Philippine Commons

• 13 January 2008
  • Thorne, Michelle. “Philippine Launch Celebration: a vibrant member of the global commons”
  • Thorne, Michelle. “Philippine Launch Celebration: a vibrant member of the global commons”
• 14 January 2008
  • Linksvayer, Mike. “Participatory Media Lab launch with ccMixter analysis”
• 15 January 2008
  • Vollmer, Timothy. “Manybooks.net Supports Multi-format Texts for Multi-venue Reading”
  • Park, Jane. “2008 Science Video Collection and Remix Challenge”
  • Laroia, Asheesh. “liblicense 0.5: first stable version of C library supporting CC metadata”
  • Linksvayer, Mike. “CC0 beta/discussion draft launch”
• 16 January 2008
  • Rojer, Rebecca. “The Future of Ideas is now CC Licensed”
  • Vollmer, Timothy. “Videos Posted from MIT OCW Landmark Event”
• 18 January 2008
  • Parkins, Cameron. “Recut, Reframe, Recycle”
• 20 January 2008
  • Vollmer, Timothy. “Doctorow Completes Reading of Sterling’s “The Hacker Crackdown””
• 21 January 2008
  • Parkins, Cameron. “Tone Releases Small Arm of Sea”
• 22 January 2008
  • Thorne, Michelle. “Public Broadcasters Opt for CC”
• 23 January 2008
  • Bissell, Ahrash. “Teachers, Students, Web Gurus, and Foundations Launch Campaign to Transform Education, Call for Free, Adaptable Learning Materials Online”
  • Bissell, Ahrash. “Make Textbooks Affordable campaign launched”
  • Vollmer, Timothy. “SPARC Announces SPARKY Winners”
• 24 January 2008
  • Thorne, Michelle. “ACIA: Asia Commoners meet in Taipei”
• 25 January 2008
  • Parkins, Cameron. “24/7: A DIY Video Summit”
  • Linksvayer, Mike. “Ford encourages fans with CC BY photos”
• 26 January 2008
  • Linksvayer, Mike. “Wikimedia Commons Pictures of the Year”
  • Linksvayer, Mike. “I wouldn’t steal <video>”
• 28 January 2008
  • Parkins, Cameron. “Ground Report Launches News Widget”
  • Parkins, Cameron. “Featured Commoner: James Patrick Kelly”
  • Vollmer, Timothy. “Open Educational Resources Aid Florida Reading Teachers”

From the Cape Town Open Education Declaration website:

The Cape Town Open Education Declaration arises from a small but lively meeting convened in Cape Town in September 2007. The aim of this meeting was to accelerate efforts to promote open resources, technology and teaching practices in education.

Convened by the Open Society Institute and the Shuttleworth Foundation, the meeting gathered participants with many points of view from many nations. This group discussed ways to broaden and deepen their open education efforts by working together.

The first concrete outcome of this meeting is the Cape Town Open Education Declaration. It is at once a statement of principle, a statement of strategy and a statement of commitment. It meant to spark dialogue, to inspire action and to help the open education movement grow.

Open education is a living idea. As the movement grows, this idea will continue to evolve. There will be other visions initiatives and declarations beyond Cape Town. This is exactly the point. The Cape Town signatories have committed to developing further strategies, especially around open technology and teaching practices.

The Declaration has already been signed by hundreds of learners, educators, trainers, authors, schools, colleges, universities, publishers, unions, professional societies, policymakers, governments, foundations and other kindred open education initiatives around the world. We encourage you to join us.

Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Maria Elisa Sempio Diy is attending ACIA (Asia and Commons in the Information Age) conference. She is set to perform in the ACIA Concert (”CC Asia Mega Mix!”) at Riverside Cafe, Taipei, Taiwan on the evening of the 19th. She is releasing two of her compositions under Creative Commons Philippine licenses (”I choose you” and “Isama mo ako”).

About Lisa Diy. RTC Judge Sempio Diy (or Lisa Diy as she is known in the Philippine music industry) is a lyricist and composer. She has written and composed at least twenty popular and best-selling songs for top Filipino singers/artists like Jaya, Lani Misalucha, Regine Velasques, Sharon Cuneta, Roselle Nava, Agot Isidro, Melissa Gibbs, Pops Fernandez, Gabby Eigenmann, Zsa Zsa Padilla, and Dennis Trillo. One of her songs, “To Reach You” achieved a Platinum Award in the Philippine recording industry. She has been designated as CC-PH’s resident artist on music.

