Creative Commons

Creative Commons has been exploring questions around artificial intelligence for a long time, guided by a commitment to balance creator agency in how people participate in the commons, while preserving the public’s right to reuse. As the technology, its impacts, and what we’ve learned from communities have evolved, so has our thinking. But our principles and the fundamental questions informing our work have not. When are norms enough and when is enforcement needed? Can copyright, alone, provide the balance we need? And can boundaries coexist with openness? https://buff.ly/iu2xM7Z

The first of the four regional events celebrating CC's 25th anniversary took place in Kochi, India a couple weeks ago. The workshop brought together Wikimedians, archivists, GLAM practitioners, and language activists in an event that centered Indigenous languages, community archives, and the knowledge commons. Photos from the event taken by Subhashish are licensed under CC BY 4.0.

If you have Googled, Grok’d, or ChatGPT’d anything recently, you’ve encountered an AI-generated response, built by pulling information from a wide range of sources, often without clarity about which sources are being used. Attribution is what makes information more trustworthy and helps prevent the spread of misinformation. Unfortunately, in the current context of AI systems, attribution is commonly an afterthought or omitted altogether. Join practitioners from Creative Commons, NISO, AXM, and the Wikimedia Foundation for a grounded community conversation about why attribution should be the norm in AI systems, and how the field is actually building solutions for the future. Panelists include Monica Granados, Todd Carpenter, Archie Davis, Andrew Farrior, Rita Ho, and Pau Giner. https://buff.ly/w8WYiwY

The Open Data panel during OPEN @ UNGA will explore the space between “open everything” and “close everything,” asking what meaningful access, governance, and participation require in practice. AI has changed the scale and stakes of data reuse. Material can now be ingested, combined, and commercialized far beyond its original context, prompting some communities and rightsholders to reconsider open access. But broad retrenchment carries its own costs. Panelists include Angela Oduor Lungati, E.M. Lewis-Jong, Christopher Lewis, and Jane Anderson. 👉 Registration closes tomorrow, Thursday, Sept 17, at 4 pm EDT. Register now! https://lnkd.in/gnGEm44e This panel is organized by Ushahidi and sponsored by Siegel Family Endowment. It is part of the #RoadtoGeneva program leading up to the #GenevaAISummit in 2027.

As AI grows, so does dependence on the companies and institutions that control the infrastructure on which it runs. During OPEN @ UNGA81, the Open Infrastructure panel, including Monica Granados, Kaitlin Thaney, Jan Gerlach, Ellie Bertani, and Yael Elmatad, will discuss how different infrastructure models intersect with sovereignty, drawing on analogies like natural food webs to examine when openness and shared standards genuinely reduce lock-in, what dependencies persist across cloud, compute, and skills, and how public institutions can fund infrastructure that’s adaptable and accountable without every country rebuilding from scratch. Register for OPEN @ UNGA before 4 pm on Thursday, September 17: https://lnkd.in/gnGEm44e

Registration for OPEN @ UNGA81, an all-day in-person symposium on the margins of UNGA81, will close at 4 pm EDT on Thursday, September 17, so register now: https://lnkd.in/gnGEm44e In the Open Collaboration/Open Sovereignty panel during the event, panelists Vidisha Mishra, Liv Marte Nordhaug, Mitchell Baker, and Paul Samson will explore how middle powers can collaborate to avoid vendor lock-in and build a resilient, open tech stack, from scaling shared protocols like X-Road and MOSIP to pooled financing that mutualizes infrastructure costs.

How do we keep the internet open and generous when the rules of engagement are changing so quickly? In a new interview, Creative Commons CEO Anna Tumadóttir explores this question through the lens of AI and the digital commons, and makes the case for investing in the less visible infrastructure that keeps openness, trust, and reciprocity possible. It also means asking what we’re building toward: “What is the world that we want to see ten years from now or twenty years from now? How do we want our grandchildren to research and understand knowledge and understand one another and collaborate with people?” says Anna. Those are questions worth wrestling with together. Next week, Creative Commons and civil society leaders will gather at NYU Law Engelberg Center on Innovation Law & Policy Center for OPEN: A Conversation on Collaboration during UNGA 81. The conversation will ask where openness and sovereignty reinforce each other, where they come into tension, and what it takes to build technology that gives people and communities more agency without simply recreating the same dependencies in a different form. 🔗 Read Anna’s interview https://lnkd.in/guATK6vc 🔗 Learn more about OPEN https://lnkd.in/gnGEm44e Vidisha Mishra Global Solutions Initiative Liv Marte Nordhaug Digital Public Goods Alliance Mitchell Baker Mozilla Paul Samson Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) Michael Weinberg Dr. Rachel Burstein

OPEN @ UNGA81, a day-long symposium on the margins of UNGA81, will include a panel on open source software to examine open source as a market-shaping tool, asking what complementary conditions (architecture, protocols, procurement, governance) make it effective, and what outcomes are actually feasible in AI markets. The panel will include Ilan S., Duane O'Brien, amanda casari, Madiha Zahrah Choksi, and Ben Moskowitz. The panel is organized by The AI Disclosures Project. Thank you to our event sponsor Siegel Family Endowment! Register for the event: https://lnkd.in/gnGEm44e

CC's Director of Policy Brigitte Vézina will be speaking at "Generative Traditions: Living Heritage and Artificial Intelligence. New Horizons – Exploring Cultural Possibilities," a conference organized by the Ministry of Culture of the Hellenic Republic in cooperation with UNESCO. The conference will bring together communities, scholars, cultural professionals, research institutions, and policymakers to discuss both the opportunities and the challenges presented by artificial intelligence in relation to living heritage. Join the livestream: https://lnkd.in/e6ZtwNfP