Government use of Creative Commons

Currently this is a scratchpad for referencing known government and intergovernmental uses of CC licensing and public domain tools (and government recommendations of same). Please add to the list and turn compelling uses into Case Studies.

Examples are needed for national/federal, state/provincial and local/city/county governments (or their equivalents) as well as intergovernmental organizations and bodies such as the European Union and United Nations.

Government adoption strategies

Jurisdiction-Specific Case Studies

Armenia

• Official website of the Armenian President. CC BY-ND 3.0 Unported.

Australia

• AusGOAL, the Australian Governments Open Access and Licensing Framework, provides support and guidance to Australia's governments and related sectors to facilitate open access to publicly funded information. AusGOAL makes it possible for organisations to manage their risks when publishing information and data in a way that drives innovation and entrepreneurial activities; providing enhanced economic and social benefits to the wider community. AusGOAL is aligned with numerous open government initiatives around the world and supports the Australian Information Commissioners Open Access Principles. AusGOAL endorses the Creative Commons Australia Version 3.0 Licences, and the Creative Commons Public Domain Mark.
• Australian Parliament. The Parliament’s central web portal http://www.aph.gov.au houses the most important documents of the Australian Federal Government including all bills, committee reports and, most importantly, the Hansard transcript of Parliamentary Sittings, and the portal will be published under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND Version 3.0 Australian license.
• Australian budget delivered May 12, 2010 was released under a Creative Commons Attribution licence. Also the Gov 2.0 response and the NBN Implementation Study
• government data - three of the largest sources of Australian government data sets - Australian Bureau of Statistics, Geoscience Australia and the still beta data.australia.gov.au - are all licensed by default under CC BY 2.5 Australia and/or CC BY 3.0 Australia . Together these sites provide free access to all of Australia's census data, official geoscientific information and knowledge, and other miscellaneous government data (such as the location of public toilets). The ABS and Geoscience Australia have detailed copyright and attribution guidelines, to assist with user implementation. data.australia.gov.au played a major role in the Mashup Australia competition run by Australia's Government 2.0 Taskforce.
  • over 50 datasets released on data.australia.gov.au http://data.australia.gov.au/ for the Mashup Australia contest: http://mashupaustralia.org/
  • Geoscience Australia's "geospatial data, specifically digital elevation models or DEMs, were imperative to the creation of accurate flood models and for overcoming many operational challenges" during the recent Brisbane flood: http://creativecommons.org.au/weblog/entry/2501
• Water Information - the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has launched the official website of its Improving Water Information Program with a default CC BY 3.0 Australia licence. This aggregates hundreds of other government departments' and agencies' information into the National Water Account. They have a range of explanatory materials about the licence and are building licensing tools and metadata into their Australian Water Resources Information System.
• ABC Pool - this initiative of Australia's largest public broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), is releasing material from the ABC archives for reuse under CC licences. It's first major release has been as part of the Gene Pool project, celebrating Charles Darwin's Centenary.
• National Library of Australia - various policy materials
• Powerhouse Museum - releases a large range of material under CC, including its photo of the day, downloadable pdfs from its Play program and the museum's general collection information and data.
• Queensland Museum - releases photographs from its collection on Wiki Commons under CC BY-SA .
• NSW Department of Education and Training - Dynamic Calculus': Teaching Resource
• Aged Care Queensland's eMentoring Handbook
• National Copyright Unit - Creative Commons for Educators fact sheets produced for the Smartcopying website in conjunction with Creative Commons Australia.
• Department of Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy - Budd:e E-security Education Package. The Budd:e package won Best Children's interactive media and digital content at the 2010 AIMIA Awards.
• Mosman Municipal Council's Community Engagement Strategy is released under a Creative Commons licence and includes as a key priority “to promote the use and dissemination of Council’s materials while retaining Council’s rights of authorship”.
• Realising Our Broadband Future forum (Dec 2009), DBCDE hosted a wiki to gather input from participants whihc was all CC BY-NC-SA licensed http://www.broadbandfuture.gov.au/webcasts.html
• Australian Government Information Management Office has CC licensed its blog: http://agimo.govspace.gov.au/ and the Government 2.0 showcase http://showcase.govspace.gov.au/
• Australian Electoral Commission has applied CC BY as the default license for its website: http://www.aec.gov.au/footer/copyright.htm

