Creative Commons - User contributions [en]

Communicating Creative Commons

2009-07-30T22:54:49Z

Eric Steuer: Presentation about CC for Knight Foundation / GOOD Magazine

{{Presentation
|venue=GOOD Magazine
|date=2009/03/11
|presenter=Eric Steuer
|videourl=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USVy60pILnQ
}}

Creativecommons.org Development

2008-10-08T15:10:16Z

Eric Steuer: /* Site Architecture and Design */

The intention of this article is to discover and examine the problems creativecommons.org has with regards to user experience, accessibility, ease of use, content, etc. Constructive thoughts about how you feel the site currently looks and works, and how you believe it could be improved.

= Site Architecture and Design =

* What is CC; Why is it compelling?
* How can I use/understand CC easily and efficiently?
* '''Remove the blog from the front page of the site''' and replace it with a concise summary of CC and a handful of highly relevant links to other parts of the site. I seriously doubt whether many people go to CC.org simply to read the blog, and those that do will have no problem clicking on a new tab that says "Weblog." Most people interested in the CC blog are probably somewhat technical and will most likely be using a feed aggregator of some sort. Rename "Jurisdiction News" to something like "Latest News" and incorporate items from the CC blog into the list, then move the list into the right column where there is presently nothing but whitespace, thereby leaving more room for relevant content in the main content area. (Nathan Kinkade)
* I agree with Kinkade for the most part, but I think that the blog serves a secondary purpose of showing people who come to the site that there is always interesting news happening in our world and that there are always cool projects that we are working on. So, while I agree that the blog should not be the focus of the page (I mean, right now, the site looks like little more than a blog when you land on the front page), I think the fact that the blog is newsy and provides dynamic content is a major plus, and that it should remain in some form on the front page. I kind of like how the EFF handles updates on their site (http://www.eff.org/), although I'm not crazy about their overall design. (ES)
** The licenses are our 'bread and butter' - they should be featured here in some form (perhaps just the conditions) in a way that is straight forward and simple (Cameron Parkins)
* The "Support" tab has an unfortunate name. When I'm at a website and I see a link to "Support" the first thing I think about is "Technical Support" or Help, not a place where I can donate money or buy things. It could perhaps be made more clear with something like "Support CC" or "Donate" or anything that disambiguates it from the normal "help me" meaning on the web. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Agree with Kinkade. I like the site menu http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/ (on the left), both for its design and language. (ES)
* The "Participate" tab should be renamed to something like "Wiki" or "CC Wiki" so that it's clear that CC has a wiki. My mind makes no natural connection between the word "participate" and a wiki. People, even non-technical ones, know about wikis these days, and to make it clearer on the front page that we have one might increase the traffic to it. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Suggestion to make front page 'stupidly simple'
** Two LARGE (150x150px) green buttons on dark background
*** LEARN MORE (about, blog, etc, similar to what we have)
*** LICENSE YOUR WORK (Link license chooser with no other information)
**** I think that having the license chooser on the front page could be somewhat daunting for people who don't know anything about CC. A link to a license chooser, after some explanation as to what conditions a license can carry, is a better option IMO (Cameron Parkins)
**** Agreed -- I meant it more as a link to the license chooser. [[User:Fred Benenson|Fred Benenson]] 16:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
**** The link off the main page from License Your Work shouldn't go to the chooser first, we should have that link land on an explanation page like the page linked from the About page - explain/provide basic info before asking them to choose. The page License Your Work (that you land on when you click License your Work off the About page is a good simple landing point providing a basic explanation. More below under License Chooser. (Diane Peters)
** No text, no other information [[User:Fred Benenson|Fred Benenson]] 15:00, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
* There should be a quick way to get to the list of the 6 licenses/deeds/legal code, along with an explanation of the terms (combining the 2 links indicated below in "near duplicates" section).
* Need quick link to Opportunities page.
* I think the landing main page should have minimal content, but to explain in a concise compelling way why CC is important, what we offer, etc.. (MR)
* I agree that the blog should not be the landing page (MR)
* I think that the support button should be either Join or Take Action - and should be a different color than the rest. I know *take action* sounds cheesy, but it does cause people to click through.(MR)
* Need a quick way to sign-up for the newsletter and events, as of right now both are extremely buried. Both of these options are great methods of community building and outreach and we should be promoting them as much as possible(MR)

= Information and Content =

* Overview
** An average, non-technical, person should be able to come to CC.ORG, and very quickly find out the basics of what CC provides and how it can help him. As it stands, a first time visitor has a hard time digging into the dense information currently provided.
** (Not sure who wrote the above, but this is Eric): This really is the thing. You have to get pretty far into the site before you can really figure out what is going on. For sheer simplicity, I do like Google.org's (http://www.google.org/) information design.

* Ideally, less words up front.
** People new to CC would probably prefer bite sized introductions, and pictures — compelling hooks to allow them to learn and, hopefully, disseminate to friends, colleagues, students. Long articles describing what CC is, and what the licenses are, etc. are great for those who already know about CC.

* Videos easy to find
* (Eric again) - Yes, and not all of the videos we have should really be lumped together. Like, the very basic intros to CC should not be in the same place as the ten minute explanation of how CC licenses can work in conjunction with separate commercial licensing deals. Or the ccSearch screencast (which is currently at the top of the videos page - if I didn't know anything about CC and landed there and hit that top video, I don't think it'd be of much help).

* CUT THE TEXT!! Most people skim webpages - they do not take the time to read pages and pages of information. I think that what we do and why we're important need to be communicated through video and image. I think, especially for the main page, that we need more pictures/video/etc. to draw people in and then give them an easy way to find out more information. But not dump information so much information on them that they end up closing the About page and emailing info@cc.org for a concise explanation instead - or even worse - just leaving it be and not pursuing the info anymore. (MR)

* Try and get rid of as much jargon as possible. We don't want to come off as elitist or academic by how we communicate. If the average American reads at a 6th grade level, then we need to keep that in mind. (MR)

* If all goes well, then I think we should highlight the stories we start to gather during the campaign. I think this has the potential to be very valuable in terms of communicating our mission. (MR)

* I think sometimes we focus so much on what we provide, we lose sight of what we enable people to do. The latter is the more humanistic component of CC and the side that more people will relate to/understand. (MR)
* I agree with this in essence, which is why I usually push for us to describe CC as either "a nonprofit that promotes the sharing and reuse of creative works" or "works to increase the amount of creative material available to the public for free and legal use" rather than "provides copyright licenses/legal tools, etc." Most people's eyes glaze over when you mention "copyright" and they've nearly passed out with boredom by the time you get to the word "licenses." (ES)

* The About page starts with "Creative Commons is a Massachusetts-chartered 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable corporation." Not very helpful. I'd like to see this page totally rewritten. (ES)

== Specific pages needing overhaul ==
* http://creativecommons.org (MR)

=== Near duplicate content ===

Please list highly redundant pages so we can decide which to merge and which to more highly focus:
* http://creativecommons.org/presskit now includes not just graphics, approximately same information as http://creativecommons.org/about (one click away for latter)
* http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses / http://creativecommons.org/about/license/
* not exactly redundant, but here is a list of all the pages on licensing that may be condensed (jane):
** http://creativecommons.org/license/
** http://creativecommons.org/about/license/
** http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/
** http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Before_Licensing
** http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses
** http://wiki.creativecommons.org/License_Examples

=== Wiki Main Page ===

* http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Main_Page -- way too much text and way too much info to take in; could definitely be streamlined so that pertinent info is easy to find right away. Good idea to have the "Participate" tab changed to "CC Wiki," and though many people visiting the site may know what a wiki is, not everyone will - so it would be worth it to briefly explain what the wiki is and does, and how an individual can navigate and use it. (AD)
* To much explanatory text about the links on the main page. Should just link to the pages and have relevant info there. (MR)
* I agree. I've never quite understood why we have the wiki laid out the way we do. When you get to its front page, you're basically looking at a bunch of info that's repeated elsewhere on the regular site. Prominent links to case studies, salon info, content directories, and other stuff we actually want people to contribute to would be much more helpful (ES)
* Also, I've been automatically logged out of the wiki twice this morning while trying to add stuff to this page, and have lost a bunch of what I've written as a result. Annoying as can be! (ES)

=== /about ===

* The About page is currently a compendium of links to many things that having nothing to do with CC as an organization. To me, the About page should have nothing more than a synopsis of the organization, the history and perhaps a link to the People/Staff page. (Nathan Kinkade)
* I mostly agree w/ Kinkade, although I think some of the links on this page do have a place there (videos, for instance). (ES)
* The licensing links should be taken off About and instead have a link to license info on the main page. (MR)

=== /contact ===

* There should be a listing of the FFAQ questions above the contact form, which links to the answers on the FFAQ wiki page. Right now there is a bit of text suggesting that someone take a look at the FAQ, but clearly few people do. The vast majority of info@ emails could be headed off if people were to actually read the FFAQ, so actually having some text like "Is your question like one of these: <iteration of FFAQ questions>?" above the contact form might preemptively answer many people's questions, and lighten the load to info@. (Nathan Kinkade)

= Theme and Layout =
* New design ideas Alex has been working on look very fresh to me - having them placed through out the site would be a nice way to liven up the look
** This will also keep CC's web properties in aesthetic coherence (Cameron Parkins)
* I'd be really interested in seeing a design that provided more modular flexibility. Right now, the front page has two giant blocks of info right at the top (I'm not even really sure the case studies one is of much value to the general public, but that's a different conversation) - and it doesn't seem like either really takes advantage of the space. It would be good for there to be the ability to put blocks of info/images of various sizes around the front page, so that we can highlight more than just our topline description and a single project below it. (ES)

= License Chooser =
* Updated results page
* There is a fairly urgent need to reword the descriptive text to clarify unambiguously and in no uncertain terms that the chooser is in no way whatsoever a registration form, nor is it creating a unique license of any sort. It's need to explicitly state, and probably in a highlighted fashion, that it is nothing more and nothing less than a helpful tool to help someone select the right type of license, and also useful for generating some good HTML for the purposes of marking a work online. I can't tell you how many info@ emails I get where people think that they are creating a license or registering a work. And if the info@ emails can be taken a somewhat representative sample of the general CC-using public, then there is a huge amount of mis-understanding floating around. (Nathan Kinkade)

* Agreed. In addition, we should move would-be-licensors through a logical process or roadmap that ends in selection of a license rather than starts at that point (which is where people start now if they click through the License Your Work link from the top of the home page). Currently, depending on where they click, they enter the license selection process at different points. We should be encouraging a progression that ensures they're educated about the choices they're making before they choose the license. The progression is suggested (but currently incomplete) on the current "License your work" link from the About page: (1) Review Conditions (overview of license permissions already on that page), (2) Before Licensing (the page linked from the License Your Work button on the home page, under "choose license", then (3) Review our Licenses (brief summary that we now have on that same page, but instead of saying "Select a License" have it be "Review" or "Understand", and then (4) the License chooser (with all of the changes suggested by Kinkade/Benenson on this wiki). (Diane Peters)

= Deeds =
* An easier way to quickly attribute a work via the deed.
* ...

= Blog =
* Utilize categories/tags beyond sorting posts
** Come up with structure/protocol
** Easily find posts within a category or topic (i.e. music, education, etc.)
** Tags could also enable more specialized RSS feeds.
* Refresh design
** A featured article at the top of page, followed by recently updated posts.
*** More information presented in less space without feeling cluttered.
*** Visually divide posts into columns based on tag/categories (i.e. music, education, etc.)
*** See [http://worldchanging.org/http://worldchanging.org/ worldchanging.org]
* Expand scope to include not only stories that directly reference CC, but also ones on related topics.
** "Zoom out" on issues on to put news pieces into context.

Creativecommons.org Development

2008-10-08T15:08:12Z

Eric Steuer: /* Theme and Layout */

The intention of this article is to discover and examine the problems creativecommons.org has with regards to user experience, accessibility, ease of use, content, etc. Constructive thoughts about how you feel the site currently looks and works, and how you believe it could be improved.

= Site Architecture and Design =

* What is CC; Why is it compelling?
* How can I use/understand CC easily and efficiently?
* '''Remove the blog from the front page of the site''' and replace it with a concise summary of CC and a handful of highly relevant links to other parts of the site. I seriously doubt whether many people go to CC.org simply to read the blog, and those that do will have no problem clicking on a new tab that says "Weblog." Most people interested in the CC blog are probably somewhat technical and will most likely be using a feed aggregator of some sort. Rename "Jurisdiction News" to something like "Latest News" and incorporate items from the CC blog into the list, then move the list into the right column where there is presently nothing but whitespace, thereby leaving more room for relevant content in the main content area. (Nathan Kinkade)
* I agree with Kinkade for the most part, but I think that the blog serves a secondary purpose of showing people who come to the site that there is always interesting news happening in our world and that there are always cool projects that we are working on. So, while I agree that the blog should not be the focus of the page (I mean, right now, the site looks like little more than a blog when you land on the front page), I think the fact that the blog is newsy and provides dynamic content is a major plus, and that it should remain in some form on the front page. I kind of like how the EFF handles updates on their site (http://www.eff.org/), although I'm not crazy about their overall design. (Eric Steuer)
** The licenses are our 'bread and butter' - they should be featured here in some form (perhaps just the conditions) in a way that is straight forward and simple (Cameron Parkins)
* The "Support" tab has an unfortunate name. When I'm at a website and I see a link to "Support" the first thing I think about is "Technical Support" or Help, not a place where I can donate money or buy things. It could perhaps be made more clear with something like "Support CC" or "Donate" or anything that disambiguates it from the normal "help me" meaning on the web. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Totally agree with Kinkade. (Eric Steuer)
* The "Participate" tab should be renamed to something like "Wiki" or "CC Wiki" so that it's clear that CC has a wiki. My mind makes no natural connection between the word "participate" and a wiki. People, even non-technical ones, know about wikis these days, and to make it clearer on the front page that we have one might increase the traffic to it. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Suggestion to make front page 'stupidly simple'
** Two LARGE (150x150px) green buttons on dark background
*** LEARN MORE (about, blog, etc, similar to what we have)
*** LICENSE YOUR WORK (Link license chooser with no other information)
**** I think that having the license chooser on the front page could be somewhat daunting for people who don't know anything about CC. A link to a license chooser, after some explanation as to what conditions a license can carry, is a better option IMO (Cameron Parkins)
**** Agreed -- I meant it more as a link to the license chooser. [[User:Fred Benenson|Fred Benenson]] 16:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
**** The link off the main page from License Your Work shouldn't go to the chooser first, we should have that link land on an explanation page like the page linked from the About page - explain/provide basic info before asking them to choose. The page License Your Work (that you land on when you click License your Work off the About page is a good simple landing point providing a basic explanation. More below under License Chooser. (Diane Peters)
** No text, no other information [[User:Fred Benenson|Fred Benenson]] 15:00, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
* There should be a quick way to get to the list of the 6 licenses/deeds/legal code, along with an explanation of the terms (combining the 2 links indicated below in "near duplicates" section).
* Need quick link to Opportunities page.
* I think the landing main page should have minimal content, but to explain in a concise compelling way why CC is important, what we offer, etc.. (MR)
* I agree that the blog should not be the landing page (MR)
* I think that the support button should be either Join or Take Action - and should be a different color than the rest. I know *take action* sounds cheesy, but it does cause people to click through.(MR)
* Need a quick way to sign-up for the newsletter and events, as of right now both are extremely buried. Both of these options are great methods of community building and outreach and we should be promoting them as much as possible(MR)

= Information and Content =

* Overview
** An average, non-technical, person should be able to come to CC.ORG, and very quickly find out the basics of what CC provides and how it can help him. As it stands, a first time visitor has a hard time digging into the dense information currently provided.
** (Not sure who wrote the above, but this is Eric): This really is the thing. You have to get pretty far into the site before you can really figure out what is going on. For sheer simplicity, I do like Google.org's (http://www.google.org/) information design.

* Ideally, less words up front.
** People new to CC would probably prefer bite sized introductions, and pictures — compelling hooks to allow them to learn and, hopefully, disseminate to friends, colleagues, students. Long articles describing what CC is, and what the licenses are, etc. are great for those who already know about CC.

* Videos easy to find
* (Eric again) - Yes, and not all of the videos we have should really be lumped together. Like, the very basic intros to CC should not be in the same place as the ten minute explanation of how CC licenses can work in conjunction with separate commercial licensing deals. Or the ccSearch screencast (which is currently at the top of the videos page - if I didn't know anything about CC and landed there and hit that top video, I don't think it'd be of much help).

* CUT THE TEXT!! Most people skim webpages - they do not take the time to read pages and pages of information. I think that what we do and why we're important need to be communicated through video and image. I think, especially for the main page, that we need more pictures/video/etc. to draw people in and then give them an easy way to find out more information. But not dump information so much information on them that they end up closing the About page and emailing info@cc.org for a concise explanation instead - or even worse - just leaving it be and not pursuing the info anymore. (MR)

* Try and get rid of as much jargon as possible. We don't want to come off as elitist or academic by how we communicate. If the average American reads at a 6th grade level, then we need to keep that in mind. (MR)

* If all goes well, then I think we should highlight the stories we start to gather during the campaign. I think this has the potential to be very valuable in terms of communicating our mission. (MR)

* I think sometimes we focus so much on what we provide, we lose sight of what we enable people to do. The latter is the more humanistic component of CC and the side that more people will relate to/understand. (MR)
* I agree with this in essence, which is why I usually push for us to describe CC as either "a nonprofit that promotes the sharing and reuse of creative works" or "works to increase the amount of creative material available to the public for free and legal use" rather than "provides copyright licenses/legal tools, etc." Most people's eyes glaze over when you mention "copyright" and they've nearly passed out with boredom by the time you get to the word "licenses." (ES)

* The About page starts with "Creative Commons is a Massachusetts-chartered 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable corporation." Not very helpful. I'd like to see this page totally rewritten. (ES)

== Specific pages needing overhaul ==
* http://creativecommons.org (MR)

=== Near duplicate content ===

Please list highly redundant pages so we can decide which to merge and which to more highly focus:
* http://creativecommons.org/presskit now includes not just graphics, approximately same information as http://creativecommons.org/about (one click away for latter)
* http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses / http://creativecommons.org/about/license/
* not exactly redundant, but here is a list of all the pages on licensing that may be condensed (jane):
** http://creativecommons.org/license/
** http://creativecommons.org/about/license/
** http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/
** http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Before_Licensing
** http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses
** http://wiki.creativecommons.org/License_Examples

=== Wiki Main Page ===

* http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Main_Page -- way too much text and way too much info to take in; could definitely be streamlined so that pertinent info is easy to find right away. Good idea to have the "Participate" tab changed to "CC Wiki," and though many people visiting the site may know what a wiki is, not everyone will - so it would be worth it to briefly explain what the wiki is and does, and how an individual can navigate and use it. (AD)
* To much explanatory text about the links on the main page. Should just link to the pages and have relevant info there. (MR)
* I agree. I've never quite understood why we have the wiki laid out the way we do. When you get to its front page, you're basically looking at a bunch of info that's repeated elsewhere on the regular site. Prominent links to case studies, salon info, content directories, and other stuff we actually want people to contribute to would be much more helpful (ES)
* Also, I've been automatically logged out of the wiki twice this morning while trying to add stuff to this page, and have lost a bunch of what I've written as a result. Annoying as can be! (ES)

=== /about ===

* The About page is currently a compendium of links to many things that having nothing to do with CC as an organization. To me, the About page should have nothing more than a synopsis of the organization, the history and perhaps a link to the People/Staff page. (Nathan Kinkade)
* I mostly agree w/ Kinkade, although I think some of the links on this page do have a place there (videos, for instance). (ES)
* The licensing links should be taken off About and instead have a link to license info on the main page. (MR)

=== /contact ===

* There should be a listing of the FFAQ questions above the contact form, which links to the answers on the FFAQ wiki page. Right now there is a bit of text suggesting that someone take a look at the FAQ, but clearly few people do. The vast majority of info@ emails could be headed off if people were to actually read the FFAQ, so actually having some text like "Is your question like one of these: <iteration of FFAQ questions>?" above the contact form might preemptively answer many people's questions, and lighten the load to info@. (Nathan Kinkade)

= Theme and Layout =
* New design ideas Alex has been working on look very fresh to me - having them placed through out the site would be a nice way to liven up the look
** This will also keep CC's web properties in aesthetic coherence (Cameron Parkins)
* I'd be really interested in seeing a design that provided more modular flexibility. Right now, the front page has two giant blocks of info right at the top (I'm not even really sure the case studies one is of much value to the general public, but that's a different conversation) - and it doesn't seem like either really takes advantage of the space. It would be good for there to be the ability to put blocks of info/images of various sizes around the front page, so that we can highlight more than just our topline description and a single project below it. (ES)

= License Chooser =
* Updated results page
* There is a fairly urgent need to reword the descriptive text to clarify unambiguously and in no uncertain terms that the chooser is in no way whatsoever a registration form, nor is it creating a unique license of any sort. It's need to explicitly state, and probably in a highlighted fashion, that it is nothing more and nothing less than a helpful tool to help someone select the right type of license, and also useful for generating some good HTML for the purposes of marking a work online. I can't tell you how many info@ emails I get where people think that they are creating a license or registering a work. And if the info@ emails can be taken a somewhat representative sample of the general CC-using public, then there is a huge amount of mis-understanding floating around. (Nathan Kinkade)

* Agreed. In addition, we should move would-be-licensors through a logical process or roadmap that ends in selection of a license rather than starts at that point (which is where people start now if they click through the License Your Work link from the top of the home page). Currently, depending on where they click, they enter the license selection process at different points. We should be encouraging a progression that ensures they're educated about the choices they're making before they choose the license. The progression is suggested (but currently incomplete) on the current "License your work" link from the About page: (1) Review Conditions (overview of license permissions already on that page), (2) Before Licensing (the page linked from the License Your Work button on the home page, under "choose license", then (3) Review our Licenses (brief summary that we now have on that same page, but instead of saying "Select a License" have it be "Review" or "Understand", and then (4) the License chooser (with all of the changes suggested by Kinkade/Benenson on this wiki). (Diane Peters)

= Deeds =
* An easier way to quickly attribute a work via the deed.
* ...

