We are gathering personal essays and reflections from people who helped build and shape Creative Commons during its CCi years: roughly 2003 to 2013, when Creative Commons International coordinated the worldwide porting of CC licenses and connected an extraordinary network of volunteers, scholars, artists, lawyers, educators, and technologists.
This decade marked a period of vibrant experimentation for Creative Commons with initiatives such as iCommons, Science Commons, ccLearn, and ccMixter that expanded the CC vision far beyond licenses. It was also a time when people across continents adapted CC to their local languages and legal systems, convened their own summits and workshops, and translated “the commons” into lived practice.
Together, this constellation of projects and people created an era of extraordinary collaboration that culminated in the launch of the global 4.0 license suite in 2013 and the transition toward the Creative Commons Global Network.
Creative Commons International: A Collected Memoir is an open (CC BY-SA 4.0), multilingual anthology of first-person stories from that formative decade. Its purpose is to preserve the diversity of experiences that shaped CC’s early international growth before those memories and archives fade.
We invite contributions from anyone who participated in Creative Commons during that time, whether as: members of CCi local teams or affiliates; participants in iCommons, Science Commons, ccLearn, ccMixter, or related efforts; CC staff, board, or legal experts; volunteers, event organizers, translators, or community advocates.
If you were part of Creative Commons’ global work in those years, your perspective belongs in this collection.
We welcome short written pieces (10,000 characters maximum) in any language. Possible directions:
You may also include photos, documents, or links that help illustrate your story.
The CCi decade was a legal and organizational experiment—and a human one. People around the world took a set of legal tools and turned them into a shared cultural movement. Capturing those experiences now will help future generations understand how Creative Commons became a truly global idea, and how much of that success depended on volunteer imagination, cross-cultural dialogue, and trust.
Your memories, however small or local, are part of that history.
Thank you for adding your voice.
Warm regards,
Tyng-Ruey Chuang and Mike Linksvayer
p.s. We’ve sent this invitation to potential contributors who we readily had contacts for; please feel free to forward to others we may have missed.
p.p.s. We plan to post updates on the website cci-memoir.commons.tw and @cci_memoir@social.coop.
When the opportunity to help launch ccLearn, a dedicated division of CC for education, arose, I didn’t hesitate to pursue it. I was hired as the inaugural executive director for ccLearn in mid-2007, with a subset of the CC board assigned as the steering committee, following a similar model to the establishment of Science Commons a few years earlier. In addition to the new job and a relocation from North Carolina to California, my wife and I had recently welcomed our second child, so it was a busy time. One of the first ‘official’ events I was able to attend was a meeting in Cape Town, co-organized by the Shuttleworth Foundation and the Open Society Institute, where we collectively drafted the Cape Town Open Education Declaration. At that meeting, I met many of the key people associated with CCi, iCommons, and with open education generally, many of whom remain good colleagues today. I like to think that I also helped assuage concerns some people had about the role CC intended to play in the education world and was able to clarify that our primary focus would be on the legal and technical infrastructure and associated processes pertaining to OER. I also have a vivid memory of a small group of us taking an afternoon to visit Cape Point, about 60 kilometers out of town. The scenery was fantastic, but it reminded me of the landscape in northern California, so I was in the middle of saying something to that effect when an ostrich ran across the road! It was an awesome and jarring reminder that I was indeed on a different continent on the other side of the world.
What followed was a whirlwind of convenings and conferences, white papers and journal articles, and some deep dives into the actual mechanics of improving educational access and outcomes via OER. We garnered financial and political support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the MacArthur Foundation, and others. There was enormous demand for targeted activism and localization of our work in various jurisdictions around the world, so we sought ways to advocate for regional convenings and to underwrite the associated costs. In Europe, participants were especially interested in the legal and technical aspects of growing and sustaining OER. In Asia, most of my conversations connected back to the OECD (which had released some seminal reports on the growth and promise of OER) and the potential impacts on economic activities and opportunities. In Latin America, the primary throughline focused on educational access, indigenous rights, and historical inequities, whether by policy or inertia. It seemed important to acknowledge and support these different motivations and maintain an emphasis on advancing our common cause in a manner that could accommodate the diversification on the ground.
These activities, along with similar insights and demands coming from other domains, provided much of the impetus for a number of CC projects that came to fruition around this time. For example, the process of ‘porting’ the CC licenses to be valid in each and every jurisdiction around the world was key to building a global community, but it also was fundamentally at odds with the intention to have a globally interoperable suite of legal instruments that would eliminate (as much as reasonably possible) friction to knowledge-sharing and adaptation. Thus, a project to build the universally compatible ‘v4.0’ license suite became a priority issue for the organization. That project concluded after I left the organization in 2010. On a different front, responding to some pressure from the broader community, CC decided to launch a more formal solution for dedicating any work to the public domain. I recall being in the conference room in the SF office when there was some debate about what to call this new thing. I pointed out that the existing licenses were distinguished by the specific rights that remained reserved (e.g., attribution, or no commercial use, etc). By extension of that logic, it made sense to me to call the new option ‘CC-Zero’ since, by definition, nothing was being reserved. Apparently that made sense to Lawrence Lessig as well because that’s where things ended up!
I was also one of the primary advocates for CC to dissolve the domain-specific organizations (e.g., Science Commons and ccLearn) in favor of having a single organization that could maintain a focus on any number of discipline-specific opportunities or areas of concern but could also benefit from cross-fertilization and collaboration. It seemed to me that was the sort of structure that best represented what CC was all about. I left the organization while much of that reorganization effort was in process. I don’t have a clear sense of how those types of changes affected the organization, but the fact that Creative Commons continues to evolve and thrive seems like a good sign.
There were a number of pretty memorable moments over the course of the three or so years I was a part of the organization. For example, the ccLearn division helped to organize a regional convening for Latin America in Santiago, Chile, graciously hosted by Claudio Ruiz (CC Chile affiliate at that time) and other Latin American affiliates. The meeting itself served its primary purpose of bringing people together to share concerns, brainstorm ideas, and pursue new collaborative opportunities. There were plenty of differences of opinion to navigate, including the structure and format of the meeting itself, all of which I took as a good sign of the level of investment and passion people brought to this work. More memorable was a field trip I took to Valparaíso with Werner Westerman (Director Ejecutivo, ONG Corporación Educalibre), Catharina Maracke (Director, CCi), and Grace Armstrong, an intern at CC. Werner showed us some of the hidden gems and lovely neighborhoods within the bluffs of Valparaíso. He and Grace had to leave midday, so Catharina and I stayed to explore a bit more on our own. Later that afternoon, as we were walking down a street from a viewpoint over the harbor, two young men held us up at gunpoint and snatched Catharina’s purse. They immediately took off running into the maze of streets and alleys that extend into the upper neighborhoods of the city. After a moment’s shock, Catharina exclaimed that her passport was in her purse. For some reason, that seemed like an especially big problem to me, so I ran after the thieves, yelling at them to give back the purse, or at least the passport. After several minutes of chasing them in and out of different streets and alleyways, one of them paused long enough to root through the purse and fling Catharina’s passport to the ground. I went and picked it up and decided I had what I had been chasing them for, so I stopped my chase. After reuniting with Catharina, some policemen came by and took a report. They expressed sympathy and some alarm at the presence of the gun, but as expected said there wasn’t any realistic chance of getting anything else back. Needless to say, it wasn’t the best way to end an otherwise enjoyable day in Valparaíso, but it was also a reminder for me that some dangers are pretty universal. I recall specifically feeling like our work on OER and international exchange was one small aspect of trying to make the world a slightly better place.
I also found the 2008 iSummit in Sapporo, Japan, to be quite memorable. There was the ‘sushi remix’ event at the olympics park, along with ski jumpers giving demonstrations of the sport (in summertime!). There was also a pretty incredible meal at a tiny Italian place with a Japanese chef that Juan Carlos de Martin (CC Italy) somehow found and raved about, and indeed exceeded expectations! After that conference, I had an extra day or two to explore Tokyo and managed to get completely lost one evening. These were the days before modern smartphones; I suspect people don’t really get lost like that any more.
But most of my memories are of my time at the SF office on 2nd Street, where our small team dared to dream of a future where the Internet remained a virtually wall-less space, where creativity flourished and knowledge was shared freely, and where the very processes of education, art, science, and nearly any endeavor were unbounded by legacy constraints from the analog world. I was especially proud of my team — Lila Bailey, Jane Park, Alex Kozak, and others — who collectively pursued our mission with passion, looking to tangibly improve educational outcomes in the United States and abroad. We tackled some pretty thorny problems and had some robust debates about how to get the outcomes we wanted to see. Our work ranged from testing and evaluating new practices in student journalism, to better tools for OER discovery, to guiding documents for better understanding and managing the various intersecting legal and technical issues — beyond copyright law — that also needed to be considered in educational practice. The Internet we have today — and the companies that largely control it — isn’t what we strived for, but there’s still a robust global community that keeps finding ways to do interesting things together, and which refuses to let those dreams die. Many of my colleagues from that time are still involved in the effort, and I’m glad I’ve had cause to keep collaborating and stay in touch with many of them.
