March 06, 2026 at 16:54
On Monday 2 March 2026, Creative Commons (CC) and Internet Archive Europe, together with the support of Open Nederland, hosted an event entitled “Ensuring equitable access to heritage in the digital environment: A leading role for the Netherlands on the global stage.” In this blog post, we offer a recap of the dynamic discussions and share why they matter for CC.
March 04, 2026 at 17:24
Last month, we published a preview of what we intended to bring to the AI Impact Summit in Delhi: a focus on data governance, shared infrastructure, and democratic approaches to AI that genuinely advance the public interest rather than replicate existing power imbalances. That piece outlined our core interventions and the principles that have guided our thinking as we grapple with how to ensure openness, agency, and equity in the age of AI.
February 18, 2026 at 19:41
Over the past year, we’ve been engaged in a series of conversations with a small group of researchers specializing in IP, AI policy, and data governance about what CC licensing means—and does—in African contexts today. What started as an organic exchange in various spaces has revealed something larger: a strong appetite to move these conversations into the open. At stake are not only questions about CC licenses but deeper issues of data sovereignty, equity, governance, and power in global knowledge systems.
February 17, 2026 at 19:48
Over the past year, Creative Commons communities around the world have continued to show what’s possible when people come together around shared values of openness, collaboration, and care. In 2025 we were focused on gathering feedback on our ongoing preference signals explorations, creating and gathering feedback on new governance frameworks for future implementation, streamlining community communication channels, and transitioning to an open source chat platform for community collaboration.
February 12, 2026 at 19:16
I like to say I am a “writer who lawyers”. I begin here because I want to name my biases up front. I am a lawyer, but I come to this work first and foremost as a writer thinking about the conditions that will allow us to continue to share knowledge publicly. And in spite of—or perhaps because of—the fact that I am a lawyer, I have a healthy skepticism about the power of legal terms and conditions. The law will play a role, but the challenge of keeping the internet human will ultimately be navigated by the stories we imagine and tell. We need new stories.
February 10, 2026 at 21:47
In November 2025, we had the privilege of supporting and participating in Semana de la Cultura Libre (Open Culture Week) in Montevideo, Uruguay: a week-long celebration of open culture organized by CC Uruguay. Through panels, workshops, concerts, and conversations, the week offered a powerful reminder that free culture is not an abstract idea but a living practice shaped by local communities, histories, and needs.
February 06, 2026 at 17:18
This month, CC will be represented at the AI Impact Summit in Delhi, an international gathering shaping the future of AI policy and practice. The 2026 Summit follows the AI Action Summit in Paris in February 2025, where CC underscored a simple but essential truth: without civil society, there can be no public interest.
January 08, 2026 at 16:47
In 2026, Creative Commons will continue to ensure that technological change strengthens, not erodes, the commons and improves the acts of sharing and access that are part of our everyday lives. We do this by applying first principles, practical strategies, and lessons learned from decades of advancing the commons. Sharing of research, educational materials, heritage, and creative works are acts of generosity—these are the gifts people give to the commons. Access to these same shared resources enables collaboration, innovation, and understanding. Together, this is how we improve access to knowledge and build a more equitable future.
December 19, 2025 at 17:28
This year marked the first year of a new strategic cycle for Creative Commons, and it began amid profound change. The ground beneath the open internet continues to shift. Powerful technologies, driven largely by multibillion-dollar companies, are reshaping how knowledge and creativity are shared online, concentrating power in the hands of a few and testing long-standing assumptions about openness and access.
December 15, 2025 at 17:32
As we look back on 2025, it’s clear that the internet as we know it is changing. Information is being removed from the web or locked away. We are experiencing a crisis in the commons, driven in part by current AI development practices. New systems are emerging in response—from content monetization schemes and licensing agreements designed to protect large rightsholders, to the ongoing morass of lawsuits about how AI services are using content as data. We are in the midst of a major reconfiguration of how we share and reuse content on the web.
December 12, 2025 at 15:47
As we’ve discussed before, the rise of large artificial intelligence (AI) models has fundamentally disrupted the social contract governing machine use of web content. Today, machines don’t just access the web to make it more searchable or to help unlock new insights; they feed algorithms that fundamentally change (and threaten) the web we know. What once functioned as a mostly reciprocal ecosystem now risks becoming extractive by default.
December 10, 2025 at 16:21
At Creative Commons, we’ve long believed that binary systems rarely reflect the complexity of the real world—nor do they serve the commons very well. The internet, like the communities that built it, thrives on nuance, experimentation, and shared stewardship. That’s why we’re continuously working to introduce choice where there has been little, and to advocate for systems that acknowledge the diversity of values and needs across the web.
October 22, 2025 at 19:41
After almost 15 years of dedicated service, Dr. Cable Green, our Director of Open Education, will be moving on from Creative Commons (CC).
October 06, 2025 at 18:55
Creative Commons and the TAROCH Coalition (Towards a Recommendation on Open Cultural Heritage) announce the launch of the Open Heritage Statement, now open for signature by governments, organizations, and institutions worldwide. Developed by more than 60 organizations across 25 countries within the Coalition, the Statement defines shared values, highlights key challenges, and sets action-oriented priorities for closing the global gap in equitable access to heritage in the public domain.
September 25, 2025 at 18:15
“A Turn in the Road” by Alfred Sisley (1873), CC0, Art Institute of Chicago, remixed with “TAROCH balloon” by Creative Commons/Dee Harris, 2025, CC0. The (Under-Realized) Potential of Open Heritage To understand our present, we need to know our past: our memories, our history, our heritage. Over the last two decades, pioneers of open heritage…
September 18, 2025 at 15:49
Creative Commons is making an important change: we are transitioning our community chat from Slack to Zulip. After considering three platforms—Matrix, Discourse, and Zulip—and gathering input from the community, Zulip came out as the clear favorite. We’d like to warmly invite everyone who sees themselves as part of the CC global community to join us on Zulip.
September 18, 2025 at 14:08
“Watering Place at Marley” by Alfred Sisley, 1875, CC0, Art Institute of Chicago, remixed with “TAROCH balloon” by Creative Commons/Dee Harris, 2025, CC0. Open Heritage and Contemporary Creativity Apollo or Venus in your living room? This is the proposition made by Denmark’s Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK) upon openly sharing its vast collection of 3D…
September 10, 2025 at 15:06
“Landscape along the Seine with the Institut de France and the Pont des Arts” by Alfred Sisley, 1875, CC0, Art Institute of Chicago, remixed with “TAROCH balloon” by Creative Commons/Dee Harris, 2025, CC0. We’re kicking off a three-part series leading up to the launch of the Open Heritage Statement in October. The Statement, developed by…
September 04, 2025 at 14:57
Community © 2022 by Dunk is licensed under CC BY 2.0 As we’ve been talking about on the blog, we are intentionally seeking ways to reengage with the global community, which will likely entail making changes to the current CC Global Network (CCGN). We recently surveyed the CC global community to help inform next steps. …
September 03, 2025 at 16:50
Distorted Forest Path © by Lone Thomasky & Bits&Bäume is licensed under CC BY 4.0 Here at CC, we have the goal of defending and sustaining the digital commons in the face of developments in artificial intelligence. We’ve recently introduced a new framework, CC signals, to offer a new way for stewards of large collections…