Australian government reports recommending CC usage

• Engage: Getting on with Government 2.0 - report of the Australian Government 2.0 Taskforce
• Government Response to the Report of the Government 2.0 Taskforce - agreement in principle that Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) should be the default licence for all PSI
• Government Information and Licensing Framework - a Queensland Government strategy on open access and use of information
• Venturous Australia: the National Innovation Review - report recommends government use of CC licences, and is released under CC
• Victorian Government's Economic Development Committee recommends CC licensing for public sector information.
• Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) published the Australia's Digital Economy: Future Directions paper under a CC BY-NC-ND in July 2009: http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/future_directions_of_the_digital_economy/australias_digital_economy_future_directions
• National Broadband Network Implementation Study http://www.dbcde.gov.au/broadband/national_broadband_network/national_broadband_network_implementation_study was released by DBCDE as a wiki under a CC BY-NC-SA license. Wiki taken down now, but was tweeted: http://twitter.com/miakgarlick/status/13470301666
• DBCDE published two reports on its website under CC BY: http://www.dbcde.gov.au/digital_economy/benefits_of_digital_economy_from_nbn
• Treasury released the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2010 under CC BY: http://www.treasury.gov.au/documents/1858/PDF/PEFO_2010.pdf

Austria

Open Government Data Portal by the City of Vienna under CC BY

Brazil

• Brazil open government data portal (beta) under CC BY-SA.
• Äôs Ministry of Justice Affiliate_Reporting/2010#Highlights_of_New_Major_Adopters
• The municipality of São Paulo Department of Education has now mandated that all its educational and pedagogical content will be made available under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial Share-Alike (BY-NC-SA) license.

Bulgaria

• Bulgarian President. CC BY ND 2.5 Bulgaria.
• Chief Prosecutor of the Republic of Bulgaria. CC BY 2.5 Bulgaria
• Bulgarian Foreign Ministry. CC BY ND 2.5 Bulgaria.

Canada

• Canada has developed the Government of Canada Open Data License Agreement for their open data portal website. While not a Creative Commons license it would seem that this is heavily inspired by the Creative Commons philosophy and has many similar aspects. These include 1.0 Definitions; 2.0 Intellectual Property Rights; 3.0 License Grant; 4.0 Acknowledgement of Source; 5.0 No Warranty and no Liability; and 6.0 Effective Date and Termination. This has similarities to the Open Government Licence for public sector information used in the United Kingdom as seen farther down this list.

Chile

• Chilean Government Official Site, whose site is licensed under CC BY 2.0 Chile.
• Chilean Bureau of Tourism, whose site is licensed under CC BY 2.0 Chile.
• Chilean Government - Secretary of Economy, whose site is licensed under CC BY 2.0 Chile.
• Chilean Government - Secretary of Communications, whose site is licensed under CC BY 2.0 Chile.
• Chilean Government - Secretary of Education, whose site is licensed under CC BY 2.0 Chile.
• The Library of the National Congress, whose site is licensed under CC BY NC SA 2.0 Chile.
• The Guidelines for Governmental Websites and its Observatory, run by the Ministry of Economy, are licensed under CC BY NC SA 2.0 Chile.

Colombia

• Official website of the Colombian Biodiversity Information System depending from the Ministry of Environment.

Croatia

• http://otvorenikod.nsk.hr - Centar za otvoreni kod, Nacionalna i sveučilišna knjižnica u Zagrebu / Center for Open Source, National and University Library in Zagreb, licensed under CC BY SA 3.0 Croatia.

Czech Republic

• RVP Metodicky Portal is an educational portal to Czech open educational resources (OER) licensed under CC Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike and CC Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivatives. It is a government-funded initiative by the Czech Republic and the European Social Fund, and is run as part of a research project by the Institute of Education in Prague and the National Institute of Vocational Education.

