IT Law Journal

administrator January 14th, 2008

When I joined the Creative Commons Philippine team, Atty. Jaime N. Soriano, the project lead of Creative Commons Philippines, broached upon the idea of coming up with a Creative Commons (CC) issue for the IT Law Journal in the near future. This is the one, and it is now CC licensed.

For the months prior and subsequent to the iSummit 2007 conference in Croatia, I wrote draft articles tackling the Commons, some entitled as “OpenEd,” “Keeping public domain content public,” “The debate on the meaning of NonCommercial,” among others, in the usual manner papers are traditionally written, i.e. within the parameters of fair use.

An inquiry, as to the distinction between fair use attribution and CC license attribution, was focal in the determination of the current issue’s contents. The question provided a fork, a choice between two approaches: One which would contain articles written in the traditional manner, utilizing fair use, quoting largely CC licensed materials — which would not be different if one would be utilizing “All rights reserved” materials, and which would then conveniently incorporate draft articles already written — or the one which would contain articles that would emphasize the remixing culture that is made possible by alternative licensing. The latter approach was adopted, since it could provide an illustration of results emanating from the mantra “Share, remix and reuse — legally.” On a minor note, since the issue reverted to square one, even the layout, circa 2004, was overhauled.

This issue was timed to be released when the Philippines has already launched its jurisdictional licenses. The Philippine jurisdictional licenses were soft launched during the 5th Birthday Party of Creative Commons (15 December 2007). The public launch was scheduled 14 January 2008. Perhaps, you are receiving this issue because you are currently participating in said event. Considering, however, if such is not the case, we hope that we have the opportunity to meet in a Philippine Commons-organized event, else in an event organized by any institution which supports the commons.

–Michael Vernon Guerrero

• ITLJ 4-1
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