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Creative Commoners

Copyright Creative Commoners—Creative Commons Attribution Licensed

By Kenji Hall

Creative Commoners

The Creative Commons was never meant to be just another online license. That was clear from the moment it was conceived by law professor and political activist Lawrence Lessig. Now 47 and a professor at Stanford University's law school, Lessig felt that copyright laws were too restrictive for the Internet era and led an unsuccessful legal challenge to the 20-year extensions granted copyright holders in the U.S. As the case made its way to the Supreme Court, he worked with philanthropists, lawyers and Net-savvy entrepreneurs to create a set of more flexible Creative Commons licenses, which became available in 2001.

Today the group estimates some 140 million works sport the Creative Commons' symbol (two cc's enclosed in a circle), which can be used for books, films, videos, music, Web sites, blogs, and photos. In 2005, the Creative Commons held its first conference at Harvard, and every summer it has brought together artists, scientists, media executives, lawyers, and technophiles for a strategic group-think.

Although Lessig is the group's visionary, he is no longer its leader. In April he handed over the day-to-day operations to Japanese Net entrepreneur Joichi Ito, to focus on his latest project: fighting corruption. Both Lessig and Ito were at this year's Creative Commons conference, held in early August in Sapporo, northern Japan . Here's a look at some of the attendees.