]]>It would take nearly a decade, and a dictionary website with more than a few cracks, for that insight to change everything.
This moment arrived in October 2012, when a government advertisement admitting the incomprehensibility of a national budget went viral in Taiwan.2 A group of civic hackers, frustrated by how little the government trusted citizens with public information, decided to stop complaining and start building. They registered g0v.tw — a zero replacing the ‘o’ in gov.tw — and held their inaugural Hackathon at Academia Sinica Dec. 1, 2012.3
My connection to this world stretched back years. I was the original coder for Open Foundry, the free software forge hosted by Academia Sinica’s Institute of Information Science, the same institute where Tyng-Ruey Chuang — a key figure in Creative Commons Taiwan — worked.4 These communities overlapped inevitably.
At the next g0v Hackathon, Jan. 27, 2013, my old friend Ping Yeh — a quantum physicist turned Google engineer who had moved to California — joined remotely. He published a blog post titled Return Writing to the People 〈還文於民〉.5 His children were trying to learn Mandarin in the United States, and the Ministry of Education’s online dictionary was unusable. Built in 1996 on technology that predated modern web standards, it logged you out after 30 minutes — despite having no login button. It displayed rare characters as tiny bitmap images you could not copy or paste. It said “best viewed in IE 5 or Netscape 4.7+,” the plus being redundant since Netscape had long been discontinued. 20 years of procurement cycles had faithfully replicated these “cracks.”
Ping proposed a vision: download the dictionary data, clean it, structure it and rebuild it as a modern web application. Within 24 hours, dozens of hackers had done exactly that — scraping the HTML, converting it to structured data, building a website, an input method extension, offline and mobile apps.
With hundreds of people trying simultaneously to identify Unicode code points from those tiny bitmap characters, we overwhelmed Google Spreadsheets. We quickly shifted to EtherCalc, a real-time collaborative spreadsheet I built with Dan Bricklin’s help.6 On Feb. 1, 2013, I pushed the “First commit of prototype webkit client” — timestamped 2:02 a.m.
The domain Ping registered was 3du.tw — a play on edu.tw. We called the project 萌典 (MoeDict): 萌 for the Ministry of Education, or MOE, but also in the sense of “the first sprouting” — and yes, in the Japanese internet sense of something you find endearing. The name was a hack, just like the project.
Then came the legal problem. The MOE’s website declared “All copyrights reserved” and explicitly prohibited linking to individual dictionary entries. We were not linking — we had taken the entire dataset. In Taiwan at the time, this kind of reproduction could be criminal.
This is where Creative Commons engineered a sea change.
We released all our code and converted data under CC0. By claiming zero copyright ourselves, we made the government’s own data the only copyrighted material in play.
The strategy was precise: if we claimed no copyright over our work, we were only performing data conversion for the government. The proportion of original creative expression we claimed was exactly zero, matching the 100 percent of government data we had used. Proportional fair use.
CC0 also meant the MOE could merge our work back into their own systems without crediting us — without any legal friction. We were not building a rival; we were doing their work better and handing it back, as an extension of the public service the ministry was supposed to provide.
We had learned from what happened to the “Real Price Map” — a civic project by Google Taiwan engineers that used government real estate data and was closed down over copyright.7 Aaron Swartz’s prosecution was fresh on everyone’s mind.8 Everyone was well aware we could face criminal charges. MoeDict was hosted on servers in Tokyo, partly to complicate jurisdictional questions. We organized the work as distributed civil disobedience: dozens of people each downloading a portion, each asserting individual fair use, each relinquishing their own copyright. If one of us were prosecuted, everyone else could pick up where they left off.
While the MOE’s lawyers spent a year debating our case, we kept building. MoeDict grew to 7 million visits per month. When we added an Open Graph image generator — type any phrase and receive a banner in beautiful calligraphy — the site became a tool for civic mobilization. During the marriage equality movement, organizers used MoeDict to create shareable banners from dictionary definitions. We had redirected the Facebook algorithm with lexicography.
Then we launched a crowdsourced error-correction campaign. Our software identified dictionary entries that cited the same classical source but differed by one character — likely typos accumulated over decades. We asked readers to research which was correct. Within 18 days, we collected over 5,000 corrections.9 The MOE’s own parallel campaign had yielded about 6,000 total — the majority from MoeDict users.
On the day we delivered those corrections, the MOE gave us an award and declared our work fair use.10 The ministry could no longer take action against us — our contributors were their core constituency: teachers, students, linguists and language lovers. To go after us would mean going after them.
What happened next surprised even us. The project kept forking.
When I added Taigi (Taiwanese Hokkien) to MoeDict alongside Mandarin, the Google Play ratings dropped. Some users complained about “bloating their phones with a dialect they don’t use.” Within the Taigi community itself, factions disagreed over romanization — Pe̍h-ōe-jī versus Tâi-lô — and whether to use Chinese characters at all.
We held monthly MoeDict Hackathons and invited all factions. Because the code was open and the data was CC0, anyone who disagreed could fork the project. I wrote converters between romanization systems so each community could have the version they preferred. One fork, iTaigi, became popular by letting users add contemporary vocabulary — all the Pokemon names the MOE’s editorial board would take decades to approve.11
We digitized the Amis-Mandarin-English trilingual dictionary — an indigenous language treasure existing only as low-quality 1970s scans — in 2.5 days through crowdsourced OCR correction.12 Then came Hakka, followed by more Austronesian languages. Each community adapted the shared infrastructure to their own needs.
This was CC not as a static licence but as a living practice. The freedom to fork dissolved conflicts that no committee could resolve.
At the same time, I was working with Apple and Oxford University Press, helping prepare the MOE’s dictionary data for other platforms. I was, quite literally, taking all the sides. When there is no artificial scarcity, you can work with everyone at once.
After about two years, the MOE announced that all its dictionaries — past and future — would be released under Creative Commons. They chose CC BY-ND 3.0 Taiwan, restricting derivative works.13 But the shift was profound: from “all rights reserved, do not even link to us” to Creative Commons, because a few dozen people relinquished their own rights first.
Through g0v’s advocacy and MoeDict’s example, Taiwan’s ranking on the Global Open Data Index rose from 36th to 11th to 1st.14 A national regulation followed in 2015: any government system under US$1.5 million must now release its data under Creative Commons by default.15
In 2016, I joined the Cabinet as minister without portfolio responsible for Taiwan’s digital affairs; the news conference for my first day was held just before a MoeDict Hackathon. The same principles — radical transparency, rough consensus and running code — became part of national policy. Over the decade that followed, while democratic scores declined across much of the world, Taiwan’s rose on indexes from Freedom House, the Economist Intelligence Unit and V-Dem.16
Despite being the primary target of the largest foreign influence operations on earth,17 we remained among the least affectively polarized developed societies,18 and 91 percent of citizens continued to consider our democracy at least “fairly good.”19 The crack that let the light in had become a window onto an entire plural, caring society.
I look back on that period and see CC as a grammar for collaboration between people who may never meet. CC0 allowed us to make an irrefutable argument to a sceptical bureaucracy. CC BY-ND allowed the MOE to share while retaining the integrity it cared about. The freedom to fork allowed communities with irreconcilable differences to collaborate anyway.
Larry Wall, Perl’s creator, would say: instead of singularity, focus on plurality. That is what CC made possible for us. Not a single correct answer, but a shared infrastructure for many answers.
Today, the questions CC posed about sharing extend to the frontiers of machine learning. We call the answer Civic AI (仁工智慧): Replacing the 人 in artificial intelligence (人工智慧) with 仁, the character for civic care. Our 6-Pack of Care framework is CC0.20 The forks keep forking.
There is a Leonard Cohen verse I often return to: “There is a crack in everything, and that is how the light gets in.” A 20-year-old dictionary website, cracked in every technical sense, let the light of a movement through. Creative Commons was the framework that ensured nobody monopolised that light, and that everyone could help it shine on.
