"New Online Licensing System Makes it Easier to Republish the Work of Intergovernmental Organizations" is the stirring title of a
media release from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The good news goes like this:
"A new online licensing tool for intergovernmental organizations will make it easier to bring their published material to a wider audience. The unveiling of the Creative Commons 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisation (IGO) License caps a two-year collaboration led by ... WIPO [well done!] with the support of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in collaboration with several other international organisations.
The licenses make it easier for IGOs to widely distribute their studies, reports, data sets and other material online. Once applied, the licenses give the public permission to republish that content, as long as they follow a few simple rules [which is what the public generally do already even when they don't follow any rules, simple or otherwise ...]. Creative Commons licenses are widely used and understood around the world. ...
“Governments and international organizations have to lead by example when it comes to disseminating information in the digital age [isn't coming in 12 years after Creative Commons got started, and long after it has become part of the regular copyright environment, more a case of "following by example"?],” said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría. “The OECD is proud to have played a key role in ensuring that the valuable work being done by the IGOs will reach a larger audience and have more impact.” ...
The Creative Commons IGO license will simplify the procedures for re-publishing by setting a single license requirement for a report or dataset once and for all, which remains valid for whoever re-uses the content.
The group of organizations that contributed to the development of the new licenses consisted of, in addition to WIPO: European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN); European Space Agency (ESA); Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO); Inter-American Development Bank (IDB); International Labour Organization (ILO); Organization of American States (OAS); Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); United Nations (UN); United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); World Bank; World Health Organization (WHO). The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the Nordic Council of Ministers participated as observers to the group [Where are the others? Should they be gently encouraged to do likewise, or named and shamed ...?].
The media release then helpfully lists and links the following Creative Commons IGO options:
Creative Commons licences are now at 4.0, not 3.0. And how do these licences differ from standard CC licenses??
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