= Blog =
* Utilize categories/tags beyond sorting posts
** Come up with structure/protocol
** Easily find posts within a category or topic (i.e. music, education, etc.)
** Tags could also enable more specialized RSS feeds.
* Refresh design
** A featured article at the top of page, followed by recently updated posts.
*** More information presented in less space without feeling cluttered.
*** Visually divide posts into columns based on tag/categories (i.e. music, education, etc.)
*** See [http://worldchanging.org/http://worldchanging.org/ worldchanging.org]
* Expand scope to include not only stories that directly reference CC, but also ones on related topics.
** "Zoom out" on issues on to put news pieces into context.

Creativecommons.org Development

2008-10-08T14:59:15Z

Eric Steuer: /* Wiki Main Page */

The intention of this article is to discover and examine the problems creativecommons.org has with regards to user experience, accessibility, ease of use, content, etc. Constructive thoughts about how you feel the site currently looks and works, and how you believe it could be improved.

= Site Architecture and Design =

* What is CC; Why is it compelling?
* How can I use/understand CC easily and efficiently?
* '''Remove the blog from the front page of the site''' and replace it with a concise summary of CC and a handful of highly relevant links to other parts of the site. I seriously doubt whether many people go to CC.org simply to read the blog, and those that do will have no problem clicking on a new tab that says "Weblog." Most people interested in the CC blog are probably somewhat technical and will most likely be using a feed aggregator of some sort. Rename "Jurisdiction News" to something like "Latest News" and incorporate items from the CC blog into the list, then move the list into the right column where there is presently nothing but whitespace, thereby leaving more room for relevant content in the main content area. (Nathan Kinkade)
* I agree with Kinkade for the most part, but I think that the blog serves a secondary purpose of showing people who come to the site that there is always interesting news happening in our world and that there are always cool projects that we are working on. So, while I agree that the blog should not be the focus of the page (I mean, right now, the site looks like little more than a blog when you land on the front page), I think the fact that the blog is newsy and provides dynamic content is a major plus, and that it should remain in some form on the front page. I kind of like how the EFF handles updates on their site (http://www.eff.org/), although I'm not crazy about their overall design. (Eric Steuer)
** The licenses are our 'bread and butter' - they should be featured here in some form (perhaps just the conditions) in a way that is straight forward and simple (Cameron Parkins)
* The "Support" tab has an unfortunate name. When I'm at a website and I see a link to "Support" the first thing I think about is "Technical Support" or Help, not a place where I can donate money or buy things. It could perhaps be made more clear with something like "Support CC" or "Donate" or anything that disambiguates it from the normal "help me" meaning on the web. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Totally agree with Kinkade. (Eric Steuer)
* The "Participate" tab should be renamed to something like "Wiki" or "CC Wiki" so that it's clear that CC has a wiki. My mind makes no natural connection between the word "participate" and a wiki. People, even non-technical ones, know about wikis these days, and to make it clearer on the front page that we have one might increase the traffic to it. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Suggestion to make front page 'stupidly simple'
** Two LARGE (150x150px) green buttons on dark background
*** LEARN MORE (about, blog, etc, similar to what we have)
*** LICENSE YOUR WORK (Link license chooser with no other information)
**** I think that having the license chooser on the front page could be somewhat daunting for people who don't know anything about CC. A link to a license chooser, after some explanation as to what conditions a license can carry, is a better option IMO (Cameron Parkins)
**** Agreed -- I meant it more as a link to the license chooser. [[User:Fred Benenson|Fred Benenson]] 16:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
**** The link off the main page from License Your Work shouldn't go to the chooser first, we should have that link land on an explanation page like the page linked from the About page - explain/provide basic info before asking them to choose. The page License Your Work (that you land on when you click License your Work off the About page is a good simple landing point providing a basic explanation. More below under License Chooser. (Diane Peters)
** No text, no other information [[User:Fred Benenson|Fred Benenson]] 15:00, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
* There should be a quick way to get to the list of the 6 licenses/deeds/legal code, along with an explanation of the terms (combining the 2 links indicated below in "near duplicates" section).
* Need quick link to Opportunities page.
* I think the landing main page should have minimal content, but to explain in a concise compelling way why CC is important, what we offer, etc.. (MR)
* I agree that the blog should not be the landing page (MR)
* I think that the support button should be either Join or Take Action - and should be a different color than the rest. I know *take action* sounds cheesy, but it does cause people to click through.(MR)
* Need a quick way to sign-up for the newsletter and events, as of right now both are extremely buried. Both of these options are great methods of community building and outreach and we should be promoting them as much as possible(MR)

= Information and Content =

* Overview
** An average, non-technical, person should be able to come to CC.ORG, and very quickly find out the basics of what CC provides and how it can help him. As it stands, a first time visitor has a hard time digging into the dense information currently provided.
** (Not sure who wrote the above, but this is Eric): This really is the thing. You have to get pretty far into the site before you can really figure out what is going on. For sheer simplicity, I do like Google.org's (http://www.google.org/) information design.

* Ideally, less words up front.
** People new to CC would probably prefer bite sized introductions, and pictures — compelling hooks to allow them to learn and, hopefully, disseminate to friends, colleagues, students. Long articles describing what CC is, and what the licenses are, etc. are great for those who already know about CC.

* Videos easy to find
* (Eric again) - Yes, and not all of the videos we have should really be lumped together. Like, the very basic intros to CC should not be in the same place as the ten minute explanation of how CC licenses can work in conjunction with separate commercial licensing deals. Or the ccSearch screencast (which is currently at the top of the videos page - if I didn't know anything about CC and landed there and hit that top video, I don't think it'd be of much help).

* CUT THE TEXT!! Most people skim webpages - they do not take the time to read pages and pages of information. I think that what we do and why we're important need to be communicated through video and image. I think, especially for the main page, that we need more pictures/video/etc. to draw people in and then give them an easy way to find out more information. But not dump information so much information on them that they end up closing the About page and emailing info@cc.org for a concise explanation instead - or even worse - just leaving it be and not pursuing the info anymore. (MR)

* Try and get rid of as much jargon as possible. We don't want to come off as elitist or academic by how we communicate. If the average American reads at a 6th grade level, then we need to keep that in mind. (MR)

* If all goes well, then I think we should highlight the stories we start to gather during the campaign. I think this has the potential to be very valuable in terms of communicating our mission. (MR)

* I think sometimes we focus so much on what we provide, we lose sight of what we enable people to do. The latter is the more humanistic component of CC and the side that more people will relate to/understand. (MR)
* I agree with this in essence, which is why I usually push for us to describe CC as either "a nonprofit that promotes the sharing and reuse of creative works" or "works to increase the amount of creative material available to the public for free and legal use" rather than "provides copyright licenses/legal tools, etc." Most people's eyes glaze over when you mention "copyright" and they've nearly passed out with boredom by the time you get to the word "licenses." (ES)

* The About page starts with "Creative Commons is a Massachusetts-chartered 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable corporation." Not very helpful. I'd like to see this page totally rewritten. (ES)

== Specific pages needing overhaul ==
* http://creativecommons.org (MR)

=== Near duplicate content ===

Please list highly redundant pages so we can decide which to merge and which to more highly focus:
* http://creativecommons.org/presskit now includes not just graphics, approximately same information as http://creativecommons.org/about (one click away for latter)
* http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses / http://creativecommons.org/about/license/
* not exactly redundant, but here is a list of all the pages on licensing that may be condensed (jane):
** http://creativecommons.org/license/
** http://creativecommons.org/about/license/
** http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/
** http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Before_Licensing
** http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses
** http://wiki.creativecommons.org/License_Examples

=== Wiki Main Page ===

* http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Main_Page -- way too much text and way too much info to take in; could definitely be streamlined so that pertinent info is easy to find right away. Good idea to have the "Participate" tab changed to "CC Wiki," and though many people visiting the site may know what a wiki is, not everyone will - so it would be worth it to briefly explain what the wiki is and does, and how an individual can navigate and use it. (AD)
* To much explanatory text about the links on the main page. Should just link to the pages and have relevant info there. (MR)
* I agree. I've never quite understood why we have the wiki laid out the way we do. When you get to its front page, you're basically looking at a bunch of info that's repeated elsewhere on the regular site. Prominent links to case studies, salon info, content directories, and other stuff we actually want people to contribute to would be much more helpful (ES)
* Also, I've been automatically logged out of the wiki twice this morning while trying to add stuff to this page, and have lost a bunch of what I've written as a result. Annoying as can be! (ES)

=== /about ===

* The About page is currently a compendium of links to many things that having nothing to do with CC as an organization. To me, the About page should have nothing more than a synopsis of the organization, the history and perhaps a link to the People/Staff page. (Nathan Kinkade)
* I mostly agree w/ Kinkade, although I think some of the links on this page do have a place there (videos, for instance). (ES)
* The licensing links should be taken off About and instead have a link to license info on the main page. (MR)

=== /contact ===

* There should be a listing of the FFAQ questions above the contact form, which links to the answers on the FFAQ wiki page. Right now there is a bit of text suggesting that someone take a look at the FAQ, but clearly few people do. The vast majority of info@ emails could be headed off if people were to actually read the FFAQ, so actually having some text like "Is your question like one of these: <iteration of FFAQ questions>?" above the contact form might preemptively answer many people's questions, and lighten the load to info@. (Nathan Kinkade)

= Theme and Layout =
* New design ideas Alex has been working on look very fresh to me - having them placed through out the site would be a nice way to liven up the look
** This will also keep CC's web properties in aesthetic coherence (Cameron Parkins)

= License Chooser =
* Updated results page
* There is a fairly urgent need to reword the descriptive text to clarify unambiguously and in no uncertain terms that the chooser is in no way whatsoever a registration form, nor is it creating a unique license of any sort. It's need to explicitly state, and probably in a highlighted fashion, that it is nothing more and nothing less than a helpful tool to help someone select the right type of license, and also useful for generating some good HTML for the purposes of marking a work online. I can't tell you how many info@ emails I get where people think that they are creating a license or registering a work. And if the info@ emails can be taken a somewhat representative sample of the general CC-using public, then there is a huge amount of mis-understanding floating around. (Nathan Kinkade)

* Agreed. In addition, we should move would-be-licensors through a logical process or roadmap that ends in selection of a license rather than starts at that point (which is where people start now if they click through the License Your Work link from the top of the home page). Currently, depending on where they click, they enter the license selection process at different points. We should be encouraging a progression that ensures they're educated about the choices they're making before they choose the license. The progression is suggested (but currently incomplete) on the current "License your work" link from the About page: (1) Review Conditions (overview of license permissions already on that page), (2) Before Licensing (the page linked from the License Your Work button on the home page, under "choose license", then (3) Review our Licenses (brief summary that we now have on that same page, but instead of saying "Select a License" have it be "Review" or "Understand", and then (4) the License chooser (with all of the changes suggested by Kinkade/Benenson on this wiki). (Diane Peters)

= Deeds =
* An easier way to quickly attribute a work via the deed.
* ...

= Blog =
* Utilize categories/tags beyond sorting posts
** Come up with structure/protocol
** Easily find posts within a category or topic (i.e. music, education, etc.)
** Tags could also enable more specialized RSS feeds.
* Refresh design
** A featured article at the top of page, followed by recently updated posts.
*** More information presented in less space without feeling cluttered.
*** Visually divide posts into columns based on tag/categories (i.e. music, education, etc.)
*** See [http://worldchanging.org/http://worldchanging.org/ worldchanging.org]
* Expand scope to include not only stories that directly reference CC, but also ones on related topics.
** "Zoom out" on issues on to put news pieces into context.

Creativecommons.org Development

2008-10-08T14:41:44Z

Eric Steuer: /* /about */

The intention of this article is to discover and examine the problems creativecommons.org has with regards to user experience, accessibility, ease of use, content, etc. Constructive thoughts about how you feel the site currently looks and works, and how you believe it could be improved.

= Site Architecture and Design =

* What is CC; Why is it compelling?
* How can I use/understand CC easily and efficiently?
* '''Remove the blog from the front page of the site''' and replace it with a concise summary of CC and a handful of highly relevant links to other parts of the site. I seriously doubt whether many people go to CC.org simply to read the blog, and those that do will have no problem clicking on a new tab that says "Weblog." Most people interested in the CC blog are probably somewhat technical and will most likely be using a feed aggregator of some sort. Rename "Jurisdiction News" to something like "Latest News" and incorporate items from the CC blog into the list, then move the list into the right column where there is presently nothing but whitespace, thereby leaving more room for relevant content in the main content area. (Nathan Kinkade)
* I agree with Kinkade for the most part, but I think that the blog serves a secondary purpose of showing people who come to the site that there is always interesting news happening in our world and that there are always cool projects that we are working on. So, while I agree that the blog should not be the focus of the page (I mean, right now, the site looks like little more than a blog when you land on the front page), I think the fact that the blog is newsy and provides dynamic content is a major plus, and that it should remain in some form on the front page. I kind of like how the EFF handles updates on their site (http://www.eff.org/), although I'm not crazy about their overall design. (Eric Steuer)
** The licenses are our 'bread and butter' - they should be featured here in some form (perhaps just the conditions) in a way that is straight forward and simple (Cameron Parkins)
* The "Support" tab has an unfortunate name. When I'm at a website and I see a link to "Support" the first thing I think about is "Technical Support" or Help, not a place where I can donate money or buy things. It could perhaps be made more clear with something like "Support CC" or "Donate" or anything that disambiguates it from the normal "help me" meaning on the web. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Totally agree with Kinkade. (Eric Steuer)
* The "Participate" tab should be renamed to something like "Wiki" or "CC Wiki" so that it's clear that CC has a wiki. My mind makes no natural connection between the word "participate" and a wiki. People, even non-technical ones, know about wikis these days, and to make it clearer on the front page that we have one might increase the traffic to it. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Suggestion to make front page 'stupidly simple'
** Two LARGE (150x150px) green buttons on dark background
*** LEARN MORE (about, blog, etc, similar to what we have)
*** LICENSE YOUR WORK (Link license chooser with no other information)
**** I think that having the license chooser on the front page could be somewhat daunting for people who don't know anything about CC. A link to a license chooser, after some explanation as to what conditions a license can carry, is a better option IMO (Cameron Parkins)
**** Agreed -- I meant it more as a link to the license chooser. [[User:Fred Benenson|Fred Benenson]] 16:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
**** The link off the main page from License Your Work shouldn't go to the chooser first, we should have that link land on an explanation page like the page linked from the About page - explain/provide basic info before asking them to choose. The page License Your Work (that you land on when you click License your Work off the About page is a good simple landing point providing a basic explanation. More below under License Chooser. (Diane Peters)
** No text, no other information [[User:Fred Benenson|Fred Benenson]] 15:00, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
* There should be a quick way to get to the list of the 6 licenses/deeds/legal code, along with an explanation of the terms (combining the 2 links indicated below in "near duplicates" section).
* Need quick link to Opportunities page.
* I think the landing main page should have minimal content, but to explain in a concise compelling way why CC is important, what we offer, etc.. (MR)
* I agree that the blog should not be the landing page (MR)
* I think that the support button should be either Join or Take Action - and should be a different color than the rest. I know *take action* sounds cheesy, but it does cause people to click through.(MR)
* Need a quick way to sign-up for the newsletter and events, as of right now both are extremely buried. Both of these options are great methods of community building and outreach and we should be promoting them as much as possible(MR)

= Information and Content =

* Overview
** An average, non-technical, person should be able to come to CC.ORG, and very quickly find out the basics of what CC provides and how it can help him. As it stands, a first time visitor has a hard time digging into the dense information currently provided.
** (Not sure who wrote the above, but this is Eric): This really is the thing. You have to get pretty far into the site before you can really figure out what is going on. For sheer simplicity, I do like Google.org's (http://www.google.org/) information design.

* Ideally, less words up front.
** People new to CC would probably prefer bite sized introductions, and pictures — compelling hooks to allow them to learn and, hopefully, disseminate to friends, colleagues, students. Long articles describing what CC is, and what the licenses are, etc. are great for those who already know about CC.

* Videos easy to find
* (Eric again) - Yes, and not all of the videos we have should really be lumped together. Like, the very basic intros to CC should not be in the same place as the ten minute explanation of how CC licenses can work in conjunction with separate commercial licensing deals. Or the ccSearch screencast (which is currently at the top of the videos page - if I didn't know anything about CC and landed there and hit that top video, I don't think it'd be of much help).