]]>這份洞見，歷經近十年光陰，透過一座千瘡百孔的詞典網站，才徹底改變了一切。
這個轉捩點出現在 2012 年 10 月。當時，一支坦承國家預算令人費解的政府宣傳廣告，在臺灣網路上瘋傳。2 一群對政府不信任公民能取得公開資訊而深感挫折的「公民黑客」，決定不再只是抱怨，而是動手打造解方。他們註冊了 g0v.tw——用數字 0 取代 gov.tw 中的 o——並於 2012 年 12 月 1 日在中研院舉辦了首次黑客松。3
我與這個圈子的淵源可追溯至多年以前。我是「自由軟體鑄造場」（Open Foundry）的初代開發者，該平台託管於中研院資訊科學研究所，而這正是推動臺灣創用 CC 的關鍵人物——莊庭瑞所任職的機構。4 這些社群的交會，可說是水到渠成。
在 2013 年 1 月 27 日的下一場 g0v 黑客松上，我的老友葉平（從量子物理學家轉職 Google 工程師，當時已移居加州）透過遠端參與。他發表了一篇名為「還文於民」的部落格文章。5 他的孩子當時正在美國學習華語，卻發現教育部線上詞典難以使用。這個建於 1996 年的網站，技術遠早於現代網頁標準：雖然沒有登入按鈕，卻會在 30 分鐘後自動登出；罕見字以無法複製貼上的微小點陣圖呈現；還標註「建議使用 IE 5 或 Netscape 4.7+ 瀏覽」——那個「+」根本多餘，因為 Netscape 早已停產。二十年的政府採購週期，忠實複製了這些「裂痕」。
葉平提出願景：下載詞典資料、清理並結構化，然後重建為現代網頁應用程式。短短 24 小時內，數十位黑客就精準實現了這一切——爬取 HTML、轉換為結構化資料、打造網站、輸入法擴充功能，以及離線與行動版本。
當數百人同時試圖從那些微小點陣圖中辨識 Unicode 碼位時，我們瞬間塞爆了 Google 試算表。於是我們迅速轉移到 EtherCalc——這是我在 Dan Bricklin 協助下開發的即時協作試算表。6 2013 年 2 月 1 日凌晨 2 點 2 分，我推送了「原型 webkit 客戶端的首次提交」。
葉平註冊的網域是 3du.tw——和 edu.tw 形似。我們將專案命名為「萌典」（MoeDict）：「萌」既指教育部（MOE），也帶有「萌芽、初生」的意涵，當然還包含日系網路文化中那種可愛、令人心動的感覺。這個名字本身就是個黑客趣味，正如整個專案一樣。
接著，法律問題浮上檯面。教育部的網站聲明「版權所有，翻印必究」，並明文禁止連結至個別詞典條目。而我們不僅是連結，更是將整個資料集都搬了過來。在當時的臺灣，這種重製行為可能觸犯刑責。
這正是創用 CC 發揮關鍵轉變的時刻。
我們將所有程式碼與轉換後的資料以 CC0（公眾領域貢獻宣告）釋出。透過主張自身著作權為零，我們讓政府的資料成為這場行動中唯一受版權保護的內容。
這個策略極為精準：若我們對自己的貢獻不主張任何著作權，那麼我們就只是替政府執行資料轉換工作。我們所主張的原創表達比例為絕對的零，正好對應我們使用的 100% 政府資料。這正是合乎比例原則的合理使用。
CC0 也意味著教育部能順暢地將我們的成果併回自家系統，無需標記我們的貢獻。我們不是在打造競爭對手，而是把他們的工作做得更好，然後交還給他們，成為教育部本該提供的公共服務的延伸。
我們從「實價登錄地圖」事件中吸取教訓——那是由 Google 臺灣工程師發起的公民專案，使用政府不動產資料，卻因著作權問題被迫關閉。7 Aaron Swartz 遭起訴的悲劇也記憶猶新。8 大家都很清楚，我們可能面臨刑事指控。因此萌典主機架設在東京，部分原因便是讓管轄權更複雜。我們將這項工作組織成分散式的公民不服從：數十人各自下載一部分資料、各自主張合理使用、各自放棄自身著作權。若有人被起訴，其他人能立刻接手繼續。
就在教育部法務人員花了一整年爭論我們的案件時，我們持續開發。萌典流量成長至每月 700 萬造訪。當我們加入 Open Graph 圖片產生器（輸入任何詞彙，就能生成一張優美書法字體的分享圖）後，這個網站成了公民動員的利器。在婚姻平權運動中，組織者利用萌典將詞典釋義製作成易分享的橫幅。我們用詞典學，重新導向了 Facebook 的演算法。
接著，我們發起群眾外包的挑錯活動。我們的程式找出那些引用同一古籍出處、卻有一字之差的條目——這些很可能是數十年累積的錯字。我們邀請讀者考證正確版本。短短 18 天，我們蒐集超過 5,000 筆勘誤。9 而教育部平行進行的除錯活動，總共也只收到約 6,000 筆——其中大多數仍來自萌典使用者。
在我們交付這些勘誤的當天，教育部頒獎給我們，並宣告我們的行為屬於合理使用。10 教育部再也無法對我們採取行動——因為我們的貢獻者，正是他們的核心服務對象：教師、學生、語言學家與語言愛好者。對付我們，等同對付他們自己。
接下來的事連我們自己都感到驚訝：這個專案不斷「分岔」（forking）。
當我在萌典的華語之外，加入臺灣台語時，Google Play 評分下滑。有些使用者抱怨「用一個他們用不到的方言佔用手機空間」。而在台語社群內部，不同派系對羅馬拼音用法也有激烈分歧——白話字（Pe̍h-ōe-jī）對決臺羅（Tâi-lô）——甚至連是否該使用漢字都爭論不休。
我們每月舉辦萌典松，邀請所有派系參與。因為程式碼開源、資料採 CC0，任何意見不同的人都能直接「分岔」專案。我撰寫了各羅馬拼音系統間的轉換器，讓每個社群都能擁有偏好的版本。其中一個分岔專案「iTaigi」（愛台語）大受歡迎，因為它允許使用者新增現代詞彙——包括那些若交由教育部編輯委員會審核，可能要花上幾十年才會通過的寶可夢名字。11
我們透過群眾外包 OCR 校正，在兩天半內將《阿美語-國語-英語三語辭典》數位化——這是珍貴的原住民族語言寶典，原本僅存低畫質的 1970 年代掃描檔。12 接著是客語，然後是更多南島語言。每個社群都依自身需求，改造這個共享基礎設施。
這正是創用 CC 不只是靜態授權條款，更是一種鮮活實踐。「分岔的自由」化解了任何委員會都無法解決的衝突。
同一時期，我也與蘋果和牛津大學出版社合作，協助教育部詞典資料準備上架其他平台。毫不誇張地說，我同時站在所有陣營。當不存在人為製造的稀缺性時，你就能與所有人同時合作。
大約兩年後，教育部宣布所有過去與未來的詞典，都將以創用 CC 授權釋出。他們選擇了「CC 姓名標示-禁止改作 3.0 臺灣」（CC BY-ND 3.0 Taiwan），限制衍生作品。13 但這仍是深刻的轉變：從「版權所有，甚至連結都不准」，走向創用 CC，而這一切，源自最初幾十個人先放棄了自己的權利。
透過 g0v 的倡議與萌典的示範，臺灣在「全球開放資料指標」（Global Open Data Index）的排名，從第 36 名躍升至第 11 名，最終登上第 1 名。14 隨後在 2015 年，國家頒布新規：任何建置經費未達五千萬元的政府資訊系統，預設都必須以創用 CC 相容授權釋出資料。15
2016 年，我入閣擔任負責數位事務的行政院政務委員；上任第一天的記者會，就安排在萌典松之前。同樣的原則——基進透明（radical transparency）、粗略的共識（rough consensus）與進擊的程式（running code）——成為國家政策的一部分。在接下來的十年，當全球許多地方的民主評分下滑之際，臺灣在自由之家（Freedom House）、經濟學人智庫（EIU）以及 V-Dem 等指標上的排名卻持續上升。16
儘管我們是世界上最大規模境外影響力操作的首要目標，17 我們仍是情感極化程度最低的已開發社會之一，18 且有高達 91% 的公民認為我們的民主至少「還算不錯」。19 那道讓光透進來的裂痕，已成為一扇窗，映照出一個多元且相互關懷的社會。
回顧那段時光，我將創用 CC 視為一種文法，讓素昧平生的人們得以相互協作。CC0 讓我們能向充滿戒心的官僚體系，提出無可辯駁的論據。CC BY-ND 讓教育部得以在分享的同時，保留他們重視的完整性。而分岔的自由，則讓存在不可調和分歧的社群，依然能夠並肩前行。
Perl 創造者 Larry Wall 曾說：與其追求單一的奇點（singularity），不如擁抱多元（plurality）。這正是創用 CC 為我們開創的可能——不是單一標準答案，而是一個能容納無數答案的共享基礎設施。
如今，創用 CC 對「分享」的叩問，已延伸至機器學習的前沿。我們的回應是「仁工智慧」（Civic AI）：將人工智慧的「人」替換為「仁」，象徵公民關懷。我們的「關懷六力」（6-Pack of Care）架構同樣以 CC0 釋出。20 這場分岔，仍在持續不斷地分岔下去。
我常反覆咀嚼 Leonard Cohen 的歌詞：「萬事萬物都有缺口，缺口就是光的入口。」一座擁有 20 年歷史、技術上千瘡百孔的詞典網站，讓一場運動的光芒得以透進。創用 CC 正是確保沒有人能壟斷這道光，並讓每個人都能幫助它持續閃耀的框架。
]]>后来在郑毅和辛省志的引荐下我在中国人民大学法学院见到了CC中国大陆项目的负责人王春燕教授。王老师当时跟我说：“捍东，你有兴趣加入CC中国大陆项目吗？”，这对于当时的我来说是个莫大的荣幸，当时我离职已经半年多，在北京的当代艺术圈也才是初入其中没有什么名气，作品销售没有起色没有固定的收入来源，艺术创作之余还有大量的空闲时间，最主要的还是CC中国大陆项目当时有基金会提供资助会为项目成员提供一些劳务费的补助，我当时便高兴的应允了。
我记得加入CC中国大陆项目后我参与的第一份工作便是在王老师的带领下和项目成员一起策划2007年首届知识共享CC摄影大赛，当时也得到了新摄影网蔡青先生的大力支持，还有王老师的很多学生志愿者也参与其中，大赛以“知识共享”为主题，旨在使更多人关注、了解知识共享的价值理念。自开赛以来，得到了广大摄影爱好者和网友的热烈支持。首届CC摄影大赛社会人文、自然环境、人物肖像三个类别共收到3000多名网友的10000余幅高水平的参赛作品。这些作品充分反映了中国当时的社会人文、自然风貌和中国当时社会各界人物的风采。最终评出三类78幅获奖作品，首届CC摄影大赛的参与者很多都不是职业摄影师，他们大多是活跃于网络的摄友。
2007年11月4日，首届知识共享Creative Commons摄影大赛颁奖仪式暨获奖作品展在国家图书馆文会堂举行，活动由颁奖仪式及CC摄影沙龙两部分组成，时任知识共享组织（Creative Commons）理事会主席Joi Ito先生更是亲自莅临现场并为获奖摄影师颁奖，当年的许多细节已模糊，但CC志愿者们在现场奔波的背影，却是我记忆深处的动人画面，那些在现场默默付出的CC志愿者们确保了这场活动的顺利运转。从文会堂展览作品的场地布置、作品的悬挂，到颁奖典礼当天的引导、接待，他们忙碌的身影穿梭在每一个角落。是他们的无私奉献，才让这场活动得以顺畅、圆满地呈现。2007年首届知识共享（Creative Commons）摄影大赛是当时的中国摄影界与知识产权开放领域一次非常重要的互动。这次活动不仅展示了优秀的摄影作品，更重要的是推广了“部分权利保留”这一在当时相对新颖的版权理念。
时间进入2008年，北京的空气里总弥漫着一种躁动的活力。以刚兴起的798艺术区为焦点的艺术圈像个巨大的磁场，吸引了年轻人的关注。也是在那一年，我们通过中国大陆当时最早采用CC协议的当代艺术家曹斐认识了用声音创作的颜峻——一个总能把日常噪音变成诗的诗人。正是这场相遇，促成了由CC中国大陆项目和撒把芥末/观音唱片合作制作的中国大陆地区第一张采用CC协议发布的正式出版实验音乐CD《Noise Is Free》的诞生。
2008年6月17日，第四届迷你迷笛音乐节（Mini Midi 2008）作品合辑《Noise Is Free》在“两个好朋友酒吧”成功举行了首发活动，这是一个令人难忘的夜晚，来自艺术、媒体、音乐等领域的CC支持者齐聚一堂，在愉悦、轻松的氛围下共同度过了这个美好的时刻，充分感受音乐的自由与分享的乐趣。《Noise Is Free》合辑收录的主要是2008年5月1日至3日在“两个好朋友酒吧”举行的第四届迷你迷笛音乐节参与者的实验音乐作品。首发仪式由颜峻先生主持，知识共享中国大陆项目负责人王春燕教授到场表示祝贺并与嘉宾分享了这张CD诞生的意义。本人作为CC中国大陆项目成员代表向来宾介绍了CC中国大陆版知识共享许可协议的产生及发展历史，演示了如何使用协议发布作品。用CC协议发布作品的乐队代表怀丁陛士德等三支乐队为来宾带来了精彩的现场表演。
主要来自中国人民大学法学院的CC志愿者们也在活动现场通过各种形式向表演者和乐迷宣传知识共享的理念，悉心解答大家提出的关于传统版权与知识共享协议之间的关系等问题，让来宾们了解到知识共享协议对促进音乐等文化成果的传播与保护方面所起到的积极作用。在活动现场由CC中国大陆项目专门为此次活动制作的纪念T恤和其他一系列免费派发的CC纪念品也受到现场嘉宾和乐迷的欢迎。我还清楚记得当时在活动现场有一位喜欢音乐刚好网名叫CC的天津女孩，也对知识共享的分享理念产生兴趣并在现场临时充当起CC志愿者，她穿着印有“Creative Commons”图案的T恤，活泼地穿梭在人群里向大家分发CC的宣传资料。CC志愿者们像蒲公英一样，把“知识共享”的种子撒向了每一个角落。
2008年的夏天来得格外热烈，北京满大街都是奥运的气息，而我的记忆却定格在为“观看中国”CC摄影作品展去日本CC全球峰会上展出奔忙的7月。作为 “观看中国” CC 摄影作品展活动策展团队的主要执行者之一，时隔多年，那些筹备细节仍历历在目。
“观看中国CC摄影作品展”由中国著名的摄影评论家、时任新华社高级图片编辑陈小波担任主策展人，CC中国大陆项目主办。展出作品由两部分组成，展览的主体来自十位中国重要的当代摄影家用CC协议授权发布的摄影作品。此次资深摄影家开始接受并使用CC协议发布自己的作品，在摄影领域产生了深远的影响。展览中另一部分入选的是2007年首届CC摄影大赛部分获奖作品，他们与那些前辈摄影家们同样是时代的记录者和见证者。CC协议在摄影界的推广不仅促进了摄影人重新认识版权，尊重他人的知识成果，更重要的是知识共享、协同创作、重新演绎等CC理念在摄影创作上改变了摄影人传统的思维定势和创作理念，进一步促进了摄影语言和摄影行为的创新。