Incidentally, Atty. Jaime Soriano and Atty. Michael Vernon Guerrero are in Taiwan, also to participate in the ACIA . They are scheduled to talk about Legal Commons on the 20th, Sunday, during the session on “Case Studies and project showcases,” chaired by Catharina Maracke, Director of Creative Commons International.

Image: (c) 2008. Berne Guerrero. CC BY 3.0 Philippines

Bayanihan Books has signified their intent to be one of the active proponents towards Open Content.

Interestingly, Greg Moreno of Bayanihan Books wrote the article, “How to solve our textbook problems and give every Filipino a better education”, a concern shared by the CC-PH deputy project lead in “An opportunity arising from the new Philippine DepEd policy on public school textbooks”. These articles were written independently, and the two authors were only introduced to each other, over email, by Jun Asis of the Philippine e-Learning Society and MagandangBalita.com, a week before the CC-PH license launching.

Bayanihan Books is a project that aims to solve the textbooks problems in public education using community-based collaboration and a copyright license that promotes sharing and reuse (i.e. Creative Commons) of educational content. Its goals are to (1) Produce textbook materials for every subject in every grade level and make it available on the Internet; and (2) Convince the government to adopt these materials, and print and distribute them to public schools. Currently, Bayanihan Books have the initial text for two books. It has the outline for all subjects but it still needs authors to lead the writing. The links to these books are available at its website, www.BayanihanBooks.org.

Necessarily thus, Bayanihan Books aims to write textbooks in the open where contents are made available on the Internet from initial outline to final manuscript. This would allow every teacher, parent, student, professional, DepEd official, virtually anyone, to review the textbooks even before they get published. It aims to release the textbooks under a license that would permit everyone to use and publish the textbooks without paying royalty to anyone. Thus, saving the government of content development costs and allowing more publishers to fulfill the demands of public (and even private) schools. [ Read more ]

The launch of Creative Commons Philippine jurisdictional licenses have been amply covered by Philippine media.

Interviews with Atty. Soriano by GMA-7 and RPN-9 were aired. Articles on broadsheets, such as in the Manila Bulletin (page E3) and the Daily Mirror (page A3), both 17 January 2008 issues, were published. The Manila Bulletin article was written by Mindy of WikiPilipinas.org.

Atty. Soriano is scheduled for an interview, on Creative Commons, in another TV network after he returns to Manila after the ACIA conference.

The Creative Commons Philippine jurisdictional licenses and the Philippine Commons have been successfully launched on Monday, 14 January 2008.

The series of talks, entitled “Strides towards Philippine Commons,” were warmly received by the participants, with ample inquiries thrown the way of the speakers. Prof. Engels Antonio,¹ of Bluepoint Institute of Higher Technology Foundation, ² provided the talk on “Linux and FOSS,” distinguishing the models of proprietary software, free software, and open source software, and emphasizing the community that develops in this kind of initiative. Prof. Leandre Andres S. Dacanay,³ President of the Philippine e-Learning Society,⁴ provided the talk on “Teaching and Learning through e-Learning.” He provided the full details in pursuing e-Learning systems, and the challenges and the solutions in meeting those challenges. Atty. Michael Vernon M. Guerrero, deputy project lead of Creative Commons Philippines, provided a small orientation on the thrust of the “Philippine Commons” and emphasized the need for collaboration among stakeholders, and persuading the participants to take the opportunity to develop the network of those, initially, who are present to grace the event. Participants were from various sectors. Besides the organizations represented by the speakers, representatives from the International Rice Research Institute, the Asian Institute of Management, the National Book Development Board of the Department of Education, Filipiniana.net / Wikipilipinas.org, Bayanihan Books, the Foundation for Media Alternatives, legal practitioners, and law students, among others, were present.

The launch proper was conducted in the Review Hall of the Arellano University School of Law. The Arellano Law Singers opened the launch with rendition of the invocation and the National Anthem. Atty. Erik Lazo provided the opening remarks. Three videos explaining the origin and the rationale of Creative Commons were presented. Atty. Guerrero explained the rationale for the porting process. Atty. Jaime Soriano, Atty. Gabriel dela Pena of the Arellano Law Foundation, and Dr. Florentino Cayco III of the Arellano University system proceeded with the launching of the CC-PH licenses and CC-PH related projects. The Arellano Law Singers sang two of the songs (”Lawyers’ Oath” and “Bill of Rights”) they have released under the CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 Philippine licenses. Subsequently, Atty. de la Pena explained the role of the Arellano Law Foundation and the law school in Creative Commons. Dr. Cayco expressed the continuing support of the Arellano community in the endeavors of CC Philippines. Atty. Soriano closed, explaining further the Creative Commons’ mission and recognizing those who have attended the ceremony.