* CUT THE TEXT!! Most people skim webpages - they do not take the time to read pages and pages of information. I think that what we do and why we're important need to be communicated through video and image. I think, especially for the main page, that we need more pictures/video/etc. to draw people in and then give them an easy way to find out more information. But not dump information so much information on them that they end up closing the About page and emailing info@cc.org for a concise explanation instead - or even worse - just leaving it be and not pursuing the info anymore. (MR)

* Try and get rid of as much jargon as possible. We don't want to come off as elitist or academic by how we communicate. If the average American reads at a 6th grade level, then we need to keep that in mind. (MR)

* If all goes well, then I think we should highlight the stories we start to gather during the campaign. I think this has the potential to be very valuable in terms of communicating our mission. (MR)

* I think sometimes we focus so much on what we provide, we lose sight of what we enable people to do. The latter is the more humanistic component of CC and the side that more people will relate to/understand. (MR)
* I agree with this in essence, which is why I usually push for us to describe CC as either "a nonprofit that promotes the sharing and reuse of creative works" or "works to increase the amount of creative material available to the public for free and legal use" rather than "provides copyright licenses/legal tools, etc." Most people's eyes glaze over when you mention "copyright" and they've nearly passed out with boredom by the time you get to the word "licenses." (ES)

* The About page starts with "Creative Commons is a Massachusetts-chartered 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable corporation." Not very helpful. I'd like to see this page totally rewritten. (ES)

== Specific pages needing overhaul ==
* http://creativecommons.org (MR)

=== Near duplicate content ===

Please list highly redundant pages so we can decide which to merge and which to more highly focus:
* http://creativecommons.org/presskit now includes not just graphics, approximately same information as http://creativecommons.org/about (one click away for latter)
* http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses / http://creativecommons.org/about/license/
* not exactly redundant, but here is a list of all the pages on licensing that may be condensed (jane):
** http://creativecommons.org/license/
** http://creativecommons.org/about/license/
** http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/
** http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Before_Licensing
** http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses
** http://wiki.creativecommons.org/License_Examples

=== Wiki Main Page ===

* http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Main_Page -- way too much text and way too much info to take in; could definitely be streamlined so that pertinent info is easy to find right away. Good idea to have the "Participate" tab changed to "CC Wiki," and though many people visiting the site may know what a wiki is, not everyone will - so it would be worth it to briefly explain what the wiki is and does, and how an individual can navigate and use it. (AD)
* To much explanatory text about the links on the main page. Should just link to the pages and have relevant info there. (MR)

=== /about ===

* The About page is currently a compendium of links to many things that having nothing to do with CC as an organization. To me, the About page should have nothing more than a synopsis of the organization, the history and perhaps a link to the People/Staff page. (Nathan Kinkade)
* I mostly agree w/ Kinkade, although I think some of the links on this page do have a place there (videos, for instance). (ES)
* The licensing links should be taken off About and instead have a link to license info on the main page. (MR)

=== /contact ===

* There should be a listing of the FFAQ questions above the contact form, which links to the answers on the FFAQ wiki page. Right now there is a bit of text suggesting that someone take a look at the FAQ, but clearly few people do. The vast majority of info@ emails could be headed off if people were to actually read the FFAQ, so actually having some text like "Is your question like one of these: <iteration of FFAQ questions>?" above the contact form might preemptively answer many people's questions, and lighten the load to info@. (Nathan Kinkade)

= Theme and Layout =
* New design ideas Alex has been working on look very fresh to me - having them placed through out the site would be a nice way to liven up the look
** This will also keep CC's web properties in aesthetic coherence (Cameron Parkins)

= License Chooser =
* Updated results page
* There is a fairly urgent need to reword the descriptive text to clarify unambiguously and in no uncertain terms that the chooser is in no way whatsoever a registration form, nor is it creating a unique license of any sort. It's need to explicitly state, and probably in a highlighted fashion, that it is nothing more and nothing less than a helpful tool to help someone select the right type of license, and also useful for generating some good HTML for the purposes of marking a work online. I can't tell you how many info@ emails I get where people think that they are creating a license or registering a work. And if the info@ emails can be taken a somewhat representative sample of the general CC-using public, then there is a huge amount of mis-understanding floating around. (Nathan Kinkade)

* Agreed. In addition, we should move would-be-licensors through a logical process or roadmap that ends in selection of a license rather than starts at that point (which is where people start now if they click through the License Your Work link from the top of the home page). Currently, depending on where they click, they enter the license selection process at different points. We should be encouraging a progression that ensures they're educated about the choices they're making before they choose the license. The progression is suggested (but currently incomplete) on the current "License your work" link from the About page: (1) Review Conditions (overview of license permissions already on that page), (2) Before Licensing (the page linked from the License Your Work button on the home page, under "choose license", then (3) Review our Licenses (brief summary that we now have on that same page, but instead of saying "Select a License" have it be "Review" or "Understand", and then (4) the License chooser (with all of the changes suggested by Kinkade/Benenson on this wiki). (Diane Peters)

= Deeds =
* An easier way to quickly attribute a work via the deed.
* ...

= Blog =
* Utilize categories/tags beyond sorting posts
** Come up with structure/protocol
** Easily find posts within a category or topic (i.e. music, education, etc.)
** Tags could also enable more specialized RSS feeds.
* Refresh design
** A featured article at the top of page, followed by recently updated posts.
*** More information presented in less space without feeling cluttered.
*** Visually divide posts into columns based on tag/categories (i.e. music, education, etc.)
*** See [http://worldchanging.org/http://worldchanging.org/ worldchanging.org]
* Expand scope to include not only stories that directly reference CC, but also ones on related topics.
** "Zoom out" on issues on to put news pieces into context.

Creativecommons.org Development

2008-10-08T14:39:29Z

Eric Steuer: /* Information and Content */

The intention of this article is to discover and examine the problems creativecommons.org has with regards to user experience, accessibility, ease of use, content, etc. Constructive thoughts about how you feel the site currently looks and works, and how you believe it could be improved.

= Site Architecture and Design =

* What is CC; Why is it compelling?
* How can I use/understand CC easily and efficiently?
* '''Remove the blog from the front page of the site''' and replace it with a concise summary of CC and a handful of highly relevant links to other parts of the site. I seriously doubt whether many people go to CC.org simply to read the blog, and those that do will have no problem clicking on a new tab that says "Weblog." Most people interested in the CC blog are probably somewhat technical and will most likely be using a feed aggregator of some sort. Rename "Jurisdiction News" to something like "Latest News" and incorporate items from the CC blog into the list, then move the list into the right column where there is presently nothing but whitespace, thereby leaving more room for relevant content in the main content area. (Nathan Kinkade)
* I agree with Kinkade for the most part, but I think that the blog serves a secondary purpose of showing people who come to the site that there is always interesting news happening in our world and that there are always cool projects that we are working on. So, while I agree that the blog should not be the focus of the page (I mean, right now, the site looks like little more than a blog when you land on the front page), I think the fact that the blog is newsy and provides dynamic content is a major plus, and that it should remain in some form on the front page. I kind of like how the EFF handles updates on their site (http://www.eff.org/), although I'm not crazy about their overall design. (Eric Steuer)
** The licenses are our 'bread and butter' - they should be featured here in some form (perhaps just the conditions) in a way that is straight forward and simple (Cameron Parkins)
* The "Support" tab has an unfortunate name. When I'm at a website and I see a link to "Support" the first thing I think about is "Technical Support" or Help, not a place where I can donate money or buy things. It could perhaps be made more clear with something like "Support CC" or "Donate" or anything that disambiguates it from the normal "help me" meaning on the web. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Totally agree with Kinkade. (Eric Steuer)
* The "Participate" tab should be renamed to something like "Wiki" or "CC Wiki" so that it's clear that CC has a wiki. My mind makes no natural connection between the word "participate" and a wiki. People, even non-technical ones, know about wikis these days, and to make it clearer on the front page that we have one might increase the traffic to it. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Suggestion to make front page 'stupidly simple'
** Two LARGE (150x150px) green buttons on dark background
*** LEARN MORE (about, blog, etc, similar to what we have)
*** LICENSE YOUR WORK (Link license chooser with no other information)
**** I think that having the license chooser on the front page could be somewhat daunting for people who don't know anything about CC. A link to a license chooser, after some explanation as to what conditions a license can carry, is a better option IMO (Cameron Parkins)
**** Agreed -- I meant it more as a link to the license chooser. [[User:Fred Benenson|Fred Benenson]] 16:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
**** The link off the main page from License Your Work shouldn't go to the chooser first, we should have that link land on an explanation page like the page linked from the About page - explain/provide basic info before asking them to choose. The page License Your Work (that you land on when you click License your Work off the About page is a good simple landing point providing a basic explanation. More below under License Chooser. (Diane Peters)
** No text, no other information [[User:Fred Benenson|Fred Benenson]] 15:00, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
* There should be a quick way to get to the list of the 6 licenses/deeds/legal code, along with an explanation of the terms (combining the 2 links indicated below in "near duplicates" section).
* Need quick link to Opportunities page.
* I think the landing main page should have minimal content, but to explain in a concise compelling way why CC is important, what we offer, etc.. (MR)
* I agree that the blog should not be the landing page (MR)
* I think that the support button should be either Join or Take Action - and should be a different color than the rest. I know *take action* sounds cheesy, but it does cause people to click through.(MR)
* Need a quick way to sign-up for the newsletter and events, as of right now both are extremely buried. Both of these options are great methods of community building and outreach and we should be promoting them as much as possible(MR)

= Information and Content =

* Overview
** An average, non-technical, person should be able to come to CC.ORG, and very quickly find out the basics of what CC provides and how it can help him. As it stands, a first time visitor has a hard time digging into the dense information currently provided.
** (Not sure who wrote the above, but this is Eric): This really is the thing. You have to get pretty far into the site before you can really figure out what is going on. For sheer simplicity, I do like Google.org's (http://www.google.org/) information design.

* Ideally, less words up front.
** People new to CC would probably prefer bite sized introductions, and pictures — compelling hooks to allow them to learn and, hopefully, disseminate to friends, colleagues, students. Long articles describing what CC is, and what the licenses are, etc. are great for those who already know about CC.

* Videos easy to find
* (Eric again) - Yes, and not all of the videos we have should really be lumped together. Like, the very basic intros to CC should not be in the same place as the ten minute explanation of how CC licenses can work in conjunction with separate commercial licensing deals. Or the ccSearch screencast (which is currently at the top of the videos page - if I didn't know anything about CC and landed there and hit that top video, I don't think it'd be of much help).

* CUT THE TEXT!! Most people skim webpages - they do not take the time to read pages and pages of information. I think that what we do and why we're important need to be communicated through video and image. I think, especially for the main page, that we need more pictures/video/etc. to draw people in and then give them an easy way to find out more information. But not dump information so much information on them that they end up closing the About page and emailing info@cc.org for a concise explanation instead - or even worse - just leaving it be and not pursuing the info anymore. (MR)

* Try and get rid of as much jargon as possible. We don't want to come off as elitist or academic by how we communicate. If the average American reads at a 6th grade level, then we need to keep that in mind. (MR)

* If all goes well, then I think we should highlight the stories we start to gather during the campaign. I think this has the potential to be very valuable in terms of communicating our mission. (MR)

* I think sometimes we focus so much on what we provide, we lose sight of what we enable people to do. The latter is the more humanistic component of CC and the side that more people will relate to/understand. (MR)
* I agree with this in essence, which is why I usually push for us to describe CC as either "a nonprofit that promotes the sharing and reuse of creative works" or "works to increase the amount of creative material available to the public for free and legal use" rather than "provides copyright licenses/legal tools, etc." Most people's eyes glaze over when you mention "copyright" and they've nearly passed out with boredom by the time you get to the word "licenses." (ES)

* The About page starts with "Creative Commons is a Massachusetts-chartered 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable corporation." Not very helpful. I'd like to see this page totally rewritten. (ES)

== Specific pages needing overhaul ==
* http://creativecommons.org (MR)

=== Near duplicate content ===

Please list highly redundant pages so we can decide which to merge and which to more highly focus:
* http://creativecommons.org/presskit now includes not just graphics, approximately same information as http://creativecommons.org/about (one click away for latter)
* http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses / http://creativecommons.org/about/license/
* not exactly redundant, but here is a list of all the pages on licensing that may be condensed (jane):
** http://creativecommons.org/license/
** http://creativecommons.org/about/license/
** http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/
** http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Before_Licensing
** http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses
** http://wiki.creativecommons.org/License_Examples

=== Wiki Main Page ===

* http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Main_Page -- way too much text and way too much info to take in; could definitely be streamlined so that pertinent info is easy to find right away. Good idea to have the "Participate" tab changed to "CC Wiki," and though many people visiting the site may know what a wiki is, not everyone will - so it would be worth it to briefly explain what the wiki is and does, and how an individual can navigate and use it. (AD)
* To much explanatory text about the links on the main page. Should just link to the pages and have relevant info there. (MR)

=== /about ===

* The About page is currently a compendium of links to many things that having nothing to do with CC as an organization. To me, the About page should have nothing more than a synopsis of the organization, the history and perhaps a link to the People/Staff page. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Agreed wholeheartedly w/ Kinkade. (ES)
* The licensing links should be taken off About and instead have a link to license info on the main page. (MR)

=== /contact ===

* There should be a listing of the FFAQ questions above the contact form, which links to the answers on the FFAQ wiki page. Right now there is a bit of text suggesting that someone take a look at the FAQ, but clearly few people do. The vast majority of info@ emails could be headed off if people were to actually read the FFAQ, so actually having some text like "Is your question like one of these: <iteration of FFAQ questions>?" above the contact form might preemptively answer many people's questions, and lighten the load to info@. (Nathan Kinkade)

= Theme and Layout =
* New design ideas Alex has been working on look very fresh to me - having them placed through out the site would be a nice way to liven up the look
** This will also keep CC's web properties in aesthetic coherence (Cameron Parkins)

= License Chooser =
* Updated results page
* There is a fairly urgent need to reword the descriptive text to clarify unambiguously and in no uncertain terms that the chooser is in no way whatsoever a registration form, nor is it creating a unique license of any sort. It's need to explicitly state, and probably in a highlighted fashion, that it is nothing more and nothing less than a helpful tool to help someone select the right type of license, and also useful for generating some good HTML for the purposes of marking a work online. I can't tell you how many info@ emails I get where people think that they are creating a license or registering a work. And if the info@ emails can be taken a somewhat representative sample of the general CC-using public, then there is a huge amount of mis-understanding floating around. (Nathan Kinkade)

* Agreed. In addition, we should move would-be-licensors through a logical process or roadmap that ends in selection of a license rather than starts at that point (which is where people start now if they click through the License Your Work link from the top of the home page). Currently, depending on where they click, they enter the license selection process at different points. We should be encouraging a progression that ensures they're educated about the choices they're making before they choose the license. The progression is suggested (but currently incomplete) on the current "License your work" link from the About page: (1) Review Conditions (overview of license permissions already on that page), (2) Before Licensing (the page linked from the License Your Work button on the home page, under "choose license", then (3) Review our Licenses (brief summary that we now have on that same page, but instead of saying "Select a License" have it be "Review" or "Understand", and then (4) the License chooser (with all of the changes suggested by Kinkade/Benenson on this wiki). (Diane Peters)

= Deeds =
* An easier way to quickly attribute a work via the deed.
* ...

= Blog =
* Utilize categories/tags beyond sorting posts
** Come up with structure/protocol
** Easily find posts within a category or topic (i.e. music, education, etc.)
** Tags could also enable more specialized RSS feeds.
* Refresh design
** A featured article at the top of page, followed by recently updated posts.
*** More information presented in less space without feeling cluttered.
*** Visually divide posts into columns based on tag/categories (i.e. music, education, etc.)
*** See [http://worldchanging.org/http://worldchanging.org/ worldchanging.org]
* Expand scope to include not only stories that directly reference CC, but also ones on related topics.
** "Zoom out" on issues on to put news pieces into context.

Creativecommons.org Development

2008-10-08T14:28:44Z

Eric Steuer: /* Site Architecture and Design */

The intention of this article is to discover and examine the problems creativecommons.org has with regards to user experience, accessibility, ease of use, content, etc. Constructive thoughts about how you feel the site currently looks and works, and how you believe it could be improved.

= Site Architecture and Design =

* What is CC; Why is it compelling?
* How can I use/understand CC easily and efficiently?
* '''Remove the blog from the front page of the site''' and replace it with a concise summary of CC and a handful of highly relevant links to other parts of the site. I seriously doubt whether many people go to CC.org simply to read the blog, and those that do will have no problem clicking on a new tab that says "Weblog." Most people interested in the CC blog are probably somewhat technical and will most likely be using a feed aggregator of some sort. Rename "Jurisdiction News" to something like "Latest News" and incorporate items from the CC blog into the list, then move the list into the right column where there is presently nothing but whitespace, thereby leaving more room for relevant content in the main content area. (Nathan Kinkade)
* I agree with Kinkade for the most part, but I think that the blog serves a secondary purpose of showing people who come to the site that there is always interesting news happening in our world and that there are always cool projects that we are working on. So, while I agree that the blog should not be the focus of the page (I mean, right now, the site looks like little more than a blog when you land on the front page), I think the fact that the blog is newsy and provides dynamic content is a major plus, and that it should remain in some form on the front page. I kind of like how the EFF handles updates on their site (http://www.eff.org/), although I'm not crazy about their overall design. (Eric Steuer)
** The licenses are our 'bread and butter' - they should be featured here in some form (perhaps just the conditions) in a way that is straight forward and simple (Cameron Parkins)
* The "Support" tab has an unfortunate name. When I'm at a website and I see a link to "Support" the first thing I think about is "Technical Support" or Help, not a place where I can donate money or buy things. It could perhaps be made more clear with something like "Support CC" or "Donate" or anything that disambiguates it from the normal "help me" meaning on the web. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Totally agree with Kinkade. (Eric Steuer)
* The "Participate" tab should be renamed to something like "Wiki" or "CC Wiki" so that it's clear that CC has a wiki. My mind makes no natural connection between the word "participate" and a wiki. People, even non-technical ones, know about wikis these days, and to make it clearer on the front page that we have one might increase the traffic to it. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Suggestion to make front page 'stupidly simple'
** Two LARGE (150x150px) green buttons on dark background
*** LEARN MORE (about, blog, etc, similar to what we have)
*** LICENSE YOUR WORK (Link license chooser with no other information)
**** I think that having the license chooser on the front page could be somewhat daunting for people who don't know anything about CC. A link to a license chooser, after some explanation as to what conditions a license can carry, is a better option IMO (Cameron Parkins)
**** Agreed -- I meant it more as a link to the license chooser. [[User:Fred Benenson|Fred Benenson]] 16:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
**** The link off the main page from License Your Work shouldn't go to the chooser first, we should have that link land on an explanation page like the page linked from the About page - explain/provide basic info before asking them to choose. The page License Your Work (that you land on when you click License your Work off the About page is a good simple landing point providing a basic explanation. More below under License Chooser. (Diane Peters)
** No text, no other information [[User:Fred Benenson|Fred Benenson]] 15:00, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
* There should be a quick way to get to the list of the 6 licenses/deeds/legal code, along with an explanation of the terms (combining the 2 links indicated below in "near duplicates" section).
* Need quick link to Opportunities page.
* I think the landing main page should have minimal content, but to explain in a concise compelling way why CC is important, what we offer, etc.. (MR)
* I agree that the blog should not be the landing page (MR)
* I think that the support button should be either Join or Take Action - and should be a different color than the rest. I know *take action* sounds cheesy, but it does cause people to click through.(MR)
* Need a quick way to sign-up for the newsletter and events, as of right now both are extremely buried. Both of these options are great methods of community building and outreach and we should be promoting them as much as possible(MR)

= Information and Content =

* Overview
** An average, non-technical, person should be able to come to CC.ORG, and very quickly find out the basics of what CC provides and how it can help him. As it stands, a first time visitor has a hard time digging into the dense information currently provided.
** (Not sure who wrote the above, but this is Eric): This really is the thing. You have to get pretty far into the site before you can really figure out wtf is going on. For sheer simplicity, I do like Google.org's (http://www.google.org/) information design.