这些摄影作品打包整整装了4大箱，在CC中国大陆项目团队成员的共同努力下，所有参展作品都顺利通关，踏上了前往北海道的旅程。抵达札幌后，最紧张也最富挑战的是布展工作。我们有幸与主策展人陈小波老师一起并肩作战，陈老师对影像的敏锐度和对空间的掌控力，都让我受益匪浅。我们常常为了一个作品的摆放位置，反复推敲。参与布展的还有CC中国大陆项目的负责人王春燕老师，项目成员郑毅、施松等同事，我们从午后忙到深夜，直到展厅里的影像串联起完整的观看中国叙事。展览期间我们也得到了CC台湾项目负责人庄庭瑞先生，周文茵小姐等很多朋友们的帮助和支援。
2008年7月29日，“观看中国”CC摄影作品展在日本札幌与CC全球峰会（iSummit’08）同期开幕，此次峰会有来自全球70多个国家和地区的500多名互联网界、企业界、艺术界的精英共同参与。为了利用这次契机加强与国际摄影界和知识共享领域的文化交流与合作，CC中国大陆项目受邀在全球峰会期间举办此次摄影展览。这也是中国国内首次采用CC协议的摄影作品组团出国展览。
“观看中国CC摄影作品展”得以顺利举行，我们当时还得到了来自日本札幌市政府、福特基金会、08 CC全球峰会组委会、CC日本团队等组织和机构的大力支持。也为当时的中国和日本摄影界创造了一个很好的交流窗口。
2009年冬，为了进一步加强与中国当代艺术圈的互动，通过艺术作品推广CC分享理念和普及CC协议的使用，CC中国大陆项目团队邀请知名策展人吴鸿先生一起策划了“混合与分享”CC综合艺术展，筹备初期，我们与策展人吴鸿老师达成共识：展览须兼具学术深度与公众参与度。我们希望通过艺术作品的力量，让更多人了解并接受CC协议的理念。在不到一个月的时间里，展览作品征集活动收到了200多位艺术家提交的作品或方案，作品涵盖了新媒体、装置、影像、架上绘画等各种类型，每一份作品都承载着艺术家对“共享”理念的独特诠释。我们与策展人吴鸿老师一起反复斟酌展厅空间与主题的契合度，此次展出的作品是根据展厅空间及展览主题精选出的60位艺术家采用CC协议发布的作品。同时，展览还特别邀请了曹斐、颜峻、吴小军、刘伟等多位知名当代艺术家采用CC 协议发布的作品参展。布展过程中我们一起协助调试新媒体作品的投影与声音同步，与装置艺术家共同现场推敲作品的尺寸与角度，我们的努力付出使每一件参展作品得以最终在开幕式上顺利呈现在来宾面前，那是中国当代艺术界首次大规模集中践行知识共享（CC）理念的实践。
2009年12月13日，“混合与分享”CC综合艺术展，在北京798艺术区映艺术中心隆重开幕。开幕式当天200余位来宾挤满了展厅，知识共享中国大陆项目负责人王春燕教授；策展人吴鸿先生；CC台湾项目负责人庄庭瑞先生；CC香港法律项目负责人、香港大学法学院李亚虹教授；CC澳大利亚项目成员侍孝祥先生等来宾莅临现场并致辞。CC中国大陆项目负责人王春燕教授代表主办方致欢迎词时诠释了此次联动艺术界举办综合艺术展的缘由——开启并推动本土艺术作品合法分享、促进创造性活动的发展并丰富创造性作品，CC中国大陆项目致力于在教育、科学、文化、和艺术等不同领域推动知识共享运动。这次展览得到当代艺术家广泛响应，也是自CC协议发布以来CC国际项目一次大规模的使用CC协议艺术作品的集中展出，艺术家开始接受并使用CC协议发布自己的作品，这也说明CC协议这种灵活的著作权行使方式在中国当代艺术领域得到了高度认可。
值得一提的是，CC中国大陆项目团队成员也在开幕式上集体亮相，对艺术家和公众的支持进行答谢。另外，现场还能看见许多热情细致的CC志愿者团队的志愿者们，他们参与了这次展览前期准备和开幕式及论坛服务，CC项目成员和志愿者的无间合作和奉献让展览得以顺利举行。
今天是2026年3月5日，昨夜下的雪让窗外的世界一片银装素裹，清晨室内气温有些冷。现在回望之前的这20年，我从三十而立的清瘦小伙子，成长为如今身形发福即将步入知天命的年纪，2007-2012这五年是我人生中特别有意义和有价值的五年，这五年时间里通过参与CC的各项工作认识了很多有意思的朋友，也让自己的人生境界和思想得到了提升。这五年也是我人生转折跨度比较大的五年，2007年离职之前的公司加入CC中国大陆项目，2008年结婚组建自己的小家庭，2010年孩子出生后经济压力开始加大，从那开始我便逐步筹建自己的建筑摄影工作室，开始转型成为职业的建筑摄影师。到2012年我自己的建筑摄影工作室正式成立，我便慢慢退出了CC中国大陆项目的日常工作，但和CC的同事们一直保持着紧密的联系，在王老师的带领下，我们在北京工作生活的同事们还保留着每年农历春节前后举办一次聚会的传统，每年我们通过聚会知道大家的近况，李旭、郑毅、辛省志、徐建萍、刘萍、杨飞、韩雪、孙蓓蓓和许多曾经一起参与CC推广工作的志愿者们，如今大家都在全球各地忙着自己的事业和人生，大家都在为教育、法律、艺术、政府等各领域做着不同的贡献，我从当时立志成为艺术家的艺术青年，现如今转型成为一名职业建筑摄影师，唯一没变的是我还在用相机当做创作的工具，CC当年带给我的分享理念至今仍在工作中影响我的创作观念，也成为我生活中为人处事的行为哲理。
我真的很怀念那个意气风发的年代和年轻的自己，因为那段经历让我的人生更丰满，更有厚度，如今的世界有些混乱不堪，不断的战争让人心生恐惧，CC所倡导的分享理念在这个世界更是显得弥足珍贵。CC中国大陆项目自成立以来，已经与教育、艺术、文化等各领域进行了广泛合作，CC协议在中国的普及不仅促进了大众重新认识知识产权，尊重他人的知识成果，更重要的是加速了知识的共享与传播，促进了文化创意产业的繁荣发展。
2026年3月5日
写于北京市通州区
For me, the concept of the Commons was foundational. Later, when I was a board member of Creative Commons, I found it very interesting that every single board member gave a different answer when I asked each to define what the Commons meant to them. For the academics, the crucial issue was that the cost was free, and they were willing to sacrifice some rights in order to achieve that. But as a business, I saw rights as the most important thing — specifically, the right of a creator to create something new without requiring permission, regardless of the field of endeavour. For me, price was not an obstacle as long as it was low, reasonable and automatic.
Creative Commons gave me a business advantage over the competition because, by virtue of their being closed, they had to pay for all their marketing, visibility and awareness of their music. Using Creative Commons, I was able to leverage the creator economy, the pirate community, mixtape fans, videographers and so many other people who needed music.
I remember being invited to present the open culture argument to the French government. I told them that French culture was at a disadvantage to English-language culture, but that sharing could essentially be weaponised as a marketing approach to promote French culture. The worst thing for a creator is not making no money. The worst thing is for no one to see your work.
When I set up my Magnatune website, I licensed all the music under a Creative Commons non-commercial share-alike licence. This enabled the music to be widely distributed, but anyone who wanted to use it commercially would have to pay. I specifically stated that commercial use would not be prohibited, and I provided the terms and costs for switching from non-commercial to commercial use upfront. This enabled creators to decide whether to use my work from the outset, rather than facing unexpected issues later on, such as permission being withheld or the cost being too high, which was a common problem with the non-commercial restricted licence that from other musicians (not on Magnatune).
This approach worked well for many years. The Creative Commons licence meant that my music was widely heard by both the public and creators. Music licensing revenue from converting non-commercial use to commercial use was also quite good. However, I was eventually squeezed out of the market by competitors who kept reducing their prices, until all the companies in the music licensing business were wiped out by AI music generation. Magnatune’s 23-year run was longer than that of most companies.
I was heavily involved with CC Mixter for two reasons. This was Creative Commons’ audio remix website. First, Victor Stone, the programmer of that project, was a friend and a Magnatune musician. Secondly, CC Mixter was an attempt to solve the problems caused by having so many different Creative Commons licences. In an attempt to satisfy many people and needs, quite a few different, mutually incompatible Creative Commons licences had been created. In practice, this made mixing several works impossible, as each licence had different provisions. By standardising on one Creative Commons licence, CC Mixter solved this problem.
Another benefit of CC Mixter’s collaboration with Magnatune was offering amateur remixers a path to commercial success. We held several remix contests on CC Mixter and I selected the best entries to create remix albums, which were then sold to consumers, as well as to videographers and advertisers through third-party download sites. Some remixers received thousands of dollars in payment for their work from CC Mixter.