Seven bands performed during the CC Concert. Almost all the rock music pieces performed that night were originals of the bands, emphasizing the capacity of the Philippine youth to generate their own creative musical content. Eugene Marfil, of New Born Audio and a member of the popular Philippine band “True Faith” also sang two of his original works. The affair ended at 10:30 in the evening.

Photos and videos to follow.

1. Engels started playing with Linux® in 1991 and obtained his Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) and Red Hat Certified Examiner (RHCX) certifications in 2002. He is in charge of Total Linux®, Linux Kernel Internals®, Perl & Python Programming, and Extreme PHP curriculum and instruction development of Bluepoint Foundation since 1999. Engels is also a Fedora Ambassador and an OpenVZ developer. [↩]
2. Bluepoint is a non-profit Open Source education and development center. It is the first organization in the Philippines that focuses on Linux and Open Source training [↩]
3. Andre finished his undergraduate degree from the University of Santo Tomas in Education, major in Computer Technology, and now pursuing his masteral studies on educational management. Currently, he is the Internal Project Manager of the Educational Technology Center, eLearning Access Program, also from the University of Santo Tomas.

   Serving as President of the Philippine eLearning Society (PeLS), he has been a participant in a number of international eLearning trainings. From the California Virtual Campus, USA, APEC eLearning Training by the Institute of APEC Collaborative Education in Pusan National University in Busan, Korea and eLearning Development and Implementation (eLDI), this time with the Global Campus 21 InWent-Germany.

   He was the conference chair of the recently concluded 6th National eLearning Conference with the theme “Learning About Technology, eLearning with technology for the Academe and Industry” last October 2007. His interests include educational technology, e-Learning and project management. [↩]

4. The Philippine eLearning Society (PeLS) was founded on July 30, 2003 in Manila with the objective of promoting substantive content, appropriate pedagogy, and appropriate use of technology for eLearning, guided by ongoing research activities. PeLS serves as a venue for: Promoting research on the effective use of eLearning, sharing of eLearning experiences, developing standards of excellence, promoting interoperability of eLearning systems, encouraging collaboration in the development of substantive content, cooperating with international eLearning groups, and promoting public awareness and appreciation of the nature and uses of eLearning. [↩]

San Francisco, CA, USA and Pasay City, Metro Manila, Philippines — January 14, 2008

Following the unveiling of the Philippine localized Creative Commons licenses in December, citizens of the archipelago will gather today in Manila to celebrate in full the public launch of its completed licenses and the country’s strides towards fostering the global commons movement.

Attorney Jaime N. Soriano, Creative Commons Philippines Project Lead and Executive Director of the e-Law Center, announces that the launch activities are scheduled to take place on January 14, 2008 from 1:00pm to 9:00pm at the Arellano University School of Law.

The event will consist of three parts: 1) an orientation to projects by stakeholders in the Philippine Commons, with the aim of developing a local collaboration promoting alternative licensing, free and open source software, open education, and free culture; 2) the public presentation of the CC Philippine Licensing Suite Version 3.0, which has been available online since its soft launch December 15, 2007; and 3) the CC Philippines Concert featuring more than six local rock bands.

Atty. Soriano and Atty. Michael Vernon M. Guerrero, Deputy Project Lead of CC Philippines, are both pleased to also announce the public launching of the Philippine Commons website, available at www.philippinecommons.org, and the adaption of a CC license to the LawPhil Project, the most popular and comprehensive website on Philippine law and jurisprudence.

The localized CC licenses will also be applied to the Arellano Law and Policy Review; the law school’s IT Law Journal, whose first quarter issue features all articles devoted to Creative Commons; and the original works of the Arellano Law Singers. These materials will be presented and shared at ACIA: International Workshop on Asia and Commons in the Information Age, held on January 19-20 in Taipei, Taiwan.

About Arellano University School of Law

The law school Arellano University School of Law, a non-stock non-profit institution, is named after the First Chief Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court, Cayetano S. Arellano, and established in 1938. Today it boasts more than six decades of providing quality legal education. The foremost objective of the school is to create global lawyers: practitioners who are deeply educated in the law, practice-ready, and devoted to service not only in the local but also the international community. Arellano Law prides itself for being one of the most populous law schools in the Philippines with faculty members who have distinguished themselves in law practice, the judiciary, government service, and the academe. The law school furthermore is one of the few schools in the Philippines that produces the most number of lawyers in the annual bar examinations administered by the Supreme Court.

For more information, please visit http://www.arellanolaw.edu/.