Ecuador

• Ministerio de Transporte y Obras Públicas del Ecuador http://www.mtop.gov.ec/index.php

Georgia

• Äôs Ministry of Education and Science Affiliate_Reporting/2010#Highlights_of_New_Major_Adopters

Greece

• http://primeminister.gr CC BY 3.0 Greece
• http://www.opengov.gr/ CC BY 3.0 Greece
• http://geodata.gov.gr/geodata/ CC BY-SA 3.0 Greece
• http://opengeodata.gr CC BY 3.0 Greece, first implementation of the INSPIRE directive
• http://antiproedros.gov.gr CC BY 3.0 Greece records the public sector workforce in accordance to the IMF rules

Guatemala

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/gobiernodeguatemala/ under CC BY-NC-SA generic

Israel

• Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs Affiliate_Reporting/2010#Highlights_of_New_Major_Adopters

Italy

• National Institute of Statistics releases all data under CC BY.
• Chamber of Deputies data portal, CC BY-SA
• http://poliziadistato.it/ The official website of the italian police, CC BY NC ND 2.5 IT
• http://dati.piemonte.it/ The official open government data portal of the Regional Government of the Piedmont Region in Italy
  • CC BY 2.5 Italy for content of the website
  • CC0 for available databases (all to date: Oct 8, 2010)

Korea

• http://blog.naver.com/mb_nomics The Official Blog of the President, CC BY NC ND 2.0 Kr
• http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Case_Studies/KOCW Korea Open Courseware run by the Korea Education and Research Information Service (KERIS) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KERIS_(Korea_Education_and_Research_Information_Service)

Macedonia

• Macedonia Center for Research and Policy Making Affiliate_Reporting/2010#Highlights_of_New_Major_Adopters

Mexico

• President Felipe Calderon Website, BY NC ND 2.5 Mexico. http://www.presidencia.gob.mx
• National Sports Comission http://www.conade.gob.mx
• Federal Government guide for website building recommends the use CC licenses

Netherlands

• the CC0 Public domain dedication is used as the default copyright policy of the Dutch national government's primary website www.rijksoverheid.nl. Since 2010 this website combines al public information published by the Dutch government and has replaced the websites of individual ministeries and agencies. Everything that is available on www.rijskoverheid.nl is available under CC0 unless otherwise indicated.

• Creative Commons Netherlands has published a study on Creative Commons Licensing for the Public Sector (pdf)

New Zealand

NZ Government Open Access and Licensing (NZGOAL) framework standardises the licensing of government copyright works for re-use using Creative Commons licences and recommends the use of ‘no-known rights’ statements for non-copyright material. It is widely recognised that re-use of this material by individuals and organisations may have significant creative and economic benefit for New Zealand. It was released for public discussion on August 27, 2009 and approved by Cabinet on July 5, 2010. The framework will enable greater access to many public sector works by encouraging State Services agencies to license material for reuse on liberal terms, and recommends Creative Commons as an important tool in this process.

In 2011 The Ministers of Finance and Internal Affairs adopted a statement detailing a new Declaration on Open and Transparent Government. The Declaration has been approved by Cabinet, and directs all Public Service departments, the New Zealand Police, the New Zealand Defence Force, the Parliamentary Counsel Office, and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service; encouraged other State Services agencies; and invited State Sector agencies to commit to releasing high value public data actively for re-use, in accordance with the Declaration and Principles, and in accordance with the NZGOAL Review and Release process.