I think something crucial to the success of Creative Commons was Larry Lessig’s early understanding of the need not to reject the commercial internet. Distribution costs money, and the worst thing for an artist is to go unheard. Creative Commons engaged with the commercial economy from the outset, and Magnatune was part of that trend.
]]>Around 2005 we began producing video projects. That confronted us with a practical problem: finding music we could license in a flexible way. Traditional stock libraries existed, but licensing music directly from independent artists was surprisingly difficult. Because we already knew Creative Commons from publishing, we started exploring whether similar licensing principles could work for music.
This exploration led to the launch of Tribe of Noise in 2008. Musicians could upload their music and experiment with different licensing models, including Creative Commons for part of their repertoire. The goal was simple: make it easier for media makers to find music and for independent musicians to reach audiences and opportunities.
What always impressed me about Creative Commons was the design of the licenses themselves. They operate on three levels: a full legal text, a human-readable explanation, and machine-readable metadata for the web. I still use this layered approach as an example of how one legal framework can serve very different audiences without losing clarity.
Over time I became involved in the Creative Commons Global Network. My hope was that chapters—particularly in Europe—could strengthen each other by sharing knowledge and coordinating efforts, for example in Brussels. In practice this turned out to be harder than expected. Attempts to stimulate collaboration between European chapters generated interest but rarely translated into sustained joint initiatives.
During those years I also occasionally challenged Creative Commons headquarters to take stronger positions on issues affecting contemporary creators.
Creative Commons has been extremely successful in opening access to cultural heritage and knowledge, particularly through partnerships with museums, archives, libraries, and educational institutions. Those efforts have unlocked enormous amounts of material for the public.
At the same time, I sometimes felt that less attention was given to the position of current and future creators. The internet has made sharing easier than ever, but it has also created new asymmetries of power where large technology platforms benefit from creative work produced by millions of individuals.
This tension became even more visible with the rise of artificial intelligence. As AI systems began training on massive amounts of online content—including openly licensed works—I raised concerns that creators’ work was being scraped to build systems that might eventually compete with them.
Within Creative Commons there were thoughtful discussions about AI, but some argued that AI was not primarily a copyright issue and therefore outside the organization’s scope. From a strict legal perspective that may make sense, but from the perspective of creators the connection feels obvious.
Despite these debates, my appreciation for Creative Commons licenses has never changed. They remain one of the most elegant legal tools created for the internet: understandable, globally applicable, and strong enough to stand up in court.
A moment that captured the spirit of the commons for me happened when the future of the Free Music Archive became uncertain.
Creative Commons headquarters reached out and asked whether I might be willing to help keep the archive alive. The initial conversation was about the possibility of making a substantial financial contribution to support the project. During that discussion the question gradually shifted: instead of supporting the archive from the outside, would we consider taking responsibility for its future?
Our answer was that if we were to take on that responsibility, we wanted to do it properly. We committed to rebuilding the entire digital infrastructure of the archive to make it far more stable and reliable. The goal was simple: reduce outages to almost zero and ensure that this commons of music could remain accessible to creators around the world.
That is exactly what we did.
For me that moment captured something essential about the commons: it survives because people step in when it matters.
The commons is not only about preserving culture from the past. It is also about ensuring that the next generation of creators can contribute to—and benefit from—a shared cultural ecosystem.
Creative Commons has provided the legal infrastructure for that ecosystem. The challenge ahead is making sure the creators who sustain it also have a future within it.
Kind regards,
Hessel aka ‘Chief of Noise’
This all started for me back in 1993. In 1993 I had something very few people had: I had a website. Nobody else I knew had a website, almost nobody else I knew even knew what a website was. My access to the internet was infrequent and expensive, so my website didn’t change too often. But I was very interested in the web and the internet and I knew I wanted to do something with that. My computer wasn’t much, it had a built in cassette player for software and updating my website meant dialing (slowly) into another computer elsewhere. Nowadays this is called cloud computing and is ruining things for everyone, but back then it was called a shell account and was quite a nice thing. By this point in time, I was already aware of free software. My shell account had quite a lot of it and I even had a few programs on disk for my home computer (staunch defender of cassette tapes for sharing software, even I had to admit that adding a disk drive made using it a lot nicer) and it made a lot of sense to me. I wanted to make sure my next computer could run Linux.
