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Global Call to Action: Open Heritage Statement Now Open for Signature

Open Culture, Open Heritage
Impressionist painting of rooftops and a blue sky dotted with clouds with a white hot air balloon in the sky.
"Watering Place at Marley" by Alfred Sisley, 1875, CC0, Art Institute of Chicago, remixed with "TAROCH balloon" by Creative Commons/Dee Harris, 2025, CC0.

Creative Commons and the TAROCH Coalition (Towards a Recommendation on Open Cultural Heritage) announce the launch of the Open Heritage Statement, now open for signature by governments, organizations, and institutions worldwide. Developed by more than 60 organizations across 25 countries within the Coalition, the Statement defines shared values, highlights key challenges, and sets action-oriented priorities for closing the global gap in equitable access to heritage in the public domain.

From Shared Vision to Global Action: Paving the Road to the Open Heritage Statement

Open Culture
Impressionist painting of a country road with people and a carriage, with a white hot air balloon in the sky.
"A Turn in the Road" by Alfred Sisley (1873), CC0, Art Institute of Chicago, remixed with "TAROCH balloon" by Creative Commons/Dee Harris, 2025, CC0