• The Ministry for the Environment’s Land Cover Database and the Land Environments New Zealand classification has been released under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand licence on the Koordinates website.
• Land Information New Zealand's Ocean Survey 20/20 web portal which provides New Zealand with better knowledge of its ocean territory, including New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), Continental Shelf and the Ross Sea Region is made available under un CC BY licence. Reports and interpretations are available under a CC BY ND licence.
• The Department of Conservation has many datasets including pest species distribution and Director-General's expenses licensed under Creative Commons.
• The Department of Internal Affairs' website "data.govt.nz" which acts as a NZ government dataset directory makes content such as feedback and dataset listings available under a CC BY licence. Some datasets referred to on data.govt.nz have also been made available under Creative Commons licences by their respective agencies.
• The State Services Commission has published some annual reports (eg), public reports (eg) and guidance documents (eg) on its website under a CC BY licence.
• The Department of Labour has licensed its latest Annual Report and Statement of Intent under a CC BY licence.
• The Ministry of Justice has licensed its Statement of Intent 2010–2013 and Executive Expenses 2010 under a CC BY licence.
• The National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research has made some bathymetry grids available under a CC BY and CC BY ND licence.
• The NZ Parliamentary Library publishes some CC licensed documents such as Bill Digests and Research Papers on the Parliament website
• The New Zealand Defence Force's Army Leadership framework is licensed under CC BY
• The Human Rights Commission has made various resources available for download on its website available under a CC BY licence including reports, guides and Statements of Intent.
• DigitalNZ's 'Make It Digital' guides for making digital content in New Zealand are now available under a CC BY licence
• PHARMAC has a selection of schedules available under a CC BY licence.
• The New Zealand Police licensed their Annual Report for year ending June 2010 under a CC BY licence.
• The Charities Commission released the Charities Register as part of its 'open data web service' under a CC BY licence.
• Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa has made the audio tracks for 21 Rita Angus exhibition paintings and presentation recordings from the Rita Angus: Life & Vision Symposium available on their website under a CC BY NC ND licence. They have also taken up the CC BY NC ND licences to mark images in their Online Collections which are able to be shared.

• The following local government bodies have released CC licensed GIS datasets on the Koordinates platform:
  • Wellington City Council offers datasets of aerial imagery, contours, building footprints, flood hazards, wind zones and more under a CC BY licence.
  • Northland Regional Council currently has 25 GIS datasets available here, 19 are licensed under a CC BY and 6 under a CC BY ND licence.
  • North Shore City Council's Parks layer is available under a CC BY licence.
  • Auckland Regional Council datasets of Wards, Community Boards and some passenger transport information is available under a CC BY licence.

• In relation to the Canterbury Earthquakes:
  • The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) and the National Library of New Zealand have set up a documentary project of CC BY NC ND licensed images by Ross Becker as a record of recovery inside the red zone.
  • Land Information New Zealand made its aerial photographs of the city's damage available under a CC BY licence.
  • The Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management released inner city footage for screening at public memorial events under a CC BY licence.
  • The Defence Force makes its Flickr photos sets (including documentation of Canterbury) available under CC BY.
  • CERA's 2011-2016 Statement of Intent is available under a CC BY licence.

Poland

• Equal Program projects database - Polish Ministry of Regional Development has required materials produced in the scope of the EQUAL program, collected in a Project Database on the Ministry site, to be licensed under a Creative Commons license.
• Polish Ministry of Economy is publishing content on its website under a CC BY SA 3.0 Poland license.
• Polish Council of Ministers has adopted a new Digital School program for Polish schools, which includes 43 millions PLN for Creative Commons Attribution or compatible) textbooks for grades 4-6 in primary schools (K4-K6).
  • Update: http://creativecommons.pl/open-educational-resources-in-the-digital-school-program/

Portugal

• President Prof. Dr. Aníbal Cavaco Silva official photostream under CC BY 2.0 Generic: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cavacosilva/
• President Prof. Dr. Aníbal Cavaco Silva's announcement on running for reelection. Audio on SoundCloud under CC BY 3.0: http://soundcloud.com/cavacosilva2011

Russian Federation

• All content (fotos, texts, videos, audios, etc.) of Kremlin.ru (Official Website of President of the Russian Federation), Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC-BY 3.0 Unported)
  • Letter of authorisation from the Press Secretary to the President of the Russian Federation allowing use of Kremlin.ru materials under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported licence (PDF, English, 3 October 2008)
  • Template on Wikimedia Commons (English and Russian)

• All content of premier.gov.ru (website of Prime Minister of the Russian Federation), Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC-BY 3.0 Unported)
  • Terms

• All content of government.ru (Official Website of the Government of the Russian Federation), Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC-BY 3.0 Unported)

• All content of http://www.bashkortostan.ru (Official information portal of the official authorities of The Republic of Bashkortostan), Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC-BY 3.0 Unported)
  • Letter of authorisation from Administration of President of The Republic of Bashkortostan
  • Template on Wikimedia Commons (English and Russian)