Now in 1993 putting video my website wasn’t something I’d considered (images weren’t even a thing on websites at the time) but I was very interested in making videos, so I took a VHS camcorder and went to visit the offices of my favorite computer magazine — Amstrad Action — on a school day trip to Bath. I don’t think I ever did anything with the footage, because editing meant laboriously playing the tape and recording a copy on another VCR. It was dull. In 1999, I started writing a movie about a pigeon. I don’t think we ever filmed more than a few scenes, and editing those together on a computer felt like even of a chore than the VHS editing process did at the time but I do remember watching back the few minutes of footage on my computer, and I wanted more of that.
I’ve never had a great relationship with the idea of “All Rights Reserved” — whenever I’ve written things for other people, I’ve always felt like I wanted to be able to do more with it than the people I was working for would let me, but working for other people who had better equipment than I did felt like it would be the only way I’d ever get anything I wanted to make seen by anyone else, because software something that hobbyists and tinkerers could do, whereas video was expensive and something for the very serious people in industry. This feeling stuck with me for a long, long time.
Then along came digital video and Firewire. Suddenly if you had a computer with a Firewire port (all the new Macs had one, some Sony laptops had one) and a video camera that had one you could suddenly edit video in a way that didn’t feel like a chore. And by now websites did support images. We even had multiple incompatible ways to put videos on websites. Suddenly everything started to fall into place. I could write things on my computer, film them, edit them and put them on the web for people to find them and watch them. Of course, most people wouldn’t watch them and they were hard to find and playing them was still more of a chore than it ought to be, but things were getting a lot better and quickly. And you could easily make a DVD from your video and burn it to a DVD. Steve Jobs was definitely doing it with all of his holiday photos.
When I read (some of) “Free Culture”, I started to think about what it might be like if we could take the ideas of free software and Linux, and apply those to videos. We could take pieces of other people’s videos and put them in our own. Legally, too. I set about making a website all about this, and pretty quickly I stopped worrying about people finding my own things as I’d stopped making things to make a website about making things instead. I started telling everyone I met about this website, and people really liked the idea. People still didn’t do anything about it, because it was still really difficult to get people to watch things but the idea was cool. I told people if they made something to email me, and I’d put it on my website. I would take all the hassle out of putting it online and do it for them!
YouTube is an American online video sharing platform owned by Google1
I will admit I didn’t initially hear about YouTube because at the time YouTube needed Flash Player to play videos and by this time I’d installed Linux on my Mac and therefore couldn’t use Flash Player if I wanted to, so I definitely missed out on some of that early YouTube hype and have consistently failed to realize that goal of getting everyone to share things and put them on my website. That website no longer exists, but in making that website I did get to work on things with the Students for Free Culture and help start Free Culture UK. I also got a job working full time on free software stuff, and then a different job working on even more free software stuff, but it didn’t matter because of the next few things that happened.
Firstly, while working at this free software job I got to include Creative Commons licenses into the project: I was building a social network for scientists. Secondly, while working at this job some friends of mine started working on an ambitious video project that used free culture licenses, and I got to write and (almost) “star” in an episode. And then finally, I got to wrap all of this stuff up in a video about free software, written by me and starring none other than Stephen Fry! It’s on YouTube (amongst other places) and I’m hugely proud of it, even almost 20 years later.
That video got me a job at the Free Software Foundation and I moved to the US. I got to know lots of very cool people who knew all about free software and free culture. In 2009, I put all my work on free software and free culture together finally and launched Libre.fm, a music community website for keeping track of your listening habits and discovering new free culture music. Later I even got to work at Creative Commons for a while. And in 2015, everything finally came together when I launched my crowdfunding campaign for my film: “Orang-U: An Ape Goes To College” — the first feature length live action movie written and edited with free software! Or so I think. I haven’t found anything which suggests this isn’t true. I got to show it off back at the Creative Commons summit in Toronto back in 2018!
I took this whole story and turned it into a one-man show and toured it across the UK back in 2015. I was interviewed for Computerphile about my work with free software and that video continues to get me recognized in the most unlikeliest of places. Libre.fm still exists too. 17 years later, I’m still running it and still working on it. It has over 387,000 users and they’ve listened to a combined 328,477,987 songs. Every single one of those listens has a unique URL like a social media post and each of those posts is also licensed under a free culture license. Libre.fm also spun off a social network of its own along the way and eventually that work would emerge into the Mastodon project which remains forever under a free software license due to the initial concerns about keeping things compatible with Libre.fm.
And my movie had a spin-off tie-in book as all low budget movies are supposed to, and we’re currently working on a whole batch of sequels to be filmed at some point in the next few years as time and money allow. I’m still working on all things free: looking at tabletop games and yet more weird and interesting software projects for the future, while trying to find a job and avoid the so-called “AI” scrapers and bots which seek to destroy all this hard work for all of us.
Matt Lee, somewhere near Boston. March 2026.
(written with free software)
