Uruguay joins Creative Commons in order to support an open and accessible Internet, to promote the advantages of free knowledge and of sharing the intellectual wealth with the world.

We believe that one of our first missions is the promotion and dissemination at different stages of free or less restrictive licenses than the usual "all rights reserved".

Our team is composed of eleven (11) people whose careers and affiliations are detailed below. We expect to add new people to the team.

Team information

Team members

Patricia Díaz: Attorney dedicated to Free Culture. Currently teaches at the Training Unit (UdelaR), at the Board of Education Training (ANEP) and is involved in projects related to Open Educational Resources. She is completing a Masters in International Relations (Thesis: "Economic Impact of government policies in support of Free Software in MERCOSUR" ). She is the team’s legal advisor.

Mariana Fossatti: She is a sociologist. She is currently director of Ártica - Centro Cultural 2.0. She focuses on the study and application of ICT and e-learning in culture, education and social organizations. She is co-author of the e-books " Young Art and digital culture" and "Arts and culture in circulation: introduction to copyright and free licenses ." As a consultant, she has worked with various institutions such as the Ministry of Education and Culture of Uruguay, the FCForum and the Sociedad de las Indias Electrónicas. As a teacher, she has taught on society, new technologies and e -learning in the Centro Latinoamericano de Economía Humana (CLAEH), the University of Salamanca and the Plan Ceibal, among others. In parallel, she does research about visual arts and she develops her own artwork, using with collage techniques and audiovisual remix.

Daniel Viñar: Engineer, graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique and the School of Telecommunications, France. Currently working on computers and networks at the Universidad de la República (UdelaR). Until 2007, he worked as a consultant in France and countries in Eastern Europe and Latin America. In 2008, in Bolivia, he participated in the re- nationalization of Entel (telecommunications company), and in the development by the Ministry of the Presidency of a proposal of "one computer per child". He has participated in various free software communities for over ten years.

Evelin Heidel: Student in Literature at the School of Arts, University of Buenos Aires. Board member of Fundación Vía Libre. Public Leader, Creative Commons Argentina. Latin American Project Lead, "Do It Yourself Bookscanner" Project. She participates in several projects for digitization of cultural heritage, and also in research groups on copyright and access to culture.

Jorge Gemetto: Co-director, community manager, content curator and blogger at Ártica - Centro Cultural 2.0. Degree in Psychology. Co-author of the e-books "Young Art and digital culture" and "Arts and culture in circulation: introduction to copyright and free licenses". He is an author, blogger and free culture activist.

Luis Alonzo Fulchi: He is a sociologist and works as a computer consultant for the Departamento de Apoyo Técnico Académico (DATA), Universidad de la República (UdelaR). At DATA he has contributed to the development of the Program of Virtual Learning Environments (ProEVA), which provides a network of servers for computer support for teaching and blended learning. He is co-leader of the team that develops LibreQDA, a free software for qualitative analysis in the social sciences.

Manuel Podetti: Degree in Communication Studies with studies in Media Analysis and Community Management. He specializes in ICT, media, organizational communication and social media. He co-directed Cellfiction, a company specialized in creating multimedia content for mobile. He spent over 9 years as a TV editor and producer. He is currently a communications consultant for the Departamento de Apoyo Técnico Académico (DATA) at the Universidad de la República (UdelaR). He participates in R & D projects related to OER, open textbooks and multimedia technologies. He also co-directs Fluo Communication, a company specialized in corporate communications.

Pablo Laguna: Student in Sociology, University of Granada (UGR). Participates in a university exchange programme at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of the Republic. He is a member of the Board of Directors at Europa Laica and a member of Observatorio del Laicismo. It is a founding member of the Seminar “Otro pensamiento es posible” and “Seminario Galileo Galilei”, both from the UGR which also organizes annually the Conference on Spanish Republicanism.

Rodrigo Barbano: Software developer specialized in web portals. Advisor on issues of free knowledge, culture and free software at parliamentary level. Manager of the ​ “technology socialism” area at Mate Amargo web magazine. Vice-president of Wikimedia Uruguay and founding member of the Centro de Estudios de Software Libre. He has advocated for the adoption by the Uruguayan government of free licenses for the cultural content produced.

Salvador García: Musician, actor and teacher. Director of the copyleft record label Vía Láctea Ediciones. Drama teacher specialized in Clown and Physical Theatre. He is a member of the band Limpiando Encontré Monedas, where he works as a composer, guitarist, vocalist and manager. Director of the independent theater company El Embudo Clown.

Virginia Rodés: Degree in Educational Communication, Virtual Learning Environments specialist, Master of University Teaching. Assistant Professor. Coordinator at Departamento de Apoyo Técnico Académico (DATA), Program of Virtual Learning Environments, Universidad de la República (UdelaR). She does research in various fields related to the development and application of technologies in education. Her area of ​​interest lies in the semantic web applied to education, learning objects, repositories, adaptability, accessibility issues. She has also studied the institutional transformation of higher education in the context of innovation processes based on educational technologies. She is currently involved in several R & D projects related to OER, open textbooks, accessibility and multimedia technologies. She has developed her professional career as a consultant for institutions and organizations in the environmental, healthcare, government and education areas.