• All content of http://www.volganet.ru (Internet-portal of administration of Volgograd Oblast), Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported)
  • Letter of authorisation from Administration of Volgograd Oblast
  • Template on Wikimedia Commons (English and Russian)

• All content of http://amisharin.ru (official website of Governor of Sverdlovsk Oblast)
  • Terms of use

• State-owned Russian International News Agency "RIA Novosti", 460 historical images from database http://visualrian.ru, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported (CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported)
  • The license specified on the pages of certain images.
  • Information page on Wikimedia Commons
  • Special category on Wikimedia Commons

• Lomonosov Moscow State University, http://convergencelab.ru - Portal of Department of New Media and Communication Theory of Faculty of Journalism, Creative Commons Attribution, version unknown

• Some content of http://www.mgimo.ru - information portal of Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.5)
  • Terms of use

• All content of http://www.hse.ru/en/ - portal of state-owned National Research University Higher School of Economics, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)
  • Terms of use

Serbia, Republic of

• Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Society of Republic of Serbia Affiliate_Reporting/2010#Highlights_of_New_Major_Adopters

Spain

• Style and usage guide of the Government of Catalonia’s social networks under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License.
• Statistical information on the Statistical Institute of Catalonia site is licensed by default under CC BY 3.0 Spain.
• http://www.slideshare.net/justicia/the-use-of-creative-commons-licences-in-the-ministry-of-justice-of-the-government-of-catalonia/
• The Basque government opened a portal called Open Data Euskadi http://opendata.euskadi.net/ that uses CC BY 3.0 Spain.
• The Government of the Balearic Islands website is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike License

Taiwan

• Taiwan Public Television Service Foundation Affiliate_Reporting/2010#Highlights_of_New_Major_Adopters

Thailand

• ? Official website for Prime Minister (government) http://pm.go.th

Ukraine

• Unofficial municila page of Stryi town: http://stryi.com.ua/

United Kingdom

• The Open Government License, used for a large amount of crown copyright data and content, is intended to be interoperable with the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
• National Assembly for Wales use of flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalassemblyforwales/

Venezuela

• The "Canaima project" whichs goals is giving one laptop computer to every pupil in Venezuela (300.000 computers has been distributed so far) is preloaded with educational content (about 400 content) all of it is licensed with CC - SA - NC - 3.0

United States

Federal

• Works by the US federal government are automatically part of the public domain in the US as stipulated by http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#105
• Third-party content (such as the text of speeches by the first lady) on the White House web site are licensed with CC BY 3.0 US by default.
• President-Elect Transition Team, Barack Obama and Joseph Biden. CC BY 3.0 Unported. (Not an official federal government site, but an election team site, hence not required to be public domain.)
• The U.S. Department of Education has made OER an invitational priority in their Ready to Learn (PDF) and Ready to Teach (PDF) grants.
• The U.S. Department of Education has included open educational resources in their Notice of Proposed Priorities for discretionary grant funding. Essentially, if the priorities are adopted, it could mean that grant seekers who include open educational resources as a component of an application for funding from the Department of Education could receive priority.
• The U.S. Department of Labor and Department of Education commit $2 billion to community colleges and career training; CC BY required for grant outputs.
• The U.S. Department of Labor Career Pathways Innovation Fund Grants Program; CC BY required for grant outputs.

State

• New York State Senate, Senate Content, CC-BY-NC-ND with CC+ allowing non-political fundraising use of content.
• State of Virginia, legislation that indicates a preference for state-funded materials to be released with a CC (or equivalent open) license.
• Washington State open policy and requirement of CC BY
• New Hampshire adopts Open Source and Open Data requirements (policy friendly to CC use, but not a specific CC tool adoption)
• OER K-12 bill passed in WA state. The focus of the bill is to help school districts identify existing high-quality, free, openly licensed, common core state standards aligned resources available for local adoption; in addition, any content built with public funds, must be licensed under “an attribution license” (CC BY)

Local government

• RecoverySF, CC BY 3.0 US.

See Intergovernmental Organizations page for information about CC license use by Intergovernmental Organizations such as the World Bank, United Nations, and the Commonwealth of Learning.