Over the years, several experiences have left a lasting impression on me. One of them was when CC TW invited experts from various fields to discuss how to localize the term “Creative Commons”, helping the local public better understand and remember it. After many discussions, we decided to add two Traditional Chinese characters — 創 (chuang, meaning “creation”) and 用 (yong, meaning “public use” and “participation”) — in front of “CC” [to form the local term “創用 CC” for “Creative Commons”]. This experience shows how much effort CC TW put into promoting CC — even down to a single term.
Another memorable experience came not long after CC licenses were introduced in Taiwan. CC TW received an invitation to present CC licenses and their core concepts to the Chief of the Copyright Division at Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO). This demonstrated the high-level attention CC licenses received in Taiwan. In fact, the “Topic Research” section on TIPO’s website has been released under CC licenses since 2001 (see https://www.tipo.gov.tw/tw/copyright/736.html).
To me, CC licenses could be considered as a way to loosen the constraints of traditional copyright laws. Through participating in the localization and promotion of CC licenses in Taiwan over the years, I have witnessed how grassroots power successfully coalesced to change the way people comply with copyright laws.
No matter how many years have gone by, I always believe that a single act of kindness can inspire countless others — just like the core spirit of CC licenses: Sharing!
]]>此外，自 2006 年 5 月 5 日《創用 CC 電子報》創刊之初，我也有幸即參與其中，撰譯過幾期電子報的〈CC 報新聞〉專欄（按：報導國內外 CC 相關的要聞）和〈CC 放大鏡〉（按：關於 CC 以及 CC 授權的專題報導）。我印象特別深刻的是，在創刊號的〈淺談創用CC授權條款——一種現行著作權體制下的彈性授權模式〉一文中，提到了 Creative Commons 在台灣為何譯作「創用CC」的由來及經過：CC TW 團隊在 2005 年底，邀請多個領域的專家一同討論 “Creative Commons” 一詞如何中譯為好，最後採取保留 “Creative Commons” 的縮寫 “CC”，讓人一望即知和 CC 相關，並加上「創」、「用」兩字，「創」取 “Creative” 創造／創作之意，「用」取 “Commons” 眾人的使用及參與之意。從這個小故事可看出，CC TW 對 CC 授權推廣之細心及用心。
在 CC 在地推廣的部分，我也曾至不少單位機構推廣CC授權，多數對象是老師和學生，印象比較深刻的是還曾到智慧財產局向著作權組的長官介紹 CC 授權，因為 CC 授權從某個角度來說，是談如何鬆綁著作權法的限制，當時雖有種在著作權法的專責機關主管前班門弄斧的緊張感，但也讓我們看到，CC 授權在台灣當時才推廣不久，已經頗受重視了。時至今日，智慧財產局官網上的「專題研究」中的資訊現在仍採用CC 授權 (詳：https://www.tipo.gov.tw/tw/copyright/736.html)。
除了主要向教育、學術性質的單位推廣，在當時 CC TW 計畫主持人莊庭瑞的帶領下，我們也在 2004 年成功邀得朱約信先生（豬頭皮）創作了第一張以 CC 授權推出的實體音樂專輯《歡迎來唱我的歌》（按：此專輯採「姓名標示–非商業性–相同方式分享」 2.0 台灣 授權條款）；其後，在 2006 年 7 月底首次到活潑熱鬧的國際音樂交流性質的「野台開唱」擺攤，CC TW 透過那年「公共議題村」的規畫，擺攤推廣 CC。透過這次活動的參與，似乎見證了 CC TW 當年推廣角度觸及之廣，可靜可動、能文也能武，當時，真的是推推推、衝衝衝阿！
此外，在和 CC 的國際夥伴們的交流方面，我也有幸參與 2005 年在哈佛大學法學院舉行的第一屆 iCommons 年會，和來自世界多國的 CC 夥伴們實體見面，除了有一種這條路並不孤單的激動感，當看到其他國家夥伴走在我們前面，甚至是以自己沒想到的創新的方式和角度來推廣CC時，心理會有一個聲音「嗯，我們 CC TW 可不能輸阿」，然後，會更有動力的投入。
我目前從事的工作和博物館典藏文物相關，自 2004 年加入 CC TW 至今，二十多年過去了，只要是合適的場合，我仍會用力的鼓吹使用 CC 授權，我想是因為 CC 推廣的理念「共享」，竟很巧的和我做事錨定點「自利、利他」不謀而合。創意會激發出更多的創意，而我相信，其底層邏輯是—善意會激盪出更多的善意！
]]>1月的北京尚处春节前的隆冬时节，早晨乃至上午的气温尽管在零度以上，依然寒意逼人。我们考虑到采访除了需要双方积极主动的交流互动，更对采访环境有着轻松愉悦的要求。为此，特别同王老师和团队预约了一个工作日的下午，采访地点也从人大法学院王老师的办公室改换到了人大校园里一间温馨的咖啡厅。同项目团队的第一次见面，我至今印象深刻。室外寒意阵阵，室内暖光环绕……一番寒暄和握手致意之后，几经电话交流的我们，终于在这一刻会面了。只是那时的我还未意识到，同CC团队一次常规采访活动已然悄悄开启我人生最长志愿者服务阶段。通过这次采访，我对项目团队在中国大陆地区开展的推广工作非常钦佩与感动：一群深耕知识产权的专业人士，凭借对灵活著作权行使模式及其应用理念的热情，在大学志愿者的帮助与支持下，在艺术领域默默耕耘。
非法律专业的我在整理采访材料期间对CC 倡导就知识创造成果进行合法地分享与演绎，在传统的“所有权利保留”模式之外，提出“部分权利保留”的灵活的著作权行使模式倍感好奇。一系列问号出现在脑海中……合法分享与演绎这个概念如何应用到所有作品？对于国内的庞大基础用户群，如何有效地推广协议概念，让用户主动使用协议，包括演绎和再演绎的作品？于我而言，在互联网飞速发展的中国，这是一个新领域。我愿意将自身的媒体人经验运用其中，推广鼓励合法分享理念，促进知识成果再创造。于是，在同王老师及团队确认采访稿的邮件中，我主动询问是否可以加入项目团队。项目负责人王老师回复道“太好了，欢迎你的加入！”
自此，在为期10年的志愿生涯中，有幸地结识了自由摄影人朱捍东（项目经理）优秀的项目团队成员郑毅，辛省志，徐建萍（优秀成员众多，此处难以一一列举）并一起共事，在国内众多领域努力推广CC理念，促进社群交流。
10年中，有着不同背景的我们，立足各自擅长的领域，集思广益，但又总是群策群力地共同规划实施CC在国内各个领域的推广活动。从活动规划，外联沟通，现场协调到活动预告，新闻稿，季度通讯到特别报道。从艺术，音乐，开放教育到互联网行业；从校园沙龙，海岛支教，到音乐节，摄影大赛和综合艺术展；从北京峰会，亚太峰会到全球峰会。
2011年9月16日至18日，“2011 CC全球峰会”在波兰首都华沙举行。在CC本地化推广活动环节（Localising CC：Non-porting affiliate engagement activities）我们与到场嘉宾共同分享了近年来中国大陆项目在众多合作伙伴、志愿者支持下，国内外推广合作、制度建设方面取得的最新进展。CC中国大陆项目系列推广活动在华沙峰会的经验分享得到CC总部和CC国际社群的认同。CC总部对中国大陆项目在没有全职工作人员（所有成员均为志愿者身份）参与的情况下，策划实施全方位、多领域的推广活动表示惊叹。出席会议的CC国际社群伙伴对CC理念、CC协议在中国大陆地区的推广力度和接受程度表示赞许。会后，多个司法管辖区项目负责人表示愿意通过经常性的交流对话，同知识共享中国大陆项目在艺术、教育领域等推广活动中分享经验，加强跨区域、跨领域合作。
2012年11月，受知识共享总部（HQ）及知识共享印尼司法管辖区邀请，知识共享中国大陆项目代表赴印尼，参加2012年CC亚太会议。本届会议在印尼首都雅加达举行，来自中国大陆、韩国、马来西亚、新加坡、香港、台湾、新西兰、澳大利亚、越南和菲律宾等亚太CC社群代表，在为期两天的会议中交流分享各自最新的项目推广经验。
2013年3月中旬，正值第二届国际开放教育周在全球各地举办之际，为更好地响应CC总部“推广OER”的理念，CC中国大陆项目在中国人民大学法学院举办“OER教育实践分享沙龙”活动。该沙龙向所有对OER资源和OER教育周感兴趣的公众开放。作为OER理念倡导者和实践者的CC中国大陆项目，一直以来都尽最大努力践行OER理念，并通过各类不同平台进行推广。
2013年8月下旬，两年一度的知识共享组织全球峰会在阿根廷首都布宜诺斯艾利斯盛大开幕。本次全球峰会汇聚了来自CC全球社群、法律界、艺术界、教育界、文化界等超过300名参会代表，在为期一周的会议中，来自全球不同国家地区与会代表分别通过工作坊、小型会议、全体会议和相关文化活动，就著作权改革、即将推出的4.0版CC全球协议、网络技术、开放教育资源、开放学校计划、CC社区发展规划、CC翻译计划、CC商业模式、CC未来发展规划等相关话题进行充分交流。
特别有意思的是，CC中国大陆项目代表以大树做比，其中项目团队、志愿者和各合作伙伴共同构成坚韧的树根；近年来推广CC理念、CC协议的各类线上线下活动构成了强韧粗壮的树干；采用中国大陆版CC协议的各类艺术、文学作品构成繁茂葱绿的枝叶。艺术创新领域推广颇具建树的CC韩国项目负责人提出问题：“浇灌树木的水从何而来呢？”CC中国大陆项目代表解释道： 作为树木生长必不可少的水源正是由CC倡导的分享理念构成“share、remix and reuse”。
自2008年开始，知识共享亚太地区会议每两年举行一次，是各司法管辖区CC社群以及其他社会各界人士探讨区域内共同关心的问题，分享各自经验的一个重要的平台。继2012年在印尼雅加达举行的第三届知识共享亚太地区会议之后，第四届知识共享国际会议和亚太地区会议于2014年9月16至17日在韩国首尔召开。知识共享中国大陆项目代表金汉 向与会人员介绍中国大陆项目最新进展。
2015全球峰会于2015年10月15-17日在韩国首尔顺利举行。来自知识共享总部、全球知识共享各司法管辖区、知识共享全球合作伙伴，全球开源社群的众多共享理念支持者齐聚首尔，参与全球峰会并共同度过知识共享十周年庆典。来自CC中国大陆项目、CC香港项目和CC台湾项目的代表参加了在韩国首尔举办的知识共享全球峰会（CC Global Summit），决定共同将CC4.0和CC0翻译为简体中文和繁体中文。
2016年7月2日至3日，CC中国大陆项目在北京主办了CC亚太地区会议，来自10个不同国家和地区的CC项目的19名代表共同参加了本次会议。作为CC亚太地区最活跃团队之一的知识共享中国大陆项目志愿者团队承办了本次亚太会议。在为期两天的会议中，各个CC亚太司法管辖区的与会代表们纷纷以主题演讲、视频、网站等形式分享了CC组织在其司法管辖区的本地化发展现状、新项目发展，同时就区域战略发展与合作以及CC 4.0协议 和CC0协议等重要议题进行了详细而深入的讨论。
2019年5月，超过450名知识共享社群成员共赴葡萄牙里斯本，带去了他们作为倡导者、活动家、创意者的声音，以实际行动支持开放分享。本次峰会也是知识共享全球网络2016重新启动以来的第一次全球会议。目前，CC全球网络比之前增长了3倍，包括37个签约方，368位个人成员和43个机构成员。 十年磨一剑，回首同知识共享中国大陆项目团队共事这10年，内心感慨良千。它于团队而言，是成长壮大发展的十年；于我个而言，是项目负责人王老师，项目团队成员给予我诸多信任，学习，成长，进步机会的宝贵10年。
撰写本文之际，我们曾经共同工作的场景一一浮现：
编辑CC电子通讯，让自己慢慢养成一丝不苟的文字工作习惯；
外联CC社群，协调CC志愿者工作，增强了自己公关交流本职工作的综合能力；
筹备参与发言CC各类峰会活动，为自己打开一扇扇通往全球平台的窗户，有机会感受另一个半球同仁的文化理念；
从第一次上台演讲的紧张出汗，到最末一次参加里斯本全球峰会的自如谈吐……
CC中国大陆项目不仅让我深刻理解了合法分享与演绎理念的重要性，更为我个人提供了开拓眼界与思维的成长发展平台。从中国大陆到亚太地区，从东半球到北半球，随后穿越赤道，在南半球也留下了自己的小小足迹……
感恩遇见，感谢改变，希望在今后的日子里能尽己所能继续为CC中国大陆项目，CC全球社群贡献力量，一起成长。正如项目经理朱捍东先生在回忆录中所写的那句话“我真的很怀念那个意气风发的年代和年轻的自己……”我想说，真的很怀念当年和CC同仁一起成长奋斗的日子，那些笔耕不辍的时刻，那些欢声笑语和那些温暖的拥抱！
2026年3月18日星期三
写于瑞士提起诺州，卢加诺市
My journey with Creative Commons began in the early 2000s, a time when the legal world was just beginning to grapple with the “paradox of copyright on the Internet.” As a lawyer specializing in digital technology and IP, I was fascinated by the tension between traditional restrictive laws and the collaborative potential of the web. I first became involved with CC when I realized that Peru needed a legal framework that didn’t just “protect” works by locking them away, but rather empowered creators to share them on their own terms.