Affiliated institutions and partners

Affiliated institution

- Asociación de Bibliotecólogos del Uruguay (Uruguayan Association of Librarians) - President: Alicia Ocaso - Web: http://www.abu.net.uy

Other partner institutions

- SciELO Uruguay - Web: http://www.scielo.edu.uy

- Wikimedia Uruguay - Web: http://wikimediauruguay.org

- Ártica - Centro Cultural Online - Web: http://www.articaonline.com

- Vía Láctea Ediciones - Web: http://www.vialacteaediciones.com

Under Approval (pending)

- Universidad de la República - DATA (CSE) - RedEVa - Comisión de Propiedad Intelectual - Web: http://www.universidad.edu.uy

CC Uruguay participates in:

- Red de Propiedad Intelectual (Intellectual Property Network) - Web: http://www.redpi.uy

- Red de Gobierno Abierto (Open Government Network) - Web: http://rga.uy

Affiliate Team Roadmap late 2014 - 2015

Vision

We share the conviction that it is necessary to support and promote an alternative cultural model based on the free flow of information and collaboration. This model prioritizes the public interest over individual interest especially in relation to education, science, art and culture, and is made possible by the Creative Commons set of licenses. The simplicity and practicality of the CC licenses facilitate its use as a suitable tool in any kind of academic, artistic or cultural entrepreneurship.

The Creative Commons licenses have already begun to be used in Uruguay mainly in areas related to education and music. We have identified the need for training and guidance to promote a correct use of the licenses and to promote the extension of its use to other areas of culture.

The main factors that determine the success of the project are:

- The commitment of its members to the project.

- Cooperation, networking and interdisciplinary teams.

- The connection of each participant with different actors and institutions in the field of education, the cultural world and various state agencies, which constitutes one of the main strengths of the team.

Contribution to the CC Affiliate Network

We have worked in contact with members of CC teams in the region. We received initial support from these teams who have shared their expertise with us. When our team is consolidated, we will be able to provide the same support to other teams.

In recent months we have worked on the Spanish translation of materials about Creative Commons licenses and have participated in some projects with other teams and CC communities.

In November 2013, we organized in Uruguay the local instance of the "Free Music Week", a joint project with CC Guatemala and CC Costa Rica.

We have also worked on the online course "ABC of copyright for librarians in Latin America"​​, in a team with CC Colombia and CC El Salvador .

By geographical proximity and affinity, we are in daily contact with CC teams of Argentina and Paraguay. We are especially interested in generating instances of dissemination and regional projects.

Community

- Educational Community, mainly faculty (ANEP, UdelaR) and students of Tertiary Education. Some of our team members work at UdelaR, the main University of Uruguay, with more than 85% of the universitary students in the country. We are also in contact with teachers at ANEP (Administración Nacional de Educación Pública) through our discussion list.

- Scientific community, researchers, scientific journals and libraries. We have one team member who works at the Asociación de Bibliotecólogos del Uruguay (Librarians Association of Uruguay). We are in close contact with representatives of SciELO Uruguay.

- Free Software Community: some of our team members are free software programmers. We are in close contact with CESoL (Centro de Estudios de Software Libre). We have participated in the FLISOL (Latin American Free Software Installation Festival).

- Wikipedians and Wikimedia community: Some members of CC Uruguay are Wikipedians and also members of Wikimedia Uruguay.

- National musicians: One member of our team coordinates a free music label and is part of the Free Music Labels Network in Uruguay.

- Community of visual artists and new media artists. We have worked together with new media artists at remix workshops.

- State agencies: we have worked together with various State Agencies, like Bicentenario, Centros MEC and Consejo de Derechos de Autor.

- Right to Culture Movement. Some of our team members are also members of that movement. We have worked together in the production of events.

Communication with communities will primarily take place through our discussion list. We will also use our website and Twitter to inform activities and dialogue with the people.

Priority Goals

1 - Focus-area: Construction of the online presence of CC Uruguay and a community around it.

We plan to keep in touch with each of the communities. Among our first steps, we have implemented the following tools:

- The Uruguay CC website.

- A CC Uruguay Twitter account.

- A discussion list of about 50 people that includes members of the target communities.

We plan to continue adding people from the identified communities to the discussion list in order to exchange information about news, activities and opportunities for collaboration. In addition, we aim to:

- Create and manage a Facebook account.

- Create and manage an institutional email account

- Create and manage a contact form and an explanatory area of ​​"How to Participate".

Additionally, we plan to organize, in conjunction with the Centro Cultural de España, the first edition of the Montevideo Creative Commons Film Festival.

This initial step will serve as the basis for CC Uruguay’s communication and promotion activities. It will also be useful to promote Uruguayan cultural and educational projects using CC licenses, to answer questions from the public and to dialogue with other institutions.

The online community will benefit Uruguayan authors and users, since they will be able to access information about the CC licenses in Uruguay, and may also communicate with the CC team to make questions, suggest activities or collaborations.

The work of authors who use Creative Commons licenses will be promoted on the multiple online spaces of CC Uruguay.

2 - Focus-area: Building partnerships with governmental agencies.

