Creative Commons Egypt

Creative Commons is working with the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) to create Egyptian jurisdiction-specific licenses from the Unported Creative Commons licenses.

CC Egypt List

Project Lead: Hala Essalmawi

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More About the Bibliotheca Alexandrina

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.

BA has initiated several activities to spread the philosophy of access to knowledge (A2K) and build local capacity of researchers, librarians and practitioners to effectively implement new and emerging A2K tools and practices. It is within this context that BA has organized the first seminar on new tools for the dissemination of knowledge and the promotion of innovation and creativity in the Arab world and the region.

Description

The Creative Commons community in Egypt is a group of volunteers who are very passionate about promoting a culture of Intellectual Property (IP)-respect, sharing and collaboration through the use of the Creative Commons licenses on different community-levels.

Community

The A2K (Access To Knowledge) project initiated by Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) is considered to be the first and most active community for Creative Commons in Egypt and most of the BA A2K activities took place in Alexandria.

The Creative Commons team in Egypt is now working on how to widen the range of the Creative Commons community in Egypt to include more contributors and give more space for collaboration and sharing.

And the following are some of the groups/fields that the Creative Commons Community in Egypt is targeting...

• Arts: film-makers, musicians, visual artists, writers...
• Education: educators, educational institutions (formal/informal), edutainment companies...
• Young People: school/university students and young artists
• Research: researchers and research institutions
• Publishing: online and print publishers

And we will get these target groups involved through the following...

• Inviting them to our CC salons, workshops around Intellectual Property (IP)/A2K/how to use the CC licenses
• Answer all their questions and concerns
• Introducing them to projects that uses CC licenses for publishing their work

Priority Goals

• Foster a culture of "Intellectual Property (IP)-Respect"

In order for us to introduce people in Egypt to the Creative Commons licenses, we have to realize first that there are high rates of music and software piracy! So our main focus will be... how to help them understand what Intellectual Property (IP) is, how important it is to respect the Intellectual Property of a creator and what are the legal ways to use the work of others (providing them with Affordable/Free alternatives... CC licensed work, Open Source Software)

And only at this point we can introduce them to Creative Commons or otherwise they'll find the use of Creative Commons licenses pointless in the first place!

• Spread an Open-Source-Culture

A culture that is based on sharing, collaboration and open access and within this context people will realize how essential is the use of the Creative Commons licenses as a tool that allows more sharing and collaboration

• Sustainability

Our main goal is not only to introduce people to the licenses and let them know how to use it with their work, but one of our main focuses will be how to keep them motivated to collaborate, share and publish more content.

Deliverables

The outputs we are planning to deliver are as follows:

- Creative Commons Egypt Website
to keep everyone updated with news about the Creative Commons community in Egypt and its activities
(December 2010)

- Facebook Group
Facebook is becoming a very essential tool to get everyone involved... getting feedback, sharing news, announcements and updates around CC Egypt
(December 2010)

- Official launch
of the Creative Commons Egypt project
(January/February 2011) TBC

- A frequent Newsletter (monthly/bi-weekly)
to keep everyone updated with the latest news, activities and projects of the Creative Commons community in Egypt
(February 2011)

- CC Salon Egypt
- Every salon will start with a brief Introduction to what Creative Commons is (to welcome our new comers into the community)
- At a more advanced stage the salons will have themes... the use of CC licenses in arts, education, research...
- A presentation of some case studies (whenever possible)
- Showcase some resources for CC licensed content on the internet
- A workshop around Intellectual Property/CC licenses
- Q&A session open to saloon attendees
- An Open Multimedia Jam (explained later on in details)
(first salon... February 2011) TBC
Frequency: monthly (hopefully)

- An Egyptian SHARE group/Open Multimedia Jams
SHARE/Open-Multimedia-Jams are free, open multimedia jams where participants bring their portable equipment (laptop, portable media player, music instrument...) plug it into an Audio/Video system, improvise on each others' signals and perform live music, sounds and visuals!
The Open Multimedia Jams will help us spread a culture of sharing and collaboration between Music lovers, Sound and Visual artists! ;) http://share.dj/global/
(February 2011) with the first CC salon Egypt

- Workshops (introductory and thematic) with the following focuses...
- What Intellectual Property is
- What Creative Commons is
- How to use the Creative Commons licenses
- How to publish online
- Collaborative artwork (comics, music, video, writing)
(February 2011) with the first CC salon Egypt

- School/University workshops
To help students and teachers better understand what Intellectual Property is, introduce them to Creative Commons and how they can use the licenses
(February 2011)
Frequency: monthly (hopefully)

- Partnerships
with projects (businesses and institutions) that can adopt/have already adopted the use of the Creative Commons licenses with their work
(Throughout 2011)

Metrics

The Creative Commons Egypt team will be tracking the progress of the project, through the following...

• Feedback from the Creative Commons Egypt community members (during events and online through surveys and polls)
• Regular (on-going) evaluation of the Creative Commons Egypt activities (from the organizing team)
• The number of projects that has adopted the use of the CC licenses with their work and activities.

Resources Required

People (Human resources)

• Artists, Researchers, Open Source and A2K enthusiasts and volunteers

And they will contribute to the Creative Commons community in Egypt through the following...
- Give talks and presentations about their experience with the use of the Licenses,
- Facilitate the Q&A sessions with the public
- Help giving workshops around Intellectual Property, A2K, what Creative Commons is and how to use it?!
- Manage and moderate the online communities for Creative Commons Egypt (Facebook, Vimeo, Flickr groups, lojra)
- Content management for the Creative Commons Egypt website and other online platforms (editing, translation, design...)
- Research and surveying

Technology

• Website for Creative Commons Egypt (hosted on creativecommons.org or arabic.creativecommons.org)
• Mailing-list/frequent newsletter (with updates and announcements from the Creative Commons community in Egypt)
• Facebook Group (as a vital tool to share news, updates and get feedback from the community)

Materials

• A Space to host CC Salons Egypt (Cairo, Alex and other cities) and workshops around CC and Intellectual Property
• Equipment... Projector, Sound System (Sound-mixer and Video-mixer for the Open-Multimedia-Jams)
• Publicity materials (Posters, leaflets...) for salons and workshops

And we hope that we can get the space and equipment through in-kind donations from cultural institutions or other Not-for-Profit organizations in Egypt

Translation

• Arabic and English will be the main languages used to promote Creative Commons within the Creative Commons community in Egypt.

Timeline 2010-2011

January/February 2011 (TBC)
- Official launch for the Creative Commons Egypt licenses

--Yahya.mekkawi 19:05, 28 November 2010 (UTC):