li><a href="https://creativecommons.org/tag/ccrel/">ccREL</a></li> <li><a href="https://creativecommons.org/tag/john-wilbanks/">john wilbanks</a></li> <li><a href="https://creativecommons.org/tag/joi-ito/">Joi Ito</a></li> <li><a href="https://creativecommons.org/tag/milestone/">milestone</a></li> <li><a href="https://creativecommons.org/tag/personal-genome-project/">Personal Genome Project</a></li> <li><a href="https://creativecommons.org/tag/proteomecommons-org-tranche-network/">ProteomeCommons.org Tranche network</a></li> <li><a href="https://creativecommons.org/tag/public-domain/">public domain</a></li> <li><a href="https://creativecommons.org/tag/science-commons/">science commons</a></li> <li><a href="https://creativecommons.org/tag/weblog/">Weblog</a></li> </ul> </article> <article class="related-posts"> <h2>Related posts</h2> <article class="authored-posts highlight"> <article> <header> <h2><a href="https://creativecommons.org/2024/03/12/recap-recording-maximizing-the-values-of-open-access-in-cultural-heritage-institutions/">Recap & Recording: Maximizing the Value(s) of Open Access in Cultural Heritage Institutions</a></h2> <span class="byline">by <a href="https://creativecommons.org/person/brigittevezina/">Brigitte Vézina</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/person/jocelyncreativecommons-org/">Jocelyn Miyara</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/person/connorbenedict/">Connor Benedict</a> </span> <span class="categories"> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/category/uncategorized/" rel="category tag">Uncategorized</a> </span> </header> </article> <article> <header> <h2><a href="https://creativecommons.org/2023/12/13/cc-certificate-translations-in-slovak-bengali-and-localized-french/">CC Certificate Translations in Slovak, Bengali, and localized French</a></h2> <span class="byline">by <a href="https://creativecommons.org/person/jennryncreativecommons-org/">Jennryn Wetzler</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/person/shannacreativecommons-org/">Shanna Hollich</a> </span> <span class="categories"> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/category/cc-certificate/" rel="category tag">CC Certificate</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/category/community/" rel="category tag">Community</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/category/open-knowledge/open-education/" rel="category tag">Open Education</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/category/uncategorized/" rel="category tag">Uncategorized</a> </span> </header> </article> <article> <header> <h2><a href="https://creativecommons.org/2023/11/02/ccs-bettersharing-collection-november-shared-knowledge-shared-future/">CC’s #BetterSharing Collection | November: Shared Knowledge, Shared Future</a></h2> <span class="byline">by <a href="https://creativecommons.org/person/corrinecreativecommons-org/">Corrine Murray</a> </span> <span class="categories"> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/category/uncategorized/" rel="category tag">Uncategorized</a> </span> </header> </article> <article> <header> <h2><a href="https://creativecommons.org/2020/12/02/introducing-the-newest-cc-chapter-cc-czech-republic/">Introducing the Newest CC Chapter, CC Czech Republic!</a></h2> <span class="categories"> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/category/uncategorized/" rel="category tag">Uncategorized</a> </span> </header> </article> </article> </article> </main> <footer> <a class="identity-logo" href="/">Creative Commons</a> <nav class="footer-menu"> <ul> <li><a href="/about/contact">Contact</a></li> <li><a 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