* Ideally, less words up front.
** People new to CC would probably prefer bite sized introductions, and pictures — compelling hooks to allow them to learn and, hopefully, disseminate to friends, colleagues, students. Long articles describing what CC is, and what the licenses are, etc. are great for those who already know about CC.

* Videos easy to find
* (Eric again) - Yes, and not all of the videos we have should really be lumped together. Like, the very basic intros to CC should not be in the same place as the ten minute explanation of how CC licenses can work in conjunction with separate commercial licensing deals. Or the ccSearch screencast (which is currently at the top of the videos page - if I didn't know anything about CC and landed there and hit that top video, I don't think it'd be of much help).

* CUT THE TEXT!! Most people skim webpages - they do not take the time to read pages and pages of information. I think that what we do and why we're important need to be communicated through video and image. I think, especially for the main page, that we need more pictures/video/etc. to draw people in and then give them an easy way to find out more information. But not dump information so much information on them that they end up closing the About page and emailing info@cc.org for a concise explanation instead - or even worse - just leaving it be and not pursuing the info anymore. (MR)

* Try and get rid of as much jargon as possible. We don't want to come off as elitist or academic by how we communicate. If the average American reads at a 6th grade level, then we need to keep that in mind. (MR)

* If all goes well, then I think we should highlight the stories we start to gather during the campaign. I think this has the potential to be very valuable in terms of communicating our mission. (MR)

* I think sometimes we focus so much on what we provide, we lose sight of what we enable people to do. The latter is the more humanistic component of CC and the side that more people will relate to/understand. (MR)
* I agree with this in essence, which is why I usually push for us to describe CC as either "a nonprofit that promotes the sharing and reuse of creative works" or "works to increase the amount of creative material available to the public for free and legal use" rather than "provides copyright licenses/legal tools, etc." Most people's eyes glaze over when you mention "copyright" and they've nearly passed out with boredom by the time you get to the word "licenses." (ES)

== Specific pages needing overhaul ==
* http://creativecommons.org (MR)

=== Near duplicate content ===

Please list highly redundant pages so we can decide which to merge and which to more highly focus:
* http://creativecommons.org/presskit now includes not just graphics, approximately same information as http://creativecommons.org/about (one click away for latter)
* http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses / http://creativecommons.org/about/license/
* not exactly redundant, but here is a list of all the pages on licensing that may be condensed (jane):
** http://creativecommons.org/license/
** http://creativecommons.org/about/license/
** http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/
** http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Before_Licensing
** http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses
** http://wiki.creativecommons.org/License_Examples

=== Wiki Main Page ===

* http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Main_Page -- way too much text and way too much info to take in; could definitely be streamlined so that pertinent info is easy to find right away. Good idea to have the "Participate" tab changed to "CC Wiki," and though many people visiting the site may know what a wiki is, not everyone will - so it would be worth it to briefly explain what the wiki is and does, and how an individual can navigate and use it. (AD)
* To much explanatory text about the links on the main page. Should just link to the pages and have relevant info there. (MR)

=== /about ===

* The About page is currently a compendium of links to many things that having nothing to do with CC as an organization. To me, the About page should have nothing more than a synopsis of the organization, the history and perhaps a link to the People/Staff page. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Agreed wholeheartedly w/ Kinkade. (ES)
* The licensing links should be taken off About and instead have a link to license info on the main page. (MR)

=== /contact ===

* There should be a listing of the FFAQ questions above the contact form, which links to the answers on the FFAQ wiki page. Right now there is a bit of text suggesting that someone take a look at the FAQ, but clearly few people do. The vast majority of info@ emails could be headed off if people were to actually read the FFAQ, so actually having some text like "Is your question like one of these: <iteration of FFAQ questions>?" above the contact form might preemptively answer many people's questions, and lighten the load to info@. (Nathan Kinkade)

= Theme and Layout =
* New design ideas Alex has been working on look very fresh to me - having them placed through out the site would be a nice way to liven up the look
** This will also keep CC's web properties in aesthetic coherence (Cameron Parkins)

= License Chooser =
* Updated results page
* There is a fairly urgent need to reword the descriptive text to clarify unambiguously and in no uncertain terms that the chooser is in no way whatsoever a registration form, nor is it creating a unique license of any sort. It's need to explicitly state, and probably in a highlighted fashion, that it is nothing more and nothing less than a helpful tool to help someone select the right type of license, and also useful for generating some good HTML for the purposes of marking a work online. I can't tell you how many info@ emails I get where people think that they are creating a license or registering a work. And if the info@ emails can be taken a somewhat representative sample of the general CC-using public, then there is a huge amount of mis-understanding floating around. (Nathan Kinkade)

* Agreed. In addition, we should move would-be-licensors through a logical process or roadmap that ends in selection of a license rather than starts at that point (which is where people start now if they click through the License Your Work link from the top of the home page). Currently, depending on where they click, they enter the license selection process at different points. We should be encouraging a progression that ensures they're educated about the choices they're making before they choose the license. The progression is suggested (but currently incomplete) on the current "License your work" link from the About page: (1) Review Conditions (overview of license permissions already on that page), (2) Before Licensing (the page linked from the License Your Work button on the home page, under "choose license", then (3) Review our Licenses (brief summary that we now have on that same page, but instead of saying "Select a License" have it be "Review" or "Understand", and then (4) the License chooser (with all of the changes suggested by Kinkade/Benenson on this wiki). (Diane Peters)

= Deeds =
* An easier way to quickly attribute a work via the deed.
* ...

= Blog =
* Utilize categories/tags beyond sorting posts
** Come up with structure/protocol
** Easily find posts within a category or topic (i.e. music, education, etc.)
** Tags could also enable more specialized RSS feeds.
* Refresh design
** A featured article at the top of page, followed by recently updated posts.
*** More information presented in less space without feeling cluttered.
*** Visually divide posts into columns based on tag/categories (i.e. music, education, etc.)
*** See [http://worldchanging.org/http://worldchanging.org/ worldchanging.org]
* Expand scope to include not only stories that directly reference CC, but also ones on related topics.
** "Zoom out" on issues on to put news pieces into context.

Creativecommons.org Development

2008-10-08T00:48:40Z

Eric Steuer: /* Information and Content */

The intention of this article is to discover and examine the problems creativecommons.org has with regards to user experience, accessibility, ease of use, content, etc. Constructive thoughts about how you feel the site currently looks and works, and how you believe it could be improved.

= Site Architecture and Design =

* What is CC; Why is it compelling?
* How can I use/understand CC easily and efficiently?
* '''Remove the blog from the front page of the site''' and replace it with a concise summary of CC and a handful of highly relevant links to other parts of the site. I seriously doubt whether many people go to CC.org simply to read the blog, and those that do will have no problem clicking on a new tab that says "Weblog." Most people interested in the CC blog are probably somewhat technical and will most likely be using a feed aggregator of some sort. Rename "Jurisdiction News" to something like "Latest News" and incorporate items from the CC blog into the list, then move the list into the right column where there is presently nothing but whitespace, thereby leaving more room for relevant content in the main content area. (Nathan Kinkade)
* I agree with Kinkade for the most part, but I think that the blog serves a secondary purpose of showing people who come to the site that there are is always interesting news happening in our world and that there are always cool projects that we are working on. So, while I agree that the blog should not be the focus of the page (I mean, right now, the site looks like little more than a blog when you land on the front page), I think the fact that the blog is newsy and provides dynamic content is a major plus, and that it should remain in some form on the front page. I kind of like how the EFF handles updates on their site (http://www.eff.org/), although I'm not crazy about their overall design. (Eric Steuer)
** The licenses are our 'bread and butter' - they should be featured here in some form (perhaps just the conditions) in a way that is straight forward and simple (Cameron Parkins)
* The "Support" tab has an unfortunate name. When I'm at a website and I see a link to "Support" the first thing I think about is "Technical Support" or Help, not a place where I can donate money or buy things. It could perhaps be made more clear with something like "Support CC" or "Donate" or anything that disambiguates it from the normal "help me" meaning on the web. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Totally agree with Kinkade. (Eric Steuer)
* The "Participate" tab should be renamed to something like "Wiki" or "CC Wiki" so that it's clear that CC has a wiki. My mind makes no natural connection between the word "participate" and a wiki. People, even non-technical ones, know about wikis these days, and to make it clearer on the front page that we have one might increase the traffic to it. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Suggestion to make front page 'stupidly simple'
** Two LARGE (150x150px) green buttons on dark background
*** LEARN MORE (about, blog, etc, similar to what we have)
*** LICENSE YOUR WORK (Link license chooser with no other information)
**** I think that having the license chooser on the front page could be somewhat daunting for people who don't know anything about CC. A link to a license chooser, after some explanation as to what conditions a license can carry, is a better option IMO (Cameron Parkins)
**** Agreed -- I meant it more as a link to the license chooser. [[User:Fred Benenson|Fred Benenson]] 16:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
** No text, no other information [[User:Fred Benenson|Fred Benenson]] 15:00, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
* There should be a quick way to get to the list of the 6 licenses/deeds/legal code, along with an explanation of the terms (combining the 2 links indicated below in "near duplicates" section).
* Need quick link to Opportunities page.
* I think the landing main page should have minimal content, but to explain in a concise compelling way why CC is important, what we offer, etc.. (MR)
* I agree that the blog should not be the landing page (MR)
* I think that the support button should be either Join or Take Action - and should be a different color than the rest. I know *take action* sounds cheesy, but it does cause people to click through.(MR)
* Need a quick way to sign-up for the newsletter and events, as of right now both are extremely buried. Both of these options are great methods of community building and outreach and we should be promoting them as much as possible(MR)

= Information and Content =

* Overview
** An average, non-technical, person should be able to come to CC.ORG, and very quickly find out the basics of what CC provides and how it can help him. As it stands, a first time visitor has a hard time digging into the dense information currently provided.
** (Not sure who wrote the above, but this is Eric): This really is the thing. You have to get pretty far into the site before you can really figure out wtf is going on. For sheer simplicity, I do like Google.org's (http://www.google.org/) information design.

* Ideally, less words up front.
** People new to CC would probably prefer bite sized introductions, and pictures — compelling hooks to allow them to learn and, hopefully, disseminate to friends, colleagues, students. Long articles describing what CC is, and what the licenses are, etc. are great for those who already know about CC.

* Videos easy to find
* (Eric again) - Yes, and not all of the videos we have should really be lumped together. Like, the very basic intros to CC should not be in the same place as the ten minute explanation of how CC licenses can work in conjunction with separate commercial licensing deals. Or the ccSearch screencast (which is currently at the top of the videos page - if I didn't know anything about CC and landed there and hit that top video, I don't think it'd be of much help).

* CUT THE TEXT!! Most people skim webpages - they do not take the time to read pages and pages of information. I think that what we do and why we're important need to be communicated through video and image. I think, especially for the main page, that we need more pictures/video/etc. to draw people in and then give them an easy way to find out more information. But not dump information so much information on them that they end up closing the About page and emailing info@cc.org for a concise explanation instead - or even worse - just leaving it be and not pursuing the info anymore. (MR)

* Try and get rid of as much jargon as possible. We don't want to come off as elitist or academic by how we communicate. If the average American reads at a 6th grade level, then we need to keep that in mind. (MR)

* If all goes well, then I think we should highlight the stories we start to gather during the campaign. I think this has the potential to be very valuable in terms of communicating our mission. (MR)

* I think sometimes we focus so much on what we provide, we lose sight of what we enable people to do. The latter is the more humanistic component of CC and the side that more people will relate to/understand. (MR)
* I agree with this in essence, which is why I usually push for us to describe CC as either "a nonprofit that promotes the sharing and reuse of creative works" or "works to increase the amount of creative material available to the public for free and legal use" rather than "provides copyright licenses/legal tools, etc." Most people's eyes glaze over when you mention "copyright" and they've nearly passed out with boredom by the time you get to the word "licenses." (ES)

== Specific pages needing overhaul ==
* http://creativecommons.org (MR)

=== Near duplicate content ===

Please list highly redundant pages so we can decide which to merge and which to more highly focus:
* http://creativecommons.org/presskit now includes not just graphics, approximately same information as http://creativecommons.org/about (one click away for latter)
* http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses / http://creativecommons.org/about/license/
* not exactly redundant, but here is a list of all the pages on licensing that may be condensed (jane):
** http://creativecommons.org/license/
** http://creativecommons.org/about/license/
** http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/
** http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Before_Licensing
** http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses
** http://wiki.creativecommons.org/License_Examples

=== Wiki Main Page ===

* http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Main_Page -- way too much text and way too much info to take in; could definitely be streamlined so that pertinent info is easy to find right away. Good idea to have the "Participate" tab changed to "CC Wiki," and though many people visiting the site may know what a wiki is, not everyone will - so it would be worth it to briefly explain what the wiki is and does, and how an individual can navigate and use it. (AD)
* To much explanatory text about the links on the main page. Should just link to the pages and have relevant info there. (MR)

=== /about ===

* The About page is currently a compendium of links to many things that having nothing to do with CC as an organization. To me, the About page should have nothing more than a synopsis of the organization, the history and perhaps a link to the People/Staff page. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Agreed wholeheartedly w/ Kinkade. (ES)
* The licensing links should be taken off About and instead have a link to license info on the main page. (MR)

=== /contact ===

* There should be a listing of the FFAQ questions above the contact form, which links to the answers on the FFAQ wiki page. Right now there is a bit of text suggesting that someone take a look at the FAQ, but clearly few people do. The vast majority of info@ emails could be headed off if people were to actually read the FFAQ, so actually having some text like "Is your question like one of these: <iteration of FFAQ questions>?" above the contact form might preemptively answer many people's questions, and lighten the load to info@. (Nathan Kinkade)

= Theme and Layout =
* New design ideas Alex has been working on look very fresh to me - having them placed through out the site would be a nice way to liven up the look
** This will also keep CC's web properties in aesthetic coherence (Cameron Parkins)

= License Chooser =
* Updated results page
* There is a fairly urgent need to reword the descriptive text to clarify unambiguously and in no uncertain terms that the chooser is in no way whatsoever a registration form, nor is it creating a unique license of any sort. It's need to explicitly state, and probably in a highlighted fashion, that it is nothing more and nothing less than a helpful tool to help someone select the right type of license, and also useful for generating some good HTML for the purposes of marking a work online. I can't tell you how many info@ emails I get where people think that they are creating a license or registering a work. And if the info@ emails can be taken a somewhat representative sample of the general CC-using public, then there is a huge amount of mis-understanding floating around. (Nathan Kinkade)

= Deeds =
* An easier way to quickly attribute a work via the deed.
* ...

= Blog =
* Utilize categories/tags beyond sorting posts
** Come up with structure/protocol
** Easily find posts within a category or topic (i.e. music, education, etc.)
** Tags could also enable more specialized RSS feeds.
* Refresh design
** A featured article at the top of page, followed by recently updated posts.
*** More information presented in less space without feeling cluttered.
*** Visually divide posts into columns based on tag/categories (i.e. music, education, etc.)
*** See [http://worldchanging.org/http://worldchanging.org/ worldchanging.org]
* Expand scope to include not only stories that directly reference CC, but also ones on related topics.
** "Zoom out" on issues on to put news pieces into context.

Creativecommons.org Development

2008-10-08T00:35:58Z

Eric Steuer: /* Site Architecture and Design */

The intention of this article is to discover and examine the problems creativecommons.org has with regards to user experience, accessibility, ease of use, content, etc. Constructive thoughts about how you feel the site currently looks and works, and how you believe it could be improved.

= Site Architecture and Design =

* What is CC; Why is it compelling?
* How can I use/understand CC easily and efficiently?
* '''Remove the blog from the front page of the site''' and replace it with a concise summary of CC and a handful of highly relevant links to other parts of the site. I seriously doubt whether many people go to CC.org simply to read the blog, and those that do will have no problem clicking on a new tab that says "Weblog." Most people interested in the CC blog are probably somewhat technical and will most likely be using a feed aggregator of some sort. Rename "Jurisdiction News" to something like "Latest News" and incorporate items from the CC blog into the list, then move the list into the right column where there is presently nothing but whitespace, thereby leaving more room for relevant content in the main content area. (Nathan Kinkade)
* I agree with Kinkade for the most part, but I think that the blog serves a secondary purpose of showing people who come to the site that there are is always interesting news happening in our world and that there are always cool projects that we are working on. So, while I agree that the blog should not be the focus of the page (I mean, right now, the site looks like little more than a blog when you land on the front page), I think the fact that the blog is newsy and provides dynamic content is a major plus, and that it should remain in some form on the front page. I kind of like how the EFF handles updates on their site (http://www.eff.org/), although I'm not crazy about their overall design. (Eric Steuer)
** The licenses are our 'bread and butter' - they should be featured here in some form (perhaps just the conditions) in a way that is straight forward and simple (Cameron Parkins)
* The "Support" tab has an unfortunate name. When I'm at a website and I see a link to "Support" the first thing I think about is "Technical Support" or Help, not a place where I can donate money or buy things. It could perhaps be made more clear with something like "Support CC" or "Donate" or anything that disambiguates it from the normal "help me" meaning on the web. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Totally agree with Kinkade. (Eric Steuer)
* The "Participate" tab should be renamed to something like "Wiki" or "CC Wiki" so that it's clear that CC has a wiki. My mind makes no natural connection between the word "participate" and a wiki. People, even non-technical ones, know about wikis these days, and to make it clearer on the front page that we have one might increase the traffic to it. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Suggestion to make front page 'stupidly simple'
** Two LARGE (150x150px) green buttons on dark background
*** LEARN MORE (about, blog, etc, similar to what we have)
*** LICENSE YOUR WORK (Link license chooser with no other information)
**** I think that having the license chooser on the front page could be somewhat daunting for people who don't know anything about CC. A link to a license chooser, after some explanation as to what conditions a license can carry, is a better option IMO (Cameron Parkins)
**** Agreed -- I meant it more as a link to the license chooser. [[User:Fred Benenson|Fred Benenson]] 16:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
** No text, no other information [[User:Fred Benenson|Fred Benenson]] 15:00, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
* There should be a quick way to get to the list of the 6 licenses/deeds/legal code, along with an explanation of the terms (combining the 2 links indicated below in "near duplicates" section).
* Need quick link to Opportunities page.
* I think the landing main page should have minimal content, but to explain in a concise compelling way why CC is important, what we offer, etc.. (MR)
* I agree that the blog should not be the landing page (MR)
* I think that the support button should be either Join or Take Action - and should be a different color than the rest. I know *take action* sounds cheesy, but it does cause people to click through.(MR)
* Need a quick way to sign-up for the newsletter and events, as of right now both are extremely buried. Both of these options are great methods of community building and outreach and we should be promoting them as much as possible(MR)

= Information and Content =

* Overview
** An average, non-technical, person should be able to come to CC.ORG, and very quickly find out the basics of what CC provides and how it can help him. As it stands, a first time visitor has a hard time digging into the dense information currently provided.

* Ideally, less words up front.
** People new to CC would probably prefer bite sized introductions, and pictures — compelling hooks to allow them to learn and, hopefully, disseminate to friends, colleagues, students. Long articles describing what CC is, and what the licenses are, etc. are great for those who already know about CC.