About the e-Law Center at Arellano University School of Law

The e-Law Center was founded in November 2002 under the auspices of the Arellano University School of Law, following the launching of the school’s LAWPHiL Project, which is considered one of the most popular on-line and electronic databases of Philippine law and jurisprudence that is accessible for free to the general public. The Center is pursuing projects in research, publication, policy initiatives and advocacy, capability building, academic support, and linkages in the field of information and communication technology as it affects the Philippine legal system.

About Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a not-for-profit organization, founded in 2001, that promotes the creative re-use of intellectual and artistic works, whether owned or in the public domain. Through its free copyright licenses, Creative Commons offers authors, artists, scientists, and educators the choice of a flexible range of protections and freedoms that build upon the “all rights reserved” concept of traditional copyright to enable a voluntary “some rights reserved” approach. Creative Commons was built with and is sustained by the generous support of organizations including the Center for the Public Domain, the Omidyar Network, The Rockefeller Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, as well as members of the public.

For more information about Creative Commons, visit http://creativecommons.org.

Contact
Dr. Catharina Maracke
Director
Creative Commons International, Creative Commons
catharina@creativecommons.org

Press Kit
http://creativecommons.org/presskit
http://creativecommons.org/international/ph/

Image: “Remix.” © 2008. Berne Guerrero. Some Rights Reserved. Except when otherwise noted , this work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Philippines. This was built upon the works of [1] Beth Kanter (cambodia4kidsorg). “What A Second Grader Knows About Creative Commons.” CC BY 2.0 Generic. http://www.flickr.com/photos/cambodia4kidsorg/2042494952/; [2] Peter Shanks (BotheredByBees). “CC swag XI”. CC BY 2.0 Generic. http://www.flickr.com/photos/botheredbybees/2101568605; [3] Emil Alviola. “scratch-this”. CC BY 2.0 Generic. http://www.flickr.com/photos/21328364@N06/2070594652/, and [4] Creative Commons “About” text. CC BY 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/about/

• 4 January 2008
  • Parkins, Cameron. “Political Novel “Republic” Released Under CC License”
  • Reeder, Melissa. “Thank You!”
• 7 January 2008
  • Linksvayer, Mike. “Video intro to RDFa”
  • Linksvayer, Mike. ” New Year Resolution: Free(v.) stuff”
  • Parkins, Cameron. “Creative Commons Cinema 2.0″
  • Parkins, Cameron. “RightsAgent and CC+”
  • Reeder, Melissa. “2007 CC Swag Photo Contest Winners”
  • Linksvayer, Mike. “More CC Cinema 2.0″
• 8 January 2008
  • Vollmer, Timothy. “LiveContent Available Through On-Disk.com”
• 9 January 2008
  • Vollmer, Timothy. “New York Times Continues Polling Place Photo Project”
• 10 January 2008
  • Vollmer, Timothy. “Linux Format Interviews Red Hat’s Jack Aboutboul”

Confirmed early afternoon talks, dubbed “Strides towards the Philippine Commons”, on 14 January 2008, are:

• 1300-1400: “Linux and Free and Open Source Software.” Prof. Engels Antonio, Bluepoint Institute of Higher Technology Foundation.
• 1400-1500: “Learning and Teaching through eLearning.” Prof. Andre Dacanay, Philippine e-Learning Society (PELS)
• 1500-1530: “Collaborating Commoners: Towards a Philippine Commons” Atty. Michael Vernon Guerrero. Deputy Project Lead, Creative Commons Philippines.

Venue: MMS Rooms 3-4, 2/F, Mariano Magsalin Sr. Hall, Arellano University School of Law

If you are interested to attend, email guerrero AT mydestiny DOT net, or provide a comment below.

• 24 December 2007
  • Linksvayer, Mike. “ACIA poster contest, case study project, and registration now open”
• 25 December 2007
  • Linksvayer, Mike. “An Introduction to the Semantic Web … for noobs”
• 26 December 2007
  • Vollmer, Timothy. “Duke Scholarly Communications Weekly Copyright Widget”
• 27 December 2007
  • Thorne, Michelle. “COMMUNIA Workshop: Technology and the Public Domain”
• 28 December 2007
  • Vollmer, Timothy. “SCRIPT-ed Journal Licenses Content with CC”
• 29 December 2007
  • Linksvayer, Mike. “Making open standards as open as possible”
• 1 January 2008
  • Linksvayer, Mike. “Happy Public Domain Day!”
• 2 January 2008
  • Steuer, Eric. “Creative Commons Announces Pledges Made to Fulfill “5×5″ Funding Challenge”
• 3 January 2008
  • Maracke, Catharina. “CC Hong Kong begins public discussion”