I had the honor of serving as Project Lead for the Creative Commons Peru jurisdiction. This was a monumental task that involved more than just translating legal text; it was about legal and cultural adaptation. Working with the team at CPSR-Peru and colleagues like Pedro Mendizábal, Arturo Matos and Katitza Rodriguez, we embarked on the “porting” process to adapt the international licenses to the Peruvian Copyright Law.
The defining milestone of this journey was the iLaw Program Peru 2006, organized in collaboration with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. This event served as the official launchpad for the CC Peru licenses. It was a historic moment: the first time such a high-level digital law summit was held in a Spanish-speaking South American country, signaling to the world that Peru was ready to lead in the digital commons.
The beauty of CC was always the community. I remember the intense debates over how to translate terms like “ShareAlike” into a Spanish legal context that would be understood by local artists, academics, and policymakers. We weren’t just “legal engineers”; we were bridge-builders. We had to explain to a generation raised on “All Rights Reserved” that “Some Rights Reserved” was actually a strategic advantage for innovation and cultural visibility.
The success: Seeing the licenses move from a niche legal theory to being used by Peruvian musicians, photographers, and even public institutions.
The challenge: Overcoming the skepticism of traditional industries who viewed openness as a threat to their business models.
The lesson: Openness is not the absence of rules, but the presence of better, more flexible ones. I learned that for technology to serve society, the law must be as agile as the code it seeks to regulate.
My early years with Creative Commons laid the groundwork for my current work at Niubox and my views on modern digital regulation. Whether I am discussing AI regulation, legaltech, or digital transformation, the core principle remains the same: innovation requires a balance between protection and access.
The “open” mindset I developed through Creative Commons continues to be my compass. It taught me that the most powerful way to protect culture is to ensure it can be shared, remixed, and kept alive by the community.
]]>That was 2009. CC Korea had just set up its first formal office, and I heard they were planning their very first event, a seminar called “How to Open Business.” I had barely been part of the community a week before I found myself handling interpretation and translation for an international event. I happened to be a translator, so I was useful, and before I’d figured out what was really going on, I was already in the middle of it. And that evening, standing in front of that grill, I think I lost my heart to this community.
The truth is, I’d first come across CC a little before that, after watching Lawrence Lessig’s TED talk. As someone who made a living from translation, I had long wrestled with the contradictions and paradoxes of copyright. Does purely original creation even exist? Why should someone’s creative work be so completely locked away? And yet, shouldn’t creators be celebrated and respected? In the middle of all those tangled questions, CC wasn’t a place that declared “this is the absolute truth.” It was a place that modeled an attitude: finding reasonable answers together, in a world that keeps changing. That’s what CC was to me — not a manifesto, but an attitude.
So it felt only natural to end up translating books together with other CC Korea volunteers. Busy people with their own livelihoods to manage, gathering every weekend, pushing each other along, complaining, doing peer reviews, and somehow getting it done. That’s how two books found their way into Korean: Daniel Lathrop and Laurel Ruma’s Open Government, and the Australian Government 2.0 Taskforce’s ENGAGE: Getting on with Government 2.0. As a professional translator used to working alone, it was an unfamiliar experience, different perspectives colliding and blending together, and I loved it. That experience planted a seed, and a few years later I found myself translating David Bollier’s Think Like a Commoner on my own. A book about the Commons, something I’d been turning over in my mind for years. Looking back now, I wish I’d done it better, but it’s still the translation I feel most attached to.
Then in 2010, the CC Asia Summit came to Seoul. People arrived from across Asia, and watching old friends embrace each other after so long apart, I felt it clearly: this was no ordinary network. I hadn’t known much about the early iCommons days, but something in those hugs told me everything. Asia in particular had always struggled with connection, language barriers, small and scattered communities, and yet here everyone was, back together in Seoul, visibly drawing strength from simply being in the same room.
Bassel’s arrival is something I’ll never forget. We’d been on edge right up until the end, not knowing whether he’d be able to make it from Syria. When he finally walked through the door, visibly worn out from a long and roundabout journey but with eyes that still somehow sparkled, the sight of the CC Asia crowd surging toward him, hugging him, overcome with relief and joy and laughter, is still vivid to me now.
All of those experiences led me, from 2013, to serve as CC’s Asia Pacific Regional Coordinator. From a small community in Korea, to Asia, to the whole world. CC was the passage that kept expanding the world I got to be part of, a lens through which I came to see things differently.
I’ve since moved on from CC. But the attitude it left in me, the one that seeped in somewhere along the way, is still with me, in the translation and creative work I continue today. An openness of eye, an openness of heart. And the affection for this community that I first discovered standing in front of that backyard grill.
]]>그게 2009년이었다. CC 코리아가 처음으로 사무국을 꾸린 시기였고, 마침 첫 행사로 ‘하우 투 오픈 비즈니스’(How to Open Business) 세미나를 준비 중이라는 말을 들었다. 나는 영문도 모른 채 인사를 나누다가 어느새 국제 행사 통번역을 맡고 있었다. 번역사였으니 때마침 쓸모가 있었던 것이고, 뭘 하는지 제대로 파악하기도 전에 그 안에 들어와 있었다. 그리고 그날 저녁 그 불판 앞에서, 마음을 빼앗겼던 것 같다.
사실 내가 CC를 처음 알게 된 건 그보다 조금 전, 로렌스 레식의 TED 강연을 보고 나서였다. 번역가로 살면서 저작권이라는 것의 이중성과 모순에 늘 의문을 품고 있던 나였다. 순수한 창작이란 과연 존재하는가. 왜 누군가의 창작물은 그토록 철저히 독점되어야 하는가. 그러면서도 창작자는 마땅히 존중받아야 하지 않는가. 그 복잡한 고민들 사이에서 CC는 “내 말이 절대 진리”라고 선언하는 곳이 아니라, 변화하는 현실 속에서 합리적인 해결책을 함께 찾아나가는 태도를 보여주는 곳이었다. 그렇게 CC는 나에게 어떤 선언이 아니라 태도였다.
그런 면에서 CC 코리아의 다른 발룬티어들과 책을 함께 번역하게 된 것도 자연스러운 일이었다. 각자 생계로 바쁜 자원봉사자들이 주말마다 모여 서로 진도를 독려하고, 투덜대고, 피어리뷰를 해가며 끝을 냈다. ‘열린 정부 만들기’와 ‘참여와 소통의 정부 2.0’, 두 권이 그렇게 나왔다. 전문 번역사로서 혼자 하는 작업에 익숙했던 나에게, 그 시간은 서로 다른 시각이 부딪히고 섞이는 낯설고도 즐거운 경험이었다. 그 경험이 씨앗이 되어, 몇 년 후에는 혼자 데이빗 볼리어의 ‘공유인으로 사고하라’(Think Like a Commoner)라는 책도 번역하게 됐다. 오래 고민해오던 커먼즈에 관한 책을. 지금 다시 보면 더 잘할 수 있었을 것 같아 부끄럽지만, 여전히 가장 마음이 가는 번역이다.
그리고 2010년, 서울에서 CC 아시아 서밋이 열렸다. 아시아 각지에서 사람들이 왔고, 오랜만에 만난 이들이 서로 부둥켜 안았다. 초기 iCommons 시절의 어려움에 대해서는 나는 잘 몰랐지만, 그 포옹들 속에서 이건 보통 네트워크가 아니라는 걸 느꼈다. 특히 아시아는 언어 장벽에 커뮤니티도 각자 작다 보니 서로 소통하기가 쉽지 않았는데, 그럼에도 서울에서 다시 만날 수 있다는 게 서로에게 얼마나 큰 힘이 되는 자리인지 실감했다.
특히 바셀을 만났던 때는 잊을 수 없다. 시리아에서 무사히 올 수 있을지 마지막까지 불투명해 조마조마했었는데 극적으로 그가 행사장에 나타났을 때, 돌고 돌아 지친 기색이 역력했지만 눈빛만은 반짝이던 그, 그런 그를 부둥켜 안고 감동해하고 장난치던 CC 아시아 사람들의 모습이 지금도 생생하다.
그 경험들이 쌓여 2013년부터는 CC 아시아 태평양 지역 코디네이터로 일하게 됐다. CC 코리아라는 커뮤니티에서 시작해, 아시아로, 전 세계로. CC는 내가 만나는 세계를 넓혀준 통로였고, 세상을 바라보는 눈이었다.
지금은 비록 CC를 떠나 있지만, 번역과 창작을 이어가는 지금도 그때 CC를 통해 몸에 밴 열린 눈과 열린 태도는 여전히 내 안 어딘가에 남아 있다. 그리고 그때 마당의 불판 앞에서 처음 알아버린, 이 커뮤니티에 대한 애정도.
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