* Videos easy to find

* CUT THE TEXT!! Most people skim webpages - they do not take the time to read pages and pages of information. I think that what we do and why we're important need to be communicated through video and image. I think, especially for the main page, that we need more pictures/video/etc. to draw people in and then give them an easy way to find out more information. But not dump information so much information on them that they end up closing the About page and emailing info@cc.org for a concise explanation instead - or even worse - just leaving it be and not pursuing the info anymore. (MR)

* Try and get rid of as much jargon as possible. We don't want to come off as elitist or academic by how we communicate. If the average American reads at a 6th grade level, then we need to keep that in mind. (MR)

* If all goes well, then I think we should highlight the stories we start to gather during the campaign. I think this has the potential to be very valuable in terms of communicating our mission. (MR)

* I think sometimes we focus so much on what we provide, we lose sight of what we enable people to do. The latter is the more humanistic component of CC and the side that more people will relate to/understand. (MR)

== Specific pages needing overhaul ==
* http://creativecommons.org (MR)

=== Near duplicate content ===

Please list highly redundant pages so we can decide which to merge and which to more highly focus:
* http://creativecommons.org/presskit now includes not just graphics, approximately same information as http://creativecommons.org/about (one click away for latter)
* http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses / http://creativecommons.org/about/license/
* not exactly redundant, but here is a list of all the pages on licensing that may be condensed (jane):
** http://creativecommons.org/license/
** http://creativecommons.org/about/license/
** http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/
** http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Before_Licensing
** http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses
** http://wiki.creativecommons.org/License_Examples

=== Wiki Main Page ===

* http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Main_Page -- way too much text and way too much info to take in; could definitely be streamlined so that pertinent info is easy to find right away. Good idea to have the "Participate" tab changed to "CC Wiki," and though many people visiting the site may know what a wiki is, not everyone will - so it would be worth it to briefly explain what the wiki is and does, and how an individual can navigate and use it. (AD)
* To much explanatory text about the links on the main page. Should just link to the pages and have relevant info there. (MR)

=== /about ===

* The About page is currently a compendium of links to many things that having nothing to do with CC as an organization. To me, the About page should have nothing more than a synopsis of the organization, the history and perhaps a link to the People/Staff page. (Nathan Kinkade)
* The licensing links should be taken off About and instead have a link to license info on the main page. (MR)

=== /contact ===

* There should be a listing of the FFAQ questions above the contact form, which links to the answers on the FFAQ wiki page. Right now there is a bit of text suggesting that someone take a look at the FAQ, but clearly few people do. The vast majority of info@ emails could be headed off if people were to actually read the FFAQ, so actually having some text like "Is your question like one of these: <iteration of FFAQ questions>?" above the contact form might preemptively answer many people's questions, and lighten the load to info@. (Nathan Kinkade)

= Theme and Layout =
* New design ideas Alex has been working on look very fresh to me - having them placed through out the site would be a nice way to liven up the look
** This will also keep CC's web properties in aesthetic coherence (Cameron Parkins)

= License Chooser =
* Updated results page
* There is a fairly urgent need to reword the descriptive text to clarify unambiguously and in no uncertain terms that the chooser is in no way whatsoever a registration form, nor is it creating a unique license of any sort. It's need to explicitly state, and probably in a highlighted fashion, that it is nothing more and nothing less than a helpful tool to help someone select the right type of license, and also useful for generating some good HTML for the purposes of marking a work online. I can't tell you how many info@ emails I get where people think that they are creating a license or registering a work. And if the info@ emails can be taken a somewhat representative sample of the general CC-using public, then there is a huge amount of mis-understanding floating around. (Nathan Kinkade)

= Deeds =
* An easier way to quickly attribute a work via the deed.
* ...

= Blog =
* Utilize categories/tags beyond sorting posts
** Come up with structure/protocol
** Easily find posts within a category or topic (i.e. music, education, etc.)
** Tags could also enable more specialized RSS feeds.
* Refresh design
** A featured article at the top of page, followed by recently updated posts.
*** More information presented in less space without feeling cluttered.
*** Visually divide posts into columns based on tag/categories (i.e. music, education, etc.)
*** See [http://worldchanging.org/http://worldchanging.org/ worldchanging.org]
* Expand scope to include not only stories that directly reference CC, but also ones on related topics.
** "Zoom out" on issues on to put news pieces into context.

Creativecommons.org Development

2008-10-08T00:34:54Z

Eric Steuer: /* Site Architecture and Design */

The intention of this article is to discover and examine the problems creativecommons.org has with regards to user experience, accessibility, ease of use, content, etc. Constructive thoughts about how you feel the site currently looks and works, and how you believe it could be improved.

= Site Architecture and Design =

* What is CC; Why is it compelling?
* How can I use/understand CC easily and efficiently?
* '''Remove the blog from the front page of the site''' and replace it with a concise summary of CC and a handful of highly relevant links to other parts of the site. I seriously doubt whether many people go to CC.org simply to read the blog, and those that do will have no problem clicking on a new tab that says "Weblog." Most people interested in the CC blog are probably somewhat technical and will most likely be using a feed aggregator of some sort. Rename "Jurisdiction News" to something like "Latest News" and incorporate items from the CC blog into the list, then move the list into the right column where there is presently nothing but whitespace, thereby leaving more room for relevant content in the main content area. (Nathan Kinkade)
* I agree with Kinkade for the most part, but I think that the blog serves a secondary purpose of showing people who come to the site that there are is always interesting news happening in our world and that there are always cool projects that we are working on. So, while I agree that it should not be the focus of the page, I think the fact that it is newsy and provides dynamic content is a plus, and that the blog should remain in some form on the front page. I kind of like how the EFF handles updates on their site (http://www.eff.org/), although I'm not crazy about their design. (Eric Steuer)
** The licenses are our 'bread and butter' - they should be featured here in some form (perhaps just the conditions) in a way that is straight forward and simple (Cameron Parkins)
* The "Support" tab has an unfortunate name. When I'm at a website and I see a link to "Support" the first thing I think about is "Technical Support" or Help, not a place where I can donate money or buy things. It could perhaps be made more clear with something like "Support CC" or "Donate" or anything that disambiguates it from the normal "help me" meaning on the web. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Totally agree with Kinkade. (Eric Steuer)
* The "Participate" tab should be renamed to something like "Wiki" or "CC Wiki" so that it's clear that CC has a wiki. My mind makes no natural connection between the word "participate" and a wiki. People, even non-technical ones, know about wikis these days, and to make it clearer on the front page that we have one might increase the traffic to it. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Suggestion to make front page 'stupidly simple'
** Two LARGE (150x150px) green buttons on dark background
*** LEARN MORE (about, blog, etc, similar to what we have)
*** LICENSE YOUR WORK (Link license chooser with no other information)
**** I think that having the license chooser on the front page could be somewhat daunting for people who don't know anything about CC. A link to a license chooser, after some explanation as to what conditions a license can carry, is a better option IMO (Cameron Parkins)
**** Agreed -- I meant it more as a link to the license chooser. [[User:Fred Benenson|Fred Benenson]] 16:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
** No text, no other information [[User:Fred Benenson|Fred Benenson]] 15:00, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
* There should be a quick way to get to the list of the 6 licenses/deeds/legal code, along with an explanation of the terms (combining the 2 links indicated below in "near duplicates" section).
* Need quick link to Opportunities page.
* I think the landing main page should have minimal content, but to explain in a concise compelling way why CC is important, what we offer, etc.. (MR)
* I agree that the blog should not be the landing page (MR)
* I think that the support button should be either Join or Take Action - and should be a different color than the rest. I know *take action* sounds cheesy, but it does cause people to click through.(MR)
* Need a quick way to sign-up for the newsletter and events, as of right now both are extremely buried. Both of these options are great methods of community building and outreach and we should be promoting them as much as possible(MR)

= Information and Content =

* Overview
** An average, non-technical, person should be able to come to CC.ORG, and very quickly find out the basics of what CC provides and how it can help him. As it stands, a first time visitor has a hard time digging into the dense information currently provided.

* Ideally, less words up front.
** People new to CC would probably prefer bite sized introductions, and pictures — compelling hooks to allow them to learn and, hopefully, disseminate to friends, colleagues, students. Long articles describing what CC is, and what the licenses are, etc. are great for those who already know about CC.

* Videos easy to find

* CUT THE TEXT!! Most people skim webpages - they do not take the time to read pages and pages of information. I think that what we do and why we're important need to be communicated through video and image. I think, especially for the main page, that we need more pictures/video/etc. to draw people in and then give them an easy way to find out more information. But not dump information so much information on them that they end up closing the About page and emailing info@cc.org for a concise explanation instead - or even worse - just leaving it be and not pursuing the info anymore. (MR)

* Try and get rid of as much jargon as possible. We don't want to come off as elitist or academic by how we communicate. If the average American reads at a 6th grade level, then we need to keep that in mind. (MR)

* If all goes well, then I think we should highlight the stories we start to gather during the campaign. I think this has the potential to be very valuable in terms of communicating our mission. (MR)

* I think sometimes we focus so much on what we provide, we lose sight of what we enable people to do. The latter is the more humanistic component of CC and the side that more people will relate to/understand. (MR)

== Specific pages needing overhaul ==
* http://creativecommons.org (MR)

=== Near duplicate content ===

Please list highly redundant pages so we can decide which to merge and which to more highly focus:
* http://creativecommons.org/presskit now includes not just graphics, approximately same information as http://creativecommons.org/about (one click away for latter)
* http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses / http://creativecommons.org/about/license/
* not exactly redundant, but here is a list of all the pages on licensing that may be condensed (jane):
** http://creativecommons.org/license/
** http://creativecommons.org/about/license/
** http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/
** http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Before_Licensing
** http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses
** http://wiki.creativecommons.org/License_Examples

=== Wiki Main Page ===

* http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Main_Page -- way too much text and way too much info to take in; could definitely be streamlined so that pertinent info is easy to find right away. Good idea to have the "Participate" tab changed to "CC Wiki," and though many people visiting the site may know what a wiki is, not everyone will - so it would be worth it to briefly explain what the wiki is and does, and how an individual can navigate and use it. (AD)
* To much explanatory text about the links on the main page. Should just link to the pages and have relevant info there. (MR)

=== /about ===

* The About page is currently a compendium of links to many things that having nothing to do with CC as an organization. To me, the About page should have nothing more than a synopsis of the organization, the history and perhaps a link to the People/Staff page. (Nathan Kinkade)
* The licensing links should be taken off About and instead have a link to license info on the main page. (MR)

=== /contact ===

* There should be a listing of the FFAQ questions above the contact form, which links to the answers on the FFAQ wiki page. Right now there is a bit of text suggesting that someone take a look at the FAQ, but clearly few people do. The vast majority of info@ emails could be headed off if people were to actually read the FFAQ, so actually having some text like "Is your question like one of these: <iteration of FFAQ questions>?" above the contact form might preemptively answer many people's questions, and lighten the load to info@. (Nathan Kinkade)

= Theme and Layout =
* New design ideas Alex has been working on look very fresh to me - having them placed through out the site would be a nice way to liven up the look
** This will also keep CC's web properties in aesthetic coherence (Cameron Parkins)

= License Chooser =
* Updated results page
* There is a fairly urgent need to reword the descriptive text to clarify unambiguously and in no uncertain terms that the chooser is in no way whatsoever a registration form, nor is it creating a unique license of any sort. It's need to explicitly state, and probably in a highlighted fashion, that it is nothing more and nothing less than a helpful tool to help someone select the right type of license, and also useful for generating some good HTML for the purposes of marking a work online. I can't tell you how many info@ emails I get where people think that they are creating a license or registering a work. And if the info@ emails can be taken a somewhat representative sample of the general CC-using public, then there is a huge amount of mis-understanding floating around. (Nathan Kinkade)

= Deeds =
* An easier way to quickly attribute a work via the deed.
* ...

= Blog =
* Utilize categories/tags beyond sorting posts
** Come up with structure/protocol
** Easily find posts within a category or topic (i.e. music, education, etc.)
** Tags could also enable more specialized RSS feeds.
* Refresh design
** A featured article at the top of page, followed by recently updated posts.
*** More information presented in less space without feeling cluttered.
*** Visually divide posts into columns based on tag/categories (i.e. music, education, etc.)
*** See [http://worldchanging.org/http://worldchanging.org/ worldchanging.org]
* Expand scope to include not only stories that directly reference CC, but also ones on related topics.
** "Zoom out" on issues on to put news pieces into context.

Creativecommons.org Development

2008-10-08T00:34:02Z

Eric Steuer: /* Site Architecture and Design */

The intention of this article is to discover and examine the problems creativecommons.org has with regards to user experience, accessibility, ease of use, content, etc. Constructive thoughts about how you feel the site currently looks and works, and how you believe it could be improved.

= Site Architecture and Design =

* What is CC; Why is it compelling?
* How can I use/understand CC easily and efficiently?
* '''Remove the blog from the front page of the site''' and replace it with a concise summary of CC and a handful of highly relevant links to other parts of the site. I seriously doubt whether many people go to CC.org simply to read the blog, and those that do will have no problem clicking on a new tab that says "Weblog." Most people interested in the CC blog are probably somewhat technical and will most likely be using a feed aggregator of some sort. Rename "Jurisdiction News" to something like "Latest News" and incorporate items from the CC blog into the list, then move the list into the right column where there is presently nothing but whitespace, thereby leaving more room for relevant content in the main content area. (Nathan Kinkade)
* I agree with Kinkade for the most part, but I think that the blog serves a secondary purpose of showing people who come to the site that there are always updates and projects that we are working on. So, while I agree that it should not be the focus of the page, I think the fact that it is newsy and provides dynamic content is a plus, and that the blog should remain in some form on the front page. I kind of like how the EFF handles updates on their site (http://www.eff.org/), although I'm not crazy about their design. (Eric Steuer)
** The licenses are our 'bread and butter' - they should be featured here in some form (perhaps just the conditions) in a way that is straight forward and simple (Cameron Parkins)
* The "Support" tab has an unfortunate name. When I'm at a website and I see a link to "Support" the first thing I think about is "Technical Support" or Help, not a place where I can donate money or buy things. It could perhaps be made more clear with something like "Support CC" or "Donate" or anything that disambiguates it from the normal "help me" meaning on the web. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Totally agree with Kinkade. (Eric Steuer)
* The "Participate" tab should be renamed to something like "Wiki" or "CC Wiki" so that it's clear that CC has a wiki. My mind makes no natural connection between the word "participate" and a wiki. People, even non-technical ones, know about wikis these days, and to make it clearer on the front page that we have one might increase the traffic to it. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Suggestion to make front page 'stupidly simple'
** Two LARGE (150x150px) green buttons on dark background
*** LEARN MORE (about, blog, etc, similar to what we have)
*** LICENSE YOUR WORK (Link license chooser with no other information)
**** I think that having the license chooser on the front page could be somewhat daunting for people who don't know anything about CC. A link to a license chooser, after some explanation as to what conditions a license can carry, is a better option IMO (Cameron Parkins)
**** Agreed -- I meant it more as a link to the license chooser. [[User:Fred Benenson|Fred Benenson]] 16:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
** No text, no other information [[User:Fred Benenson|Fred Benenson]] 15:00, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
* There should be a quick way to get to the list of the 6 licenses/deeds/legal code, along with an explanation of the terms (combining the 2 links indicated below in "near duplicates" section).
* Need quick link to Opportunities page.
* I think the landing main page should have minimal content, but to explain in a concise compelling way why CC is important, what we offer, etc.. (MR)
* I agree that the blog should not be the landing page (MR)
* I think that the support button should be either Join or Take Action - and should be a different color than the rest. I know *take action* sounds cheesy, but it does cause people to click through.(MR)
* Need a quick way to sign-up for the newsletter and events, as of right now both are extremely buried. Both of these options are great methods of community building and outreach and we should be promoting them as much as possible(MR)

= Information and Content =

* Overview
** An average, non-technical, person should be able to come to CC.ORG, and very quickly find out the basics of what CC provides and how it can help him. As it stands, a first time visitor has a hard time digging into the dense information currently provided.

* Ideally, less words up front.
** People new to CC would probably prefer bite sized introductions, and pictures — compelling hooks to allow them to learn and, hopefully, disseminate to friends, colleagues, students. Long articles describing what CC is, and what the licenses are, etc. are great for those who already know about CC.

* Videos easy to find

* CUT THE TEXT!! Most people skim webpages - they do not take the time to read pages and pages of information. I think that what we do and why we're important need to be communicated through video and image. I think, especially for the main page, that we need more pictures/video/etc. to draw people in and then give them an easy way to find out more information. But not dump information so much information on them that they end up closing the About page and emailing info@cc.org for a concise explanation instead - or even worse - just leaving it be and not pursuing the info anymore. (MR)

* Try and get rid of as much jargon as possible. We don't want to come off as elitist or academic by how we communicate. If the average American reads at a 6th grade level, then we need to keep that in mind. (MR)

* If all goes well, then I think we should highlight the stories we start to gather during the campaign. I think this has the potential to be very valuable in terms of communicating our mission. (MR)

* I think sometimes we focus so much on what we provide, we lose sight of what we enable people to do. The latter is the more humanistic component of CC and the side that more people will relate to/understand. (MR)

== Specific pages needing overhaul ==
* http://creativecommons.org (MR)

=== Near duplicate content ===

Please list highly redundant pages so we can decide which to merge and which to more highly focus:
* http://creativecommons.org/presskit now includes not just graphics, approximately same information as http://creativecommons.org/about (one click away for latter)
* http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses / http://creativecommons.org/about/license/
* not exactly redundant, but here is a list of all the pages on licensing that may be condensed (jane):
** http://creativecommons.org/license/
** http://creativecommons.org/about/license/
** http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/
** http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Before_Licensing
** http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses
** http://wiki.creativecommons.org/License_Examples

=== Wiki Main Page ===

* http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Main_Page -- way too much text and way too much info to take in; could definitely be streamlined so that pertinent info is easy to find right away. Good idea to have the "Participate" tab changed to "CC Wiki," and though many people visiting the site may know what a wiki is, not everyone will - so it would be worth it to briefly explain what the wiki is and does, and how an individual can navigate and use it. (AD)
* To much explanatory text about the links on the main page. Should just link to the pages and have relevant info there. (MR)

=== /about ===

* The About page is currently a compendium of links to many things that having nothing to do with CC as an organization. To me, the About page should have nothing more than a synopsis of the organization, the history and perhaps a link to the People/Staff page. (Nathan Kinkade)
* The licensing links should be taken off About and instead have a link to license info on the main page. (MR)

=== /contact ===

* There should be a listing of the FFAQ questions above the contact form, which links to the answers on the FFAQ wiki page. Right now there is a bit of text suggesting that someone take a look at the FAQ, but clearly few people do. The vast majority of info@ emails could be headed off if people were to actually read the FFAQ, so actually having some text like "Is your question like one of these: <iteration of FFAQ questions>?" above the contact form might preemptively answer many people's questions, and lighten the load to info@. (Nathan Kinkade)

= Theme and Layout =
* New design ideas Alex has been working on look very fresh to me - having them placed through out the site would be a nice way to liven up the look
** This will also keep CC's web properties in aesthetic coherence (Cameron Parkins)

= License Chooser =
* Updated results page
* There is a fairly urgent need to reword the descriptive text to clarify unambiguously and in no uncertain terms that the chooser is in no way whatsoever a registration form, nor is it creating a unique license of any sort. It's need to explicitly state, and probably in a highlighted fashion, that it is nothing more and nothing less than a helpful tool to help someone select the right type of license, and also useful for generating some good HTML for the purposes of marking a work online. I can't tell you how many info@ emails I get where people think that they are creating a license or registering a work. And if the info@ emails can be taken a somewhat representative sample of the general CC-using public, then there is a huge amount of mis-understanding floating around. (Nathan Kinkade)

= Deeds =
* An easier way to quickly attribute a work via the deed.
* ...

