Working with The Public Sectorin Using CC Licenses:

Lessons Learned

CC Asia Conference 2010

Tyng-Ruey ChuangCreative Commons Taiwan @

Research Center for Information Technology InnovationAcademia Sinica

Outline

• Who we are and where we come from• Outreach to the public sector about CC

licenses• Some observations and perspectives

Disclaimer

My observations and opinions are my own.

They not necessarily represent those of myemployer or any of the organizations or

projects in which I am involved.

• Who we are– Creative Commons Taiwan– A project hosted in Academia Sinica, a

government-funded research organization

• Where we come from– Started in 2003 as part of the “law and

policy” work in an open source initiative– CC Taiwan licenses launched in 2004– In a unique position to talk to the public

sector, educators/students, and the public

The Public Sector

• Direct administration funded throughtaxation

• Publicly owned corporations• Partial outsourcing [of public projects]

• “Grants” from government departments– Grants not necessarily given to CC Taiwan– Relationships transcend grants

“Copyright Crimes and Remedies”

• The “piracy problem”• CC licenses as infrastructures for large scale

people-to-people content sharing and reuse• Grants to develop contents, and to hold

seminars about public licensing (in particularthe CC Licenses)

• The audience: The public; educators andstudents

• Importance of long-term relationships

Government Publications• Make them more accessible, and produce

them in less cost• “More fun, less work”• Grants to develop contents, and to hold

seminars about the CC Licenses• The audience: Civil servants and “decision

makers”

• Various types of government publications• “historical problem” v.s. “new process”• The need for best practices

Content Holders and Producers

• Entities holding large content collections ofhigh cultural and economic values– Archives, museums, public television services, etc.

• “What are others doing with their collections?”• Seminars and consultations on pubic licensing• Audience: Program staff and stakeholders

• There are always managerial considerations• Need to look into sustainability models

Observations• CC Licenses are getting very popular

– questions about details; licenses not “cure all”• Issues of liability

– how to resolve conflicts, and how to takeresponsibility “if something goes wrong”?

• In-house counsel; sustainability model– the path from “nice idea” to “good practice”

• Learning from your neighbors– eventually everyone is a smart neighbor!

• Policy decisions have great implications– few major policy decisions so far, however

Perspectives• Need new strategies to get major policy

changes– dealing with bureaucratic reality– bottom-up and top-down approaches

• Is legislative process a good option?– may put people in difficult positions

• Joining force from the open standards and freesoftware movements

• Voices from the younger generations (even inthe public sector)

Thanks• Intellectual Property Office, Ministry of Economic

Affairs (TIPO)• Computer Center, Ministry of Education (CC/MOE)• The Council for Cultural Affairs (CCA)• The Research, Development, and Evaluation

Commission (RDEC)• Public Television Service (PTS)• Taiwan E-Learning and Digital Archive Program

(TELDAP)

and many more