Fig. 1. The logo for Creative Commons Taiwan (design by Ching-I Roan and Creative Commons Taiwan).
Creative Commons Taiwan.
The Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, (IIS/AS; http://www.iis.sinica.edu.tw/) joined the iCommons project (now Creative Commons International) in November 2003 (http://creativecommons.org/press-releases/entry/3899/). IIS/AS has continued to host and support Creative Commons Taiwan as a project within the institute. Creative Commons Taiwan was officially launched in Taipei on September 4, 2004, and the localized Creative Commons Licenses have since been integrated into the Creative Commons licensing process (http://creativecommons.org/license/).
A three-day "CC Party" was held in November 11-13, 2005, to celebrate the anniversary of the launch of Creative Commons Licenses in Taiwan (http://www.creativecommons.org.tw/static/ccparty/). The press and the public were invited to attend the event to learn about and share the experience of using Creative Commons Licenses. The event was jointly organized by several agencies and organizations, among them the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO). Several of TIPO's publications are now distributed under Creative Commons Licenses (http://www.tipo.gov.tw/copyright/copyright_book/copyright_book.asp). Details of this event can be found in an English press release sent to the "Cc-icommons" mailing list (http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/private/cc-icommons/2005-November/000523.html).
At the CC Party, Creative Commons Taiwan announced its own logo, which consists of two Traditional Chinese characters at the left ("Chuàng" and "Yòng"; meaning, "Create" and "Use"), and the "double C in a circle" mark at the right. This logo is designed so that the public in Taiwan can easily recognize it in connection with the ideal of Creative Commons without language barrier. Localized "Some Rights Reserved" marks have also been designed and made available to the public.
Since May 2006, Creative Commons Taiwan publishes a monthly e-mail newsletter. The newsletter will regularly announce updated news about Creative Commons, especially on the usage of Creative Commons Licenses in Taiwan and around the world. The newsletter is currently distributed by a Google group (http://groups.google.com/group/CC-Taiwan-newsletter/).
In the past year, Creative Commons Taiwan has been working with TIPO, the Computer Center of the Ministry of Education (CC/MOE), the National Digital Archives Program, and other government agencies on pragmatic issues related to public licensing of creative works. Creative Commons Taiwan will continue to work closely with these and other collection holders in Taiwan on these issues.
By the end of this year, Creative Commons Taiwan plans to complete the following tasks.
In July, Creative Commons Taiwan will be part of Formoz (http://www.formoz.com/), a music festival now in its 12th year. In cooperation with participating musicians, CC-licensed music will be freely copied and distributed on site to festival attendees. However, each receiver will be asked to pay a fee of her/his preference. The fee will then be collected and distributed back to the musicians.
Creative Commons Taiwan will be working closely with practicing lawyers in Taiwan so that, if necessary, they can provide independent legal services to CC licenses users. We plan to organize seminars on public licensing, and CC licenses in particular, for intellectual property rights lawyers in order for them to familiarize with the licenses. It is hoped that in cases where there will be litigation in Taiwan about CC-licensed content, the parties involved will have access to lawyers who are already knowledgeable about the licenses.
A workshop on "Open Content, New Enterprise" (tentative name) has been planned for November this year. We expect the workshop to be a place where participants can share their experience and vision about open content, especially on issues of sustainability. International speakers and local activists will be invited to give their views on topics of business models, public participation, the role of government in this new enterprise, among others.
Creative Commons Taiwan is working on the functional requirement and technical specification of an "open content repository" where public licensed creative works can be easily deposited and retrieved. It is hoped that, by using such a repository, one can forge tighter bonds among individual content creators and users. The repository can function as an independent clearinghouse as well, in which the linkage between a piece of creative work, its author, and the license used can be recorded together and certified if necessary.
The Creative Commons Taiwan team currently consists of the following people (most are part-timers or volunteers): Wen-Yin Chou, Tyng-Ruey Chuang (public lead), Ya-Lei Ku, Jyh-An Lee, Shih-Chieh Li (a.k.a. Ilya Eric Lee), Ke-Huan "Jedi" Lin, Yi-Hsuan Lin (legal lead), Chien-Ting "Whiteg" Weng, and Hui-Ju Wu.
Creative Commons Taiwan has been supported by IIS/AS, and in part by grants from TIPO, CC/MOE, and the National Science Council.
Fig. 1. The logo for Creative Commons Taiwan
(design by Ching-I Roan and Creative Commons Taiwan).
Fig. 2. Localized "Some Rights Reserved" marks
(design by Ching-I Roan based on an original design of Creative Commons).
Fig. 3. A picture taken on November 13, 2005, outside the "CC Party" venue at Taipei NGO House
(photo by Tyng-Ruey Chuang).