= Blog =
* Utilize categories/tags beyond sorting posts
** Come up with structure/protocol
** Easily find posts within a category or topic (i.e. music, education, etc.)
** Tags could also enable more specialized RSS feeds.
* Refresh design
** A featured article at the top of page, followed by recently updated posts.
*** More information presented in less space without feeling cluttered.
*** Visually divide posts into columns based on tag/categories (i.e. music, education, etc.)
*** See [http://worldchanging.org/http://worldchanging.org/ worldchanging.org]
* Expand scope to include not only stories that directly reference CC, but also ones on related topics.
** "Zoom out" on issues on to put news pieces into context.

Creativecommons.org Development

2008-10-08T00:33:17Z

Eric Steuer: /* Site Architecture and Design */

The intention of this article is to discover and examine the problems creativecommons.org has with regards to user experience, accessibility, ease of use, content, etc. Constructive thoughts about how you feel the site currently looks and works, and how you believe it could be improved.

= Site Architecture and Design =

* What is CC; Why is it compelling?
* How can I use/understand CC easily and efficiently?
* '''Remove the blog from the front page of the site''' and replace it with a concise summary of CC and a handful of highly relevant links to other parts of the site. I seriously doubt whether many people go to CC.org simply to read the blog, and those that do will have no problem clicking on a new tab that says "Weblog." Most people interested in the CC blog are probably somewhat technical and will most likely be using a feed aggregator of some sort. Rename "Jurisdiction News" to something like "Latest News" and incorporate items from the CC blog into the list, then move the list into the right column where there is presently nothing but whitespace, thereby leaving more room for relevant content in the main content area. (Nathan Kinkade)
* I agree with Kinkade for the most part, but I think that the blog serves a secondary purpose of showing to people who come to the site that there are always updates and projects that we are working on. So, while I agree that it should not be the focus of the page, I think the fact that it is newsy and provides dynamic content is a plus, and that the blog should remain in some form on the front page. I kind of like how the EFF handles updates on their site (http://www.eff.org/), although I'm not crazy about their design. (Eric Steuer)
** The licenses are our 'bread and butter' - they should be featured here in some form (perhaps just the conditions) in a way that is straight forward and simple (Cameron Parkins)
* The "Support" tab has an unfortunate name. When I'm at a website and I see a link to "Support" the first thing I think about is "Technical Support" or Help, not a place where I can donate money or buy things. It could perhaps be made more clear with something like "Support CC" or "Donate" or anything that disambiguates it from the normal "help me" meaning on the web. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Totally agree with Kinkade. (Eric Steuer)
* The "Participate" tab should be renamed to something like "Wiki" or "CC Wiki" so that it's clear that CC has a wiki. My mind makes no natural connection between the word "participate" and a wiki. People, even non-technical ones, know about wikis these days, and to make it clearer on the front page that we have one might increase the traffic to it. (Nathan Kinkade)
* Suggestion to make front page 'stupidly simple'
** Two LARGE (150x150px) green buttons on dark background
*** LEARN MORE (about, blog, etc, similar to what we have)
*** LICENSE YOUR WORK (Link license chooser with no other information)
**** I think that having the license chooser on the front page could be somewhat daunting for people who don't know anything about CC. A link to a license chooser, after some explanation as to what conditions a license can carry, is a better option IMO (Cameron Parkins)
**** Agreed -- I meant it more as a link to the license chooser. [[User:Fred Benenson|Fred Benenson]] 16:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
** No text, no other information [[User:Fred Benenson|Fred Benenson]] 15:00, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
* There should be a quick way to get to the list of the 6 licenses/deeds/legal code, along with an explanation of the terms (combining the 2 links indicated below in "near duplicates" section).
* Need quick link to Opportunities page.
* I think the landing main page should have minimal content, but to explain in a concise compelling way why CC is important, what we offer, etc.. (MR)
* I agree that the blog should not be the landing page (MR)
* I think that the support button should be either Join or Take Action - and should be a different color than the rest. I know *take action* sounds cheesy, but it does cause people to click through.(MR)
* Need a quick way to sign-up for the newsletter and events, as of right now both are extremely buried. Both of these options are great methods of community building and outreach and we should be promoting them as much as possible(MR)

= Information and Content =

* Overview
** An average, non-technical, person should be able to come to CC.ORG, and very quickly find out the basics of what CC provides and how it can help him. As it stands, a first time visitor has a hard time digging into the dense information currently provided.

* Ideally, less words up front.
** People new to CC would probably prefer bite sized introductions, and pictures — compelling hooks to allow them to learn and, hopefully, disseminate to friends, colleagues, students. Long articles describing what CC is, and what the licenses are, etc. are great for those who already know about CC.

* Videos easy to find

* CUT THE TEXT!! Most people skim webpages - they do not take the time to read pages and pages of information. I think that what we do and why we're important need to be communicated through video and image. I think, especially for the main page, that we need more pictures/video/etc. to draw people in and then give them an easy way to find out more information. But not dump information so much information on them that they end up closing the About page and emailing info@cc.org for a concise explanation instead - or even worse - just leaving it be and not pursuing the info anymore. (MR)

* Try and get rid of as much jargon as possible. We don't want to come off as elitist or academic by how we communicate. If the average American reads at a 6th grade level, then we need to keep that in mind. (MR)

* If all goes well, then I think we should highlight the stories we start to gather during the campaign. I think this has the potential to be very valuable in terms of communicating our mission. (MR)

* I think sometimes we focus so much on what we provide, we lose sight of what we enable people to do. The latter is the more humanistic component of CC and the side that more people will relate to/understand. (MR)

== Specific pages needing overhaul ==
* http://creativecommons.org (MR)

=== Near duplicate content ===

Please list highly redundant pages so we can decide which to merge and which to more highly focus:
* http://creativecommons.org/presskit now includes not just graphics, approximately same information as http://creativecommons.org/about (one click away for latter)
* http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses / http://creativecommons.org/about/license/
* not exactly redundant, but here is a list of all the pages on licensing that may be condensed (jane):
** http://creativecommons.org/license/
** http://creativecommons.org/about/license/
** http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/
** http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Before_Licensing
** http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses
** http://wiki.creativecommons.org/License_Examples

=== Wiki Main Page ===

* http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Main_Page -- way too much text and way too much info to take in; could definitely be streamlined so that pertinent info is easy to find right away. Good idea to have the "Participate" tab changed to "CC Wiki," and though many people visiting the site may know what a wiki is, not everyone will - so it would be worth it to briefly explain what the wiki is and does, and how an individual can navigate and use it. (AD)
* To much explanatory text about the links on the main page. Should just link to the pages and have relevant info there. (MR)

=== /about ===

* The About page is currently a compendium of links to many things that having nothing to do with CC as an organization. To me, the About page should have nothing more than a synopsis of the organization, the history and perhaps a link to the People/Staff page. (Nathan Kinkade)
* The licensing links should be taken off About and instead have a link to license info on the main page. (MR)

=== /contact ===

* There should be a listing of the FFAQ questions above the contact form, which links to the answers on the FFAQ wiki page. Right now there is a bit of text suggesting that someone take a look at the FAQ, but clearly few people do. The vast majority of info@ emails could be headed off if people were to actually read the FFAQ, so actually having some text like "Is your question like one of these: <iteration of FFAQ questions>?" above the contact form might preemptively answer many people's questions, and lighten the load to info@. (Nathan Kinkade)

= Theme and Layout =
* New design ideas Alex has been working on look very fresh to me - having them placed through out the site would be a nice way to liven up the look
** This will also keep CC's web properties in aesthetic coherence (Cameron Parkins)

= License Chooser =
* Updated results page
* There is a fairly urgent need to reword the descriptive text to clarify unambiguously and in no uncertain terms that the chooser is in no way whatsoever a registration form, nor is it creating a unique license of any sort. It's need to explicitly state, and probably in a highlighted fashion, that it is nothing more and nothing less than a helpful tool to help someone select the right type of license, and also useful for generating some good HTML for the purposes of marking a work online. I can't tell you how many info@ emails I get where people think that they are creating a license or registering a work. And if the info@ emails can be taken a somewhat representative sample of the general CC-using public, then there is a huge amount of mis-understanding floating around. (Nathan Kinkade)

= Deeds =
* An easier way to quickly attribute a work via the deed.
* ...

= Blog =
* Utilize categories/tags beyond sorting posts
** Come up with structure/protocol
** Easily find posts within a category or topic (i.e. music, education, etc.)
** Tags could also enable more specialized RSS feeds.
* Refresh design
** A featured article at the top of page, followed by recently updated posts.
*** More information presented in less space without feeling cluttered.
*** Visually divide posts into columns based on tag/categories (i.e. music, education, etc.)
*** See [http://worldchanging.org/http://worldchanging.org/ worldchanging.org]
* Expand scope to include not only stories that directly reference CC, but also ones on related topics.
** "Zoom out" on issues on to put news pieces into context.

Creativecommons.org Development

2008-10-08T00:28:26Z

Eric Steuer: /* Site Architecture and Design */

An Introduction to Creative Commons

2007-11-27T15:57:18Z

Eric Steuer: New page: {{Presentation |venue=USC Annenberg |date=September 25, 2007 |presenter=Eric Steuer }}

{{Presentation
|venue=USC Annenberg
|date=September 25, 2007
|presenter=Eric Steuer
}}

Creative Commons and Academic Publishing

2007-11-26T22:06:22Z

Eric Steuer: New page: {{Presentation |venue=Stanford HighWire Press meeting |date=June 6, 2007 |presenter=Eric Steuer }} http://highwire.stanford.edu/publishers/meetings/0706su/

{{Presentation
|venue=Stanford HighWire Press meeting
|date=June 6, 2007
|presenter=Eric Steuer
}}
http://highwire.stanford.edu/publishers/meetings/0706su/

Museums Remixed Part One: Creating Visitor-Authored Experiences

2007-11-26T21:58:06Z

Eric Steuer: New page: {{Presentation |venue=American Association of Museums |date=May 15, 2007 |presenter=Eric Steuer }} http://aam-us.org/am07/events/details.cfm?fuseaction=DETAILS&PRODUCT_CODE=ANNMTG2007/K19

{{Presentation
|venue=American Association of Museums
|date=May 15, 2007
|presenter=Eric Steuer
}}
http://aam-us.org/am07/events/details.cfm?fuseaction=DETAILS&PRODUCT_CODE=ANNMTG2007/K19

Creative Commons in Professional Publishing

2007-11-26T21:57:21Z

Eric Steuer: New page: {{Presentation |venue=The Stanford Professional Publishing Course |date=July 15, 2007 |presenter=Eric Steuer }} http://publishingcourses.stanford.edu/sppc/speakers.html

{{Presentation
|venue=The Stanford Professional Publishing Course
|date=July 15, 2007
|presenter=Eric Steuer
}}
http://publishingcourses.stanford.edu/sppc/speakers.html

CC Publishers Association

2007-11-26T21:55:01Z

Eric Steuer: New page: {{Presentation |venue=Shine SF |date=February 21, 2007 |presenter=Eric Steuer }} http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CCPA

{{Presentation
|venue=Shine SF
|date=February 21, 2007
|presenter=Eric Steuer
}}
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CCPA

Yahoo! Creative Talks

2007-11-26T21:51:49Z

Eric Steuer: New page: {{Presentation |venue=Yahoo! Santa Monica |date=July 11, 2007 |presenter=Eric Steuer }} http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/212654/

{{Presentation
|venue=Yahoo! Santa Monica
|date=July 11, 2007
|presenter=Eric Steuer
}}
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/212654/

Open Content, Remix Culture and the Sharing Economy: Rights, Ownership and Getting Paid

2007-11-26T21:44:18Z

Eric Steuer: New page: {{Presentation |venue=SXSW |date=March 12, 2007 |presenter=Eric Steuer }} http://2007.sxsw.com/interactive/programming/panels/?action=show&id=IAP060201

{{Presentation
|venue=SXSW
|date=March 12, 2007
|presenter=Eric Steuer
}}
http://2007.sxsw.com/interactive/programming/panels/?action=show&id=IAP060201

User:Eric

2007-11-26T21:30:37Z

Eric Steuer: New page: Category:Creative Commons Staff

[[Category:Creative Commons Staff]]

Credit Where Credit Is Due

2007-11-26T21:22:07Z

Eric Steuer: New page: {{Press |publication=Newsweeek |date=November 19, 2007 }} http://www.newsweek.com/id/71360/output/print

{{Press
|publication=Newsweeek
|date=November 19, 2007
}}
http://www.newsweek.com/id/71360/output/print

Gilberto Gil Hears the Future, Some Rights Reserved

2007-11-26T21:20:36Z

Eric Steuer: New page: {{Press |publication=New York Times |date=March 11, 2007 }} http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/11/arts/music/11roht.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

{{Press
|publication=New York Times
|date=March 11, 2007
}}
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/11/arts/music/11roht.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

Copyrights in the Digital Age

2007-11-26T21:07:11Z

Eric Steuer: New page: {{Press |publication=KCRW }} http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/pc/pc070731copyrights_in_the_di

{{Press
|publication=KCRW
}}
http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/pc/pc070731copyrights_in_the_di

No One's Listening 3.01: User Created Media

2007-11-26T21:00:47Z

Eric Steuer: New page: {{Press |publication=No One's Listening |date=September 8, 2006 }} http://www.nooneslistening.org/guide/show.php?id=39

{{Press
|publication=No One's Listening
|date=September 8, 2006
}}
http://www.nooneslistening.org/guide/show.php?id=39

Creative Commons Flickr = 22 Million Sharable Photos

2007-11-26T20:57:18Z

Eric Steuer: New page: {{Press |publication=PBS Mediashift |date=October 18, 2006 }} http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2006/10/digging_deepercreative_commons.html

{{Press
|publication=PBS Mediashift
|date=October 18, 2006
}}
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2006/10/digging_deepercreative_commons.html

Creative Common Ground

2007-11-26T20:54:52Z

Eric Steuer: New page: {{Press |publication=Yahoo! Publishers Network |date=September 14, 2006 }} http://ypnblog.com/blog/2006/09/14/creative-common-ground/

{{Press
|publication=Yahoo! Publishers Network
|date=September 14, 2006
}}
http://ypnblog.com/blog/2006/09/14/creative-common-ground/

Fingerprinting the Web

2007-11-26T20:31:25Z

Eric Steuer: New page: {{Press |publication=Techlearning |date=May 15, 2007 }} http://www.techlearning.com/story/showArticle.php?articleID=196604458

{{Press
|publication=Techlearning
|date=May 15, 2007
}}
http://www.techlearning.com/story/showArticle.php?articleID=196604458

Lethem Floats Unusual Movie-Rights Deal for New Book

2007-11-26T20:22:33Z

Eric Steuer: New page: {{Press |publication=Bloomberg |date=March 13, 2007 }} http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aa2ki3npK3H0&refer=muse

{{Press
|publication=Bloomberg
|date=March 13, 2007
}}
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aa2ki3npK3H0&refer=muse

Mix it Up

2007-11-26T20:21:04Z

Eric Steuer: New page: {{Press |publication=Good Magazine }} http://www.goodmagazine.com/section/Projects/project_005

{{Press
|publication=Good Magazine
}}
http://www.goodmagazine.com/section/Projects/project_005

Music suit creates discord

2007-11-26T20:18:25Z

Eric Steuer: New page: {{Press |publication=Seattle Times |date=August 1, 2007 }} http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003815486_royalty01.html

{{Press
|publication=Seattle Times
|date=August 1, 2007
}}
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2003815486_royalty01.html

SHARE THE WEALTH

2007-11-26T20:16:11Z

Eric Steuer: New page: {{Press |publication=Remix Magazine |date=June 1, 2006 }} http://remixmag.com/music_business/remix_share_wealth/

{{Press
|publication=Remix Magazine
|date=June 1, 2006
}}
http://remixmag.com/music_business/remix_share_wealth/

Pearl Jam releases video under Creative Commons license

2007-11-26T20:14:37Z

Eric Steuer: New page: {{Press |publication=CNET |date=May 19, 2006 }} http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-6074605-7.html

{{Press
|publication=CNET
|date=May 19, 2006
}}
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-6074605-7.html

Hip-Hop Outlaw (Industry Version)

2007-11-26T20:11:07Z

Eric Steuer:

{{Press
|publication=New York Times
|date=February 18, 2007
}}
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/magazine/18djdrama.t.html?ei=5090&en=47aa2cf1c159a3e0&ex=1329454800&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

Hip-Hop Outlaw (Industry Version)

2007-11-26T20:06:51Z

Eric Steuer: New page: {{Press |publication=New York Times |date=February 18, 2007 |author=Samantha Shapiro }} http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/magazine/18djdrama.t.html?ei=5090&en=47aa2cf1c159a3e0&ex=132945480...

{{Press
|publication=New York Times
|date=February 18, 2007
|author=Samantha Shapiro
}}
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/magazine/18djdrama.t.html?ei=5090&en=47aa2cf1c159a3e0&ex=1329454800&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

World Intellectual Property Day

2007-04-24T22:47:18Z

Eric Steuer: /* Creative Commons: Encouraging Creativity */

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Intellectual_Property_Day World Intellectual Property Day] is observed on April 26th. "Encouraging Creativity" is the theme for 2007.

The following article addresses this theme from a Creative Commons perspective.

Please spread: PDF version (forthcoming) and [[#Translations|translations]].

==Creative Commons: Encouraging Creativity==

World IP Day is observed on April 26th. This year’s theme is "Encouraging Creativity."

Encouraging creativity has been Creative Commons’ goal since the organization was established four and a half years ago. Creative Commons empowers creators to use copyright law to enable creative new ways of sharing, reusing, and remixing culture.

===Background===

The advent of the digital revolution and the Internet presents an
opportunity for an enormous and unprecedented
stimulation of creativity and production of knowledge. As more and
more people are interconnected and communicating, it becomes easier
to obtain exactly the content one needs or wants and to complete tasks
and solve problems by the cooperation this interconnection enables.
The convergence of technologies and media also creates multiple new
possibilities for creating derivatives of existing works – for
example, remixes and mash-ups.

Wikipedia and the free and open source software community are
examples of these sociological and economic phenomena. The activities
of many contributors to projects in these areas are not motivated by
the desire to gain (immediate) financial benefit but by the desire to
learn, to get recognition, and also to help others.

These new technologies can also be used to violate the rights of
copyright owners as they are currently defined. In turn, major rights
holders have reacted to this with a fourfold strategy: (a) trying
to prevent the deployment of technologies that can be put to
infringing uses; (b) developing tools that enable them to manage
their rights with an amount of precision hitherto unknown and
unthinkable: digital rights management and technological protection
measures against unauthorized copying; (c) lobbying
for support of these technological measures through legal
restrictions; and, (d) starting huge publicity campaigns designed
to teach young people that they must keep their hands off copyrighted
material – or else.

These responses are understandable, if regrettable. Our concern is
that their combined effect will be to stifle the opportunities for
digital technologies to be used widely to encourage creativity and
for the problem solving and collaboration discussed above. If
creators and licensors have to negotiate not only complicated legal
rules, but also burdensome technical barriers, many will either
ignore the rules or not create.

===Creative Commons===

Our alternative is to provide creators and licensors with a simple
way to say what freedoms they want their creative work to carry. This
in turn makes it easy to share, or build upon creative work. It makes
it possible for creators and licensors to reserve some rights while
releasing others. This, at its core, is our mission. Copyright gives
authors certain rights. We want to make it simpler for authors to
exercise those rights in ways others can understand.

Creative Commons is a voluntary "some rights reserved" alternative to
default copyright. The system empowers creators to use copyright law to enable a new
creativity that has been given rise to by digital technology.
Creative Commons' legal tools let creators mix and match license
terms that reflect their personal preferences: Require attribution
with link back? Permit sharing? Permit remix? Restrict commercial use?
Require remixers to share alike?

===Encouraging Creativity===

Creative Commons licenses legally enable voluntary sharing and collaboration across space and time, without needing to call in the (very expensive) lawyers.

