Creative Commons Egypt

In fulfillment of its mission as a center of excellence for the dissemination of knowledge and for dialogue, learning and understanding between cultures and people, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) has developed a growing interest in issues relating to access to knowledge, promotion of innovation and creativity and intellectual property. In this context, the BA has been keen to adopt Creative Commons (CC) licenses in Egypt, as one of enabling tools in spreading the philosophy of access to knowledge (A2K) and consequently building the local capacity of researchers, librarians and practitioners. Adopting the CC Egypt initiative was regarded as a harmonizing element in the A2K activities that are pursued by the BA since 2006. Creative Commons was first introduced to the Egyptian and Arab Academia and Researchers in September 2006 as a new tool for the dissemination of knowledge and the promotion of innovation and creativity in the Arab world. For additional information about the final report and recommendations, please visit http://www.bibalex.org/a2k/attachments/BAEvents/Recomendation.pdf the link.

In the following year, 2007, the BA signed an MoU with Creative Commons Organization to adopt CC licenses for Egypt. The BA A2k intuitive conducted several focused workshops for Egyptians and Arab researchers, librarians, lawyers and judges, aiming to raise awareness about Intellectual Property rights, IPRs, and access to knowledge issues. After that, work started on the “Legal Code” and translation to comply with the Egyptian Law on the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights, Law No. 82, 2002, then to transfer the Legal code to HTML format. Currently, the BA team is working on the translation of the Arabic links and reviewing the content to make the necessary modifications.

In its pursuit to foster a culture of Openness & Access , the BA’s works towards spreading an Open-Source-concepts that are based on sharing, collaboration and open access through which people will realize the importance of using the Creative Commons licenses as a tool for sharing and collaboration.

Meet the Creative Commons Egypt Team

The BA’s A2K initiative is considered to be the first and most active community for Creative Commons in Egypt. The CC community in Egypt is a group of volunteers who are very passionate about promoting a culture of Intellectual Property IPRs-respect, sharing and collaboration through the use of the Creative Commons licenses on different community-levels.

Important links

• Creative Commons in the Arab World by Hala Essalmawi
• Egyptian Law on the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights, Law No. 82, 2002
• BA A2K Platform Newsletter

Special thanks goes to

• Lawyers and researchers; Moataz Abdulaziz, Ahmed Kahwaji and Hossam Alaa and A2K Project officer Ghada Deghedy for their assistance in the work done in the legal code.
• Hani Sawiress, Head of Web Graphics Unit, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, who managed to transfer the legal code into HTML format.