We are especially interested on advising governmental agencies in order to adopt free licenses for their content, and become involved in the promotion of free licenses.

We have initiated several lines of interaction and work in conjunction with the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC):

We worked with Wikimedia Uruguay and Bicentennial Project in the release and resettlement generated content in the past two years. We plan to continue this joint work in the following months. We contacted members of the CDA - MEC (Copyright Board - Ministry of Education and Culture) for the organization of a Series of Conferences about Creative Commons and Free Culture, as well as a seminar or another type of training instance of copyright for journalists. We plan two instances of seminars in conjunction with the Copyright Board. We received the request from the MEC (the “Centros MEC” Area) to assist in the creation of the CCCL Project (in english: Container of Free Community Creations) , which aims to develop an online service to collect and share free artistic and cultural works.

Why is it important?

The State is a great partner and this partnership increases visibility of free licenses. CC makes Uruguay a valid interlocutor on free culture issues, preservation and dissemination of cultural goods produced in the State. By expanding the adoption of these licenses, especially at the level of the Ministry of Education and Culture, the objective conditions are generated to facilitate a change in legislation to license freely the content generated by the State.

Which communities will benefit?

The beneficiaries of the material released by the State will be the artists themselves, teachers, public libraries but also to the public in general.

3 - Focus-area: Education, training programs and promotion of free access to educational materials and scientific research.

Uruguay is in a process of discussion on how to improve access to educational materials. In this regard, it is important to promote a model of free production and free access to knowledge, based on CC licenses, as opposed to restrictive models based on the use of technological protection measures and "all rights reserved" models.

The UdelaR has begun the adoption of a model of "Open University". During the year 2013 the UdelaR has declared the priority of Free Software and Open Formats, has decided that all the research will be Open Access and has also adopted the policy of opening their Educational Resources. During 2014, UdelaR is implementing its Open Access Repository named Colibrí. The CC Uruguay team closely accompanies these processes, encouraging and advising the authorities and commissions that are working in this direction.

Which communities will benefit?

The educational community: students, teachers and researchers, who will have greater knowledge about the availability of free materials and about the importance of a model of openness.

Project Outputs

1 - Focus-area: Construction of the online presence of CC Uruguay and a community around it.

1.1 Project Output

a) Creating and managing the website, an institutional e-mail, a discussion list of CC Uruguay, a contact form and an explanatory area of ​​"How to Participate". (early 2015)

b) Creating and managing CC Uruguay’s accounts in Social Networks (Twitter and Facebook). (mid 2015)

c) First edition of the Montevideo Creative Commons Film Festival. (late 2015)

1.2 Team Members Responsible

Luis Alonzo, Daniel Viñar, Jorge Gemetto, Salvador García

1.3 Metrics

a) Number of website visits

b) Number of followers on Twitter

c) Number of subscribers of the discussion list

d) Number of followers on Facebook

e) Number of consultations by e-mail

f) Number of films, talks, workshops and attendees at Film Festival.

2 - Focus-area: Building partnerships with governmental agencies.

2.1. Project Output

a) Legal advice to the Ministry of Education and Culture and other state agencies to release works under free licenses. This includes at least works of Bicentenario Project and a number of works that won the Fondos Concursables para la Cultura (2014 - 2015)

b) Coordination of at least two instances of seminars in conjunction with the Copyright Board. (2014 - 2015)

c) Approval and operation of the Container of Free Community Creations by MEC Project (mid 2015)

2.2 . Team Members Responsible

Patricia Díaz - Rodrigo Barbano - Mariana Fossatti

2.3. Metrics

a) Number of projects concretized with state agencies.

3 - Focus-area: Education, training programs and promotion of free access to educational materials and scientific research.

3.1. Project Output

a) Completion of at least three open online courses about copyright and free licenses in conjunction with UdelaR. (late 2014 - 2015)

b) At least two talks and workshops for teachers and librarians about copyright and free licenses. (2014 - 2015)

c) Fourth edition of the massive open online course "Arts and culture in circulation" in collaboration with Creative Commons Argentina, Ártica - Centro Cultural 2.0, Fundación Vía Libre (Argentina) and TEDIC (Paraguay) . (late 2015)

d) Participation in at least 10 conferences or congresses (2014-2015)

3.2. Team Members Responsible

Manuel Podetti - Virginia Rodés - Patricia Díaz

3.3. Metrics

a) Number of participants in open online courses.

b) Number of attending lectures and classroom workshops.

c) Quantity and quality of publications and projects on open knowledge and free licenses held by the participants of the courses and workshops.

Resources Required

Main resources such as IT infrastructure and places for the events will be provided by Universidad de la República. The human resources are provided by a volunteer team that is willing to support the effort.

Sustainability and Scalability

The sustainability of the project is run by a team of volunteers. The volunteers are very committed to the objectives. The volunteer group is sufficiently large (11 people) in order to address the objectives even if unforeseen circumstances occur.

Translation

We promote and have adopted CC license in Spanish, because is the official anguage in our country and no other languages are spoken by a considerable proportion of our population.

Date of earliest MOU in jurisdiction

The first MOU was signed in 2014.