Our licenses come with "human readable" explanations of license terms, enabling non-lawyers to quickly understand the licenses, and get back to creating and collaborating.

We also use "metadata" to describe our licenses and licensed works in a way computers can understand. This enables software tools such as Web search engines that help you find, organize, and use media.

Below are just a few examples of creativity that builds upon this infrastructure:
* ccMixter.org, a music community that makes the genealogy of remix explicit, launching long-term creative and business collaborations, with participation by musicians across the globe, as well as by both major and independent labels.
* Wikitravel, a community-built, CC-licensed travel guide, that demonstrates the compatibility of community, Creative Commons, and business.
* Flickr, where users have CC-licensed over 33 million photos. This content and Flickr's API support for Creative Commons has led to innumerable creative reuses and Web mash-ups.

We're constantly improving the CC infrastructure to make legal creativity easier still. For example:
* Our licenses have been ported to 36 different legal jurisdictions, with many more to come.
* We're helping to make ccMixter.org-style collaboration the norm across the Web, rather than just within one site.
* We're exploring ways to make the sharing economy and commercial economy build upon each other, creating more growth and resources for creativity.
* Our Science Commons division is working to lower barriers to creativity in science, using Creative Commons copyright tools, as well as legal and technical tools specific to science.
* CC Learn will use our tools to encourage creativity in education.

In sum, the Creative Commons toolset encourages and enables participation in creativity by everyone, not only those with access to copyright lawyers. This is as it should be in modern democracies, where the tools for expression and creativity are available to everyone as everyday consumer goods.

==Learn More==

Visit http://creativecommons.org

==Translations==

To start a translation, click on one of the following links, or create a new one for your language. (You must register and confirm your account via email before editing this wiki.) '''These links are just examples, do not start translations until the text above is complete.'''

* [[It:Giornata mondiale della proprietà intellettuale]]
* [[Ja:世界知的所有権の日]]
* [[Uk:Міжнародний день інтелектуальної власності]]
* [[Zh:世界知识产权日]]

[[Category:CCi]]
[[Category:Event]]

World Intellectual Property Day

2007-04-24T22:23:14Z

Eric Steuer: /* Creative Commons: Encouraging Creativity */

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Intellectual_Property_Day World Intellectual Property Day] is observed on April 26th. "Encouraging Creativity" is the theme for 2007.

The following article addresses this theme from a Creative Commons perspective.

Please spread: PDF version (forthcoming) and [[#Translations|translations]].

==Creative Commons: Encouraging Creativity==

World IP Day is observed on April 26th. This year’s theme is "Encouraging Creativity."
To encourage creativity has been Creative Commons’ aspiration since CC was established four and a half years ago. Creative Commons empowers creators to use copyright law to enable new creative ways of sharing, reusing and remixing culture.

===Background===

The advent of the digital revolution and the Internet presents an
opportunity for an enormous and unprecedented
stimulation of creativity and production of knowledge. As more and
more people are interconnected and communicating, it becomes easier
to obtain exactly the content one needs or wants and to complete tasks
and solve problems by the cooperation this interconnection enables.
The convergence of technologies and media also create multiple new
possibilities for creating derivatives of existing works – for
example, remixes and mash-ups.

Wikipedia and the free and open source software community are
examples of these sociological and economic phenomena. The activities
of many contributors to projects in these areas are not motivated by
the desire to gain (immediate) financial benefit but by the desire to
learn, to get recognition, and also to help others.

These new technologies can also be used to violate the rights of
copyright owners as they are currently defined. In turn, major rights
holders have reacted to this with a fourfold strategy: (a) by trying
to prevent the deployment of technologies that can be put to
infringing uses; (b) by developing tools that enable them to manage
their rights with an amount of precision hitherto unknown and
unthinkable: digital rights management and technological protection
measures against unauthorized copying; (c) by successfully lobbying
for support of these technological measures through legal
restrictions; and, (d) by starting huge publicity campaigns designed
to teach young people that they must keep their hands off copyrighted
material – or else.

These responses are understandable, if regrettable. Our concern is
that their combined effect will be to stifle the opportunities for
digital technologies to be used widely to encourage creativity and
for the problem solving and collaboration discussed above. If
creators and licensors have to negotiate not only complicated legal
rules, but also burdensome technical barriers, many will either
ignore the rules or not create.

===Creative Commons===

Our alternative is to provide creators and licensors with a simple
way to say what freedoms they want their creative work to carry. This
in turn makes it easy to share, or build upon creative work. It makes
it possible for creators and licensors to reserve some rights while
releasing others. This, at its core, is our mission. Copyright gives
authors certain rights. We want to make it simpler for authors to
exercise those rights in ways others can understand.

Creative Commons is a voluntary "some rights reserved" alternative to
default copyright. The system empowers creators to use copyright law to enable a new
creativity that has been given rise to by digital technology.
Creative Commons' legal tools let creators mix and match license
terms that reflect their personal preferences: Require attribution
with link back? Permit sharing? Permit remix? Restrict commercial use?
Require remixers to share alike?

===Encouraging Creativity===

Creative Commons licenses legally enable voluntary sharing and collaboration across space and time, without needing to call in the (very expensive) lawyers.

Our licenses come with "human readable" explanations of license terms, enabling non-lawyers to quickly understand the licenses, and get back to creating and collaborating.

We also use "metadata" to describe our licenses and licensed works in a way computers can understand. This enables software tools such as web search to help you find, organize and use media in ways creators want.

Just a few examples of creativity building on this infrastructure:
* ccMixter.org, a music community that makes the genealogy of remix explicit, launching long term creative and business collaborations and participation by major labels.
* Wikitravel, a community built and CC-licensed travel guide, successfully acquired by Internet Brands, demonstrating the compatibility of community, Creative Commons, and business.
* Flickr users have CC-licensed over 33 million photos. This content and Flickr's API support for Creative Commons has led to innumerable creative reuses and web mashups.

We're constantly improving the infrastructure to make legal creativity easier still, for example:
* Our licenses have been ported to 36 different legal jurisdictions, with many more to come.
* We're helping to make ccMixter.org style collaboration the norm across the web, rather than just within one site.
* We're exploring ways to make the sharing economy and commercial economy build on each other, creating more growth, and more resources for creativity.
* Our Science Commons division is working to lower barriers to creativity in science, using Creative Commons copyright tools and legal and technical tools specific to science.
* CC Learn will be applying our tools to encourage creativity in education.

In sum, the Creative Commons toolset encourages and enables participation in creativity by everyone, not only those with access to copyright lawyers. This is as it should be in modern democracies where the tools for expression and creativity are available to everyone as everyday consumer goods.

==Learn More==

Visit http://creativecommons.org

==Translations==

To start a translation, click on one of the following links, or create a new one for your language. (You must register and confirm your account via email before editing this wiki.) '''These links are just examples, do not start translations until the text above is complete.'''

* [[It:Giornata mondiale della proprietà intellettuale]]
* [[Ja:世界知的所有権の日]]
* [[Uk:Міжнародний день інтелектуальної власності]]
* [[Zh:世界知识产权日]]

[[Category:CCi]]
[[Category:Event]]

World Intellectual Property Day

2007-04-24T22:22:44Z

Eric Steuer:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Intellectual_Property_Day World Intellectual Property Day] is observed on April 26th. "Encouraging Creativity" is the theme for 2007.

The following article addresses this theme from a Creative Commons perspective.

Please spread: PDF version (forthcoming) and [[#Translations|translations]].

==Creative Commons: Encouraging Creativity==

World IP Day is observed on April 26th. This year’s theme is „Encouraging Creativity“.
To encourage creativity has been Creative Commons’ aspiration since CC was established four and a half years ago. Creative Commons empowers creators to use copyright law to enable new creative ways of sharing, reusing and remixing culture.

===Background===

The advent of the digital revolution and the Internet presents an
opportunity for an enormous and unprecedented
stimulation of creativity and production of knowledge. As more and
more people are interconnected and communicating, it becomes easier
to obtain exactly the content one needs or wants and to complete tasks
and solve problems by the cooperation this interconnection enables.
The convergence of technologies and media also create multiple new
possibilities for creating derivatives of existing works – for
example, remixes and mash-ups.

Wikipedia and the free and open source software community are
examples of these sociological and economic phenomena. The activities
of many contributors to projects in these areas are not motivated by
the desire to gain (immediate) financial benefit but by the desire to
learn, to get recognition, and also to help others.

These new technologies can also be used to violate the rights of
copyright owners as they are currently defined. In turn, major rights
holders have reacted to this with a fourfold strategy: (a) by trying
to prevent the deployment of technologies that can be put to
infringing uses; (b) by developing tools that enable them to manage
their rights with an amount of precision hitherto unknown and
unthinkable: digital rights management and technological protection
measures against unauthorized copying; (c) by successfully lobbying
for support of these technological measures through legal
restrictions; and, (d) by starting huge publicity campaigns designed
to teach young people that they must keep their hands off copyrighted
material – or else.

These responses are understandable, if regrettable. Our concern is
that their combined effect will be to stifle the opportunities for
digital technologies to be used widely to encourage creativity and
for the problem solving and collaboration discussed above. If
creators and licensors have to negotiate not only complicated legal
rules, but also burdensome technical barriers, many will either
ignore the rules or not create.

===Creative Commons===

Our alternative is to provide creators and licensors with a simple
way to say what freedoms they want their creative work to carry. This
in turn makes it easy to share, or build upon creative work. It makes
it possible for creators and licensors to reserve some rights while
releasing others. This, at its core, is our mission. Copyright gives
authors certain rights. We want to make it simpler for authors to
exercise those rights in ways others can understand.

Creative Commons is a voluntary "some rights reserved" alternative to
default copyright. The system empowers creators to use copyright law to enable a new
creativity that has been given rise to by digital technology.
Creative Commons' legal tools let creators mix and match license
terms that reflect their personal preferences: Require attribution
with link back? Permit sharing? Permit remix? Restrict commercial use?
Require remixers to share alike?

===Encouraging Creativity===

Creative Commons licenses legally enable voluntary sharing and collaboration across space and time, without needing to call in the (very expensive) lawyers.

Our licenses come with "human readable" explanations of license terms, enabling non-lawyers to quickly understand the licenses, and get back to creating and collaborating.

We also use "metadata" to describe our licenses and licensed works in a way computers can understand. This enables software tools such as web search to help you find, organize and use media in ways creators want.

Just a few examples of creativity building on this infrastructure:
* ccMixter.org, a music community that makes the genealogy of remix explicit, launching long term creative and business collaborations and participation by major labels.
* Wikitravel, a community built and CC-licensed travel guide, successfully acquired by Internet Brands, demonstrating the compatibility of community, Creative Commons, and business.
* Flickr users have CC-licensed over 33 million photos. This content and Flickr's API support for Creative Commons has led to innumerable creative reuses and web mashups.

We're constantly improving the infrastructure to make legal creativity easier still, for example:
* Our licenses have been ported to 36 different legal jurisdictions, with many more to come.
* We're helping to make ccMixter.org style collaboration the norm across the web, rather than just within one site.
* We're exploring ways to make the sharing economy and commercial economy build on each other, creating more growth, and more resources for creativity.
* Our Science Commons division is working to lower barriers to creativity in science, using Creative Commons copyright tools and legal and technical tools specific to science.
* CC Learn will be applying our tools to encourage creativity in education.

In sum, the Creative Commons toolset encourages and enables participation in creativity by everyone, not only those with access to copyright lawyers. This is as it should be in modern democracies where the tools for expression and creativity are available to everyone as everyday consumer goods.

==Learn More==

Visit http://creativecommons.org

==Translations==

To start a translation, click on one of the following links, or create a new one for your language. (You must register and confirm your account via email before editing this wiki.) '''These links are just examples, do not start translations until the text above is complete.'''

* [[It:Giornata mondiale della proprietà intellettuale]]
* [[Ja:世界知的所有権の日]]
* [[Uk:Міжнародний день інтелектуальної власності]]
* [[Zh:世界知识产权日]]

[[Category:CCi]]
[[Category:Event]]

World Intellectual Property Day

2007-04-24T22:21:53Z

Eric Steuer: /* Creative Commons: Encouraging Creativity */

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Intellectual_Property_Day World Intellectual Property Day] is observed April 26th. "Encouraging Creativity" is the theme for 2007.

The following article addresses this theme from a Creative Commons perspective.

Please spread: PDF version (forthcoming) and [[#Translations|translations]].

==Creative Commons: Encouraging Creativity==

World IP Day is observed on April 26th. This year’s theme is „Encouraging Creativity“.
To encourage creativity has been Creative Commons’ aspiration since CC was established four and a half years ago. Creative Commons empowers creators to use copyright law to enable new creative ways of sharing, reusing and remixing culture.

===Background===

The advent of the digital revolution and the Internet presents an
opportunity for an enormous and unprecedented
stimulation of creativity and production of knowledge. As more and
more people are interconnected and communicating, it becomes easier
to obtain exactly the content one needs or wants and to complete tasks
and solve problems by the cooperation this interconnection enables.
The convergence of technologies and media also create multiple new
possibilities for creating derivatives of existing works – for
example, remixes and mash-ups.

Wikipedia and the free and open source software community are
examples of these sociological and economic phenomena. The activities
of many contributors to projects in these areas are not motivated by
the desire to gain (immediate) financial benefit but by the desire to
learn, to get recognition, and also to help others.

These new technologies can also be used to violate the rights of
copyright owners as they are currently defined. In turn, major rights
holders have reacted to this with a fourfold strategy: (a) by trying
to prevent the deployment of technologies that can be put to
infringing uses; (b) by developing tools that enable them to manage
their rights with an amount of precision hitherto unknown and
unthinkable: digital rights management and technological protection
measures against unauthorized copying; (c) by successfully lobbying
for support of these technological measures through legal
restrictions; and, (d) by starting huge publicity campaigns designed
to teach young people that they must keep their hands off copyrighted
material – or else.

These responses are understandable, if regrettable. Our concern is
that their combined effect will be to stifle the opportunities for
digital technologies to be used widely to encourage creativity and
for the problem solving and collaboration discussed above. If
creators and licensors have to negotiate not only complicated legal
rules, but also burdensome technical barriers, many will either
ignore the rules or not create.

===Creative Commons===

Our alternative is to provide creators and licensors with a simple
way to say what freedoms they want their creative work to carry. This
in turn makes it easy to share, or build upon creative work. It makes
it possible for creators and licensors to reserve some rights while
releasing others. This, at its core, is our mission. Copyright gives
authors certain rights. We want to make it simpler for authors to
exercise those rights in ways others can understand.

Creative Commons is a voluntary "some rights reserved" alternative to
default copyright. The system empowers creators to use copyright law to enable a new
creativity that has been given rise to by digital technology.
Creative Commons' legal tools let creators mix and match license
terms that reflect their personal preferences: Require attribution
with link back? Permit sharing? Permit remix? Restrict commercial use?
Require remixers to share alike?

===Encouraging Creativity===

Creative Commons licenses legally enable voluntary sharing and collaboration across space and time, without needing to call in the (very expensive) lawyers.

Our licenses come with "human readable" explanations of license terms, enabling non-lawyers to quickly understand the licenses, and get back to creating and collaborating.

We also use "metadata" to describe our licenses and licensed works in a way computers can understand. This enables software tools such as web search to help you find, organize and use media in ways creators want.

Just a few examples of creativity building on this infrastructure:
* ccMixter.org, a music community that makes the genealogy of remix explicit, launching long term creative and business collaborations and participation by major labels.
* Wikitravel, a community built and CC-licensed travel guide, successfully acquired by Internet Brands, demonstrating the compatibility of community, Creative Commons, and business.
* Flickr users have CC-licensed over 33 million photos. This content and Flickr's API support for Creative Commons has led to innumerable creative reuses and web mashups.

We're constantly improving the infrastructure to make legal creativity easier still, for example:
* Our licenses have been ported to 36 different legal jurisdictions, with many more to come.
* We're helping to make ccMixter.org style collaboration the norm across the web, rather than just within one site.
* We're exploring ways to make the sharing economy and commercial economy build on each other, creating more growth, and more resources for creativity.
* Our Science Commons division is working to lower barriers to creativity in science, using Creative Commons copyright tools and legal and technical tools specific to science.
* CC Learn will be applying our tools to encourage creativity in education.

In sum, the Creative Commons toolset encourages and enables participation in creativity by everyone, not only those with access to copyright lawyers. This is as it should be in modern democracies where the tools for expression and creativity are available to everyone as everyday consumer goods.

==Learn More==

Visit http://creativecommons.org

==Translations==

To start a translation, click on one of the following links, or create a new one for your language. (You must register and confirm your account via email before editing this wiki.) '''These links are just examples, do not start translations until the text above is complete.'''

* [[It:Giornata mondiale della proprietà intellettuale]]
* [[Ja:世界知的所有権の日]]
* [[Uk:Міжнародний день інтелектуальної власності]]
* [[Zh:世界知识产权日]]

[[Category:CCi]]
[[Category:Event]]

CCPA

2007-03-19T23:05:48Z

Eric Steuer:

This is a page for the CC Publishers Association, a small group that meets semi-regularly to discuss questions about CC licensing and to establish best practices for publishers and others using Creative Commons’ legal tools.

== Meetings ==

Feb 21, 07 meeting notes (transcribed by Amit Asaravala, originally posted here: http://ccpa.wikispaces.com/070221+meeting+notes)

=== Attendees ===

* Amit Asaravala, Manager of Editorial and Content Strategy, TechSoup
* Eric Steuer, Creative Director, Creative Commons
* Unnamed attendee (waiting for approval to publish name)
* Unnamed attendee (waiting for approval to publish name)
* Unnamed attendee (waiting for approval to publish name)

The focus of this meeting was mainly Q&A. Eric answered many questions that the attendees had about specific use cases.

=== Questions ===

* Amit: How much or how little does an article need to be modified before the modifications constitute a derivative work (and therefore the modifier now owns the copyright on the derivative?)
** Eric: In general small changes, like fixing typos or changing to British English spelling or updating punctuation to fit your house style does not constitute a derivative work.
* Can a license on a particular item of content be retracted or changed down the road if you change your mind?
** Technically, yes, you can stop publishing your work under a CC license -- but you can't require people who have already obtained your work under the previous CC license to stop using it or redistributing it. So in practice, you pretty much have to assume that once your work is out there under a particular license, it's going to stay out there under that license.
*** That said, you can make your license less restrictive, in which case new people who use your content will use it under the new license. People who have already obtained your content can either keep doing what they're doing or take advantage of the new, less restrictive licensing terms.
* Can you license your content to a publisher under an exclusive agreement and still release it under a CC license?
** No, by its definition, an exclusive agreement allows only that publisher to distribute or otherwise use your work. This goes against the point of a CC license, which is to allow others to use your work without signing individual agreements.
* If, as a publisher, I distribute content that others have provided to me under a CC-Noncommercial license, does that mean I can't sell ads to help support my business? (For instance, if I operate a video sharing site where I let people upload their content and license it to others under a CC-Noncommerical license...)
** Eric: Yes, you can. It's best to think of it this way: The content owner (who owns the copyright to a given video) is not actually releasing his video to you, the site operator, under a CC-Noncommercial license. Rather, he's letting you publish his video under a nonexclusive agreement that gives you permission to make commercial use of the video. For everyone else, he's making the video available on your site under a CC-Noncommercial license. This "dual licensing" is possible because, as the copyright holder of a CC work, you're still free to form other licensing agreements with publishers so long as those agreements are nonexclusive.
** Eric: has a presentation about YouTube and noncommerical licenses that we should get ahold of.
* Can you license different versions of a content item under two different licenses? For instance, two different resolutions of a graphic image?
** Eric: Yes, if the two versions are clearly distinguishable. A thumbnail could be CC-licensed, while the full image could be All Rights Reserved. However, something that's just a pixel off from the original does not constitute a separate content item with a separate copyright. (This falls under the "reasonable use" area, the same way that updating some punctuation in an article doesn't make it an entirely new work.)
* Do you have to use CC metadata, like ID3 tags, in your content in order for it to be officially CC licensed?
** Eric: No, but it's good to have, since some search engines and other technologies will be better able to find your content and automatically digest the licensing terms.
* How can you publicly specify the type of CC license you're using on, say, a podcast?
** Eric: CC has some PSA-style audio snippets that CC has created that you can insert into your podcast if you'd like. There's a CC media page in the works that'll make these snippets available.
* Has CC licensing been contested and/or upheld in a court of law?
** Yes, twice. See Adam Curry / tabloid case as one example.

===Examples===

* Example of publisher that distributes content contributed by others under a CC license but still benefits:
** See how Flickr requires a link back to its site as part of the attribution clause. This helps Flickr get recognition and traffic, but allows the content owner to maintain control over the licensing terms.
* Examples of music sites using CC licensing:
** jamendo
** magnatune
** ccmixter
** splicemusic
** jamglue
** beatpick

===Ideas===

* Set up a mailing list so publishers can email each other questions/answers when they run into issues.

CCPA

2007-03-19T23:04:59Z

Eric Steuer:

This is a page for the CC Publishers Association, an informal group that meets semi-regularly to discuss questions and establish best practices re: CC licenses and publishers.

== Meetings ==

Feb 21, 07 meeting notes (transcribed by Amit Asaravala, originally posted here: http://ccpa.wikispaces.com/070221+meeting+notes)

=== Attendees ===

* Amit Asaravala, Manager of Editorial and Content Strategy, TechSoup
* Eric Steuer, Creative Director, Creative Commons
* Unnamed attendee (waiting for approval to publish name)
* Unnamed attendee (waiting for approval to publish name)
* Unnamed attendee (waiting for approval to publish name)

The focus of this meeting was mainly Q&A. Eric answered many questions that the attendees had about specific use cases.

=== Questions ===

* Amit: How much or how little does an article need to be modified before the modifications constitute a derivative work (and therefore the modifier now owns the copyright on the derivative?)
** Eric: In general small changes, like fixing typos or changing to British English spelling or updating punctuation to fit your house style does not constitute a derivative work.
* Can a license on a particular item of content be retracted or changed down the road if you change your mind?
** Technically, yes, you can stop publishing your work under a CC license -- but you can't require people who have already obtained your work under the previous CC license to stop using it or redistributing it. So in practice, you pretty much have to assume that once your work is out there under a particular license, it's going to stay out there under that license.
*** That said, you can make your license less restrictive, in which case new people who use your content will use it under the new license. People who have already obtained your content can either keep doing what they're doing or take advantage of the new, less restrictive licensing terms.
* Can you license your content to a publisher under an exclusive agreement and still release it under a CC license?
** No, by its definition, an exclusive agreement allows only that publisher to distribute or otherwise use your work. This goes against the point of a CC license, which is to allow others to use your work without signing individual agreements.
* If, as a publisher, I distribute content that others have provided to me under a CC-Noncommercial license, does that mean I can't sell ads to help support my business? (For instance, if I operate a video sharing site where I let people upload their content and license it to others under a CC-Noncommerical license...)
** Eric: Yes, you can. It's best to think of it this way: The content owner (who owns the copyright to a given video) is not actually releasing his video to you, the site operator, under a CC-Noncommercial license. Rather, he's letting you publish his video under a nonexclusive agreement that gives you permission to make commercial use of the video. For everyone else, he's making the video available on your site under a CC-Noncommercial license. This "dual licensing" is possible because, as the copyright holder of a CC work, you're still free to form other licensing agreements with publishers so long as those agreements are nonexclusive.
** Eric: has a presentation about YouTube and noncommerical licenses that we should get ahold of.
* Can you license different versions of a content item under two different licenses? For instance, two different resolutions of a graphic image?
** Eric: Yes, if the two versions are clearly distinguishable. A thumbnail could be CC-licensed, while the full image could be All Rights Reserved. However, something that's just a pixel off from the original does not constitute a separate content item with a separate copyright. (This falls under the "reasonable use" area, the same way that updating some punctuation in an article doesn't make it an entirely new work.)
* Do you have to use CC metadata, like ID3 tags, in your content in order for it to be officially CC licensed?
** Eric: No, but it's good to have, since some search engines and other technologies will be better able to find your content and automatically digest the licensing terms.
* How can you publicly specify the type of CC license you're using on, say, a podcast?
** Eric: CC has some PSA-style audio snippets that CC has created that you can insert into your podcast if you'd like. There's a CC media page in the works that'll make these snippets available.
* Has CC licensing been contested and/or upheld in a court of law?
** Yes, twice. See Adam Curry / tabloid case as one example.

===Examples===

* Example of publisher that distributes content contributed by others under a CC license but still benefits:
** See how Flickr requires a link back to its site as part of the attribution clause. This helps Flickr get recognition and traffic, but allows the content owner to maintain control over the licensing terms.
* Examples of music sites using CC licensing:
** jamendo
** magnatune
** ccmixter
** splicemusic
** jamglue
** beatpick

===Ideas===

* Set up a mailing list so publishers can email each other questions/answers when they run into issues.

CCPA

2007-03-19T21:42:08Z

Eric Steuer:

Feb 21, 07 meeting notes (transcribed by Amit Asaravala, originally posted here: http://ccpa.wikispaces.com/070221+meeting+notes)

Attendees:

* Amit Asaravala, Manager of Editorial and Content Strategy, TechSoup
* Eric Steuer, Creative Director, Creative Commons
* Unnamed attendee (waiting for approval to publish name)
* Unnamed attendee (waiting for approval to publish name)
* Unnamed attendee (waiting for approval to publish name)

The focus of this meeting was mainly Q&A. Eric answered many questions that the attendees had about specific use cases.

Questions:

* Amit: How much or how little does an article need to be modified before the modifications constitute a derivative work (and therefore the modifier now owns the copyright on the derivative?)
o Eric: In general small changes, like fixing typos or changing to British English spelling or updating punctuation to fit your house style does not constitute a derivative work.
* Can a license on a particular item of content be retracted or changed down the road if you change your mind?
o Technically, yes, you can stop publishing your work under a CC license -- but you can't require people who have already obtained your work under the previous CC license to stop using it or redistributing it. So in practice, you pretty much have to assume that once your work is out there under a particular license, it's going to stay out there under that license.
o That said, you can make your license less restrictive, in which case new people who use your content will use it under the new license. People who have already obtained your content can either keep doing what they're doing or take advantage of the new, less restrictive licensing terms.
* Can you license your content to a publisher under an exclusive agreement and still release it under a CC license?
o No, by its definition, an exclusive agreement allows only that publisher to distribute or otherwise use your work. This goes against the point of a CC license, which is to allow others to use your work without signing individual agreements.
* If, as a publisher, I distribute content that others have provided to me under a CC-Noncommercial license, does that mean I can't sell ads to help support my business? (For instance, if I operate a video sharing site where I let people upload their content and license it to others under a CC-Noncommerical license...)
o Eric: Yes, you can. It's best to think of it this way: The content owner (who owns the copyright to a given video) is not actually releasing his video to you, the site operator, under a CC-Noncommercial license. Rather, he's letting you publish his video under a nonexclusive agreement that gives you permission to make commercial use of the video. For everyone else, he's making the video available on your site under a CC-Noncommercial license. This "dual licensing" is possible because, as the copyright holder of a CC work, you're still free to form other licensing agreements with publishers so long as those agreements are nonexclusive.
o Eric: has a presentation about YouTube and noncommerical licenses that we should get ahold of.
* Can you license different versions of a content item under two different licenses? For instance, two different resolutions of a graphic image?
o Eric: Yes, if the two versions are clearly distinguishable. A thumbnail could be CC-licensed, while the full image could be All Rights Reserved. However, something that's just a pixel off from the original does not constitute a separate content item with a separate copyright. (This falls under the "reasonable use" area, the same way that updating some punctuation in an article doesn't make it an entirely new work.)
* Do you have to use CC metadata, like ID3 tags, in your content in order for it to be officially CC licensed?
o Eric: No, but it's good to have, since some search engines and other technologies will be better able to find your content and automatically digest the licensing terms.
* How can you publicly specify the type of CC license you're using on, say, a podcast?
o Eric: CC has some PSA-style audio snippets that CC has created that you can insert into your podcast if you'd like. There's a CC media page in the works that'll make these snippets available.
* Has CC licensing been contested and/or upheld in a court of law?
o Yes, twice. See Adam Curry / tabloid case as one example.

Examples:

* Example of publisher that distributes content contributed by others under a CC license but still benefits:
o See how Flickr requires a link back to its site as part of the attribution clause. This helps Flickr get recognition and traffic, but allows the content owner to maintain control over the licensing terms.
* Examples of music sites using CC licensing:
o jamendo
o magnatune
o ccmixter
o splicemusic
o jamglue
o beatpick

Ideas:

* Set up a mailing list so publishers can email each other questions/answers when they run into issues.

CCPA

2007-03-19T21:41:28Z

Eric Steuer:

Feb 21, 07 meeting notes (transcribed by Amit Asaravala, originally posted here: http://ccpa.wikispaces.com/070221+meeting+notes)

Attendees:

* Amit Asaravala, Manager of Editorial and Content Strategy, TechSoup
* Eric Steuer, Creative Director, Creative Commons
* Unnamed attendee (waiting for approval to publish name)
* Unnamed attendee (waiting for approval to publish name)
* Unnamed attendee (waiting for approval to publish name)

The focus of this meeting was mainly Q&A. Eric generously answered many questions that the attendees had about specific use cases.

Questions:

* Amit: How much or how little does an article need to be modified before the modifications constitute a derivative work (and therefore the modifier now owns the copyright on the derivative?)
o Eric: In general small changes, like fixing typos or changing to British English spelling or updating punctuation to fit your house style does not constitute a derivative work.
* Can a license on a particular item of content be retracted or changed down the road if you change your mind?
o Technically, yes, you can stop publishing your work under a CC license -- but you can't require people who have already obtained your work under the previous CC license to stop using it or redistributing it. So in practice, you pretty much have to assume that once your work is out there under a particular license, it's going to stay out there under that license.
o That said, you can make your license less restrictive, in which case new people who use your content will use it under the new license. People who have already obtained your content can either keep doing what they're doing or take advantage of the new, less restrictive licensing terms.
* Can you license your content to a publisher under an exclusive agreement and still release it under a CC license?
o No, by its definition, an exclusive agreement allows only that publisher to distribute or otherwise use your work. This goes against the point of a CC license, which is to allow others to use your work without signing individual agreements.
* If, as a publisher, I distribute content that others have provided to me under a CC-Noncommercial license, does that mean I can't sell ads to help support my business? (For instance, if I operate a video sharing site where I let people upload their content and license it to others under a CC-Noncommerical license...)
o Eric: Yes, you can. It's best to think of it this way: The content owner (who owns the copyright to a given video) is not actually releasing his video to you, the site operator, under a CC-Noncommercial license. Rather, he's letting you publish his video under a nonexclusive agreement that gives you permission to make commercial use of the video. For everyone else, he's making the video available on your site under a CC-Noncommercial license. This "dual licensing" is possible because, as the copyright holder of a CC work, you're still free to form other licensing agreements with publishers so long as those agreements are nonexclusive.
o Eric: has a presentation about YouTube and noncommerical licenses that we should get ahold of.
* Can you license different versions of a content item under two different licenses? For instance, two different resolutions of a graphic image?
o Eric: Yes, if the two versions are clearly distinguishable. A thumbnail could be CC-licensed, while the full image could be All Rights Reserved. However, something that's just a pixel off from the original does not constitute a separate content item with a separate copyright. (This falls under the "reasonable use" area, the same way that updating some punctuation in an article doesn't make it an entirely new work.)
* Do you have to use CC metadata, like ID3 tags, in your content in order for it to be officially CC licensed?
o Eric: No, but it's good to have, since some search engines and other technologies will be better able to find your content and automatically digest the licensing terms.
* How can you publicly specify the type of CC license you're using on, say, a podcast?
o Eric: CC has some PSA-style audio snippets that CC has created that you can insert into your podcast if you'd like. There's a CC media page in the works that'll make these snippets available.
* Has CC licensing been contested and/or upheld in a court of law?
o Yes, twice. See Adam Curry / tabloid case as one example.

Examples:

* Example of publisher that distributes content contributed by others under a CC license but still benefits:
o See how Flickr requires a link back to its site as part of the attribution clause. This helps Flickr get recognition and traffic, but allows the content owner to maintain control over the licensing terms.
* Examples of music sites using CC licensing:
o jamendo
o magnatune
o ccmixter
o splicemusic
o jamglue
o beatpick

Ideas:

* Set up a mailing list so publishers can email each other questions/answers when they run into issues.

CCPA

2007-03-19T21:16:35Z

Eric Steuer:

Feb 21, 07 meeting notes (transcribed by Amit Asaravala, posted here: http://ccpa.wikispaces.com/070221+meeting+notes)

CCPA

2007-03-19T21:16:12Z

Eric Steuer:

Feb 21, 07 meeting notes (transcribed by Amit Asaravala, first posted here: http://ccpa.wikispaces.com/070221+meeting+notes)

Attendees:

* Amit Asaravala, Manager of Editorial and Content Strategy, TechSoup
* Eric Steuer, Creative Director, Creative Commons
* Unnamed attendee (waiting for approval to publish name)
* Unnamed attendee (waiting for approval to publish name)
* Unnamed attendee (waiting for approval to publish name)

The focus of this meeting was mainly Q&A. Eric generously answered many questions that the attendees had about specific use cases.

Questions:

* Amit: How much or how little does an article need to be modified before the modifications constitute a derivative work (and therefore the modifier now owns the copyright on the derivative?)
o Eric: In general small changes, like fixing typos or changing to British English spelling or updating punctuation to fit your house style does not constitute a derivative work.
* Can a license on a particular item of content be retracted or changed down the road if you change your mind?
o Technically, yes, you can stop publishing your work under a CC license -- but you can't require people who have already obtained your work under the previous CC license to stop using it or redistributing it. So in practice, you pretty much have to assume that once your work is out there under a particular license, it's going to stay out there under that license.
o That said, you can make your license less restrictive, in which case new people who use your content will use it under the new license. People who have already obtained your content can either keep doing what they're doing or take advantage of the new, less restrictive licensing terms.
* Can you license your content to a publisher under an exclusive agreement and still release it under a CC license?
o No, by its definition, an exclusive agreement allows only that publisher to distribute or otherwise use your work. This goes against the point of a CC license, which is to allow others to use your work without signing individual agreements.
* If, as a publisher, I distribute content that others have provided to me under a CC-Noncommercial license, does that mean I can't sell ads to help support my business? (For instance, if I operate a video sharing site where I let people upload their content and license it to others under a CC-Noncommerical license...)
o Eric: Yes, you can. It's best to think of it this way: The content owner (who owns the copyright to a given video) is not actually releasing his video to you, the site operator, under a CC-Noncommercial license. Rather, he's letting you publish his video under a nonexclusive agreement that gives you permission to make commercial use of the video. For everyone else, he's making the video available on your site under a CC-Noncommercial license. This "dual licensing" is possible because, as the copyright holder of a CC work, you're still free to form other licensing agreements with publishers so long as those agreements are nonexclusive.
o Eric: has a presentation about YouTube and noncommerical licenses that we should get ahold of.
* Can you license different versions of a content item under two different licenses? For instance, two different resolutions of a graphic image?
o Eric: Yes, if the two versions are clearly distinguishable. A thumbnail could be CC-licensed, while the full image could be All Rights Reserved. However, something that's just a pixel off from the original does not constitute a separate content item with a separate copyright. (This falls under the "reasonable use" area, the same way that updating some punctuation in an article doesn't make it an entirely new work.)
* Do you have to use CC metadata, like ID3 tags, in your content in order for it to be officially CC licensed?
o Eric: No, but it's good to have, since some search engines and other technologies will be better able to find your content and automatically digest the licensing terms.
* How can you publicly specify the type of CC license you're using on, say, a podcast?
o Eric: CC has some PSA-style audio snippets that CC has created that you can insert into your podcast if you'd like. There's a CC media page in the works that'll make these snippets available.
* Has CC licensing been contested and/or upheld in a court of law?
o Yes, twice. See Adam Curry / tabloid case as one example.

Examples:

* Example of publisher that distributes content contributed by others under a CC license but still benefits:
o See how Flickr requires a link back to its site as part of the attribution clause. This helps Flickr get recognition and traffic, but allows the content owner to maintain control over the licensing terms.
* Examples of music sites using CC licensing:
o jamendo
o magnatune
o ccmixter
o splicemusic
o jamglue
o beatpick

Ideas:

* Set up a mailing list so publishers can email each other questions/answers when they run into issues.

CcWiki:About

2007-03-19T21:14:01Z

Eric Steuer:

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<h2 style="padding: 0; margin: 0">Welcome</h2>
'''Welcome''' to the [[CcWiki:About|Creative Commons Wiki]]! Most of the content here is aimed at [[Developer|software developers]], but please add to this site where you see fit.
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* [[Developer|Developer Portal]]
* [[About CC]]
* [[Salon|CC Salons]]
* [[Podcasting Legal Guide]]
* [[Debate|The CC Debate]]
</td>
<td style="font-size: 180%; width: 33%; vertical-align: top;">
* [http://creativecommons.org Official CC Website]
* [[Frequently Asked Questions|CC FAQ]]
* [[CcWiki:About|Using this Site]]
* [[Special:Categories|Categorical Site Index]]
* [[Special:Recentchanges|Recent Wiki Changes]]
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* [[Content Curators|Content Directories]]
* [[CCPA|CC Publishers Association]]
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{{Lang-3|Ca:Benvinguda|Es:Bienvenido|He:%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%9B%D7%99%D7%9D_%D7%94%D7%91%D7%90%D7%99%D7%9D}}
===Wikipedia===
If you tire of this site, check out articles about Creative Commons in the language of your choice:
[http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons Català],
[http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons Česky],
[http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons Dansk],
[http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons Deutsch],
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons English],
[http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons Español],
[http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons Français],
[http://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%ED%81%AC%EB%A6%AC%EC%97%90%EC%9D%B4%ED%8B%B0%EB%B8%8C_%EC%BB%A4%EB%A8%BC%EC%A6%88 한국어],
[http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons Italiano],
[http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons עברית],
[http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons Magyar],
[http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons Nederlands],
[http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%AF%E3%83%AA%E3%82%A8%E3%82%A4%E3%83%86%E3%82%A3%E3%83%96%E3%83%BB%E3%82%B3%E3%83%A2%E3%83%B3%E3%82%BA 日本語],
[http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons Norsk (bokmål)],
[http://nn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons Norsk (nynorsk)],
[http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons Polski],
[http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons Português],
[http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons Simple English],
[http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons Suomi],
[http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons Svenska],
[http://tl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons Tagalog],
[http://th.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B8%84%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B5%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%AD%E0%B8%97%E0%B8%B5%E0%B8%9F%E0%B8%84%E0%B8%AD%E0%B8%A1%E0%B8%A1%E0%B8%AD%E0%B8%99%E0%B8%AA%E0%B9%8C ไทย],
[http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%88%9B%E4%BD%9C%E5%85%B1%E7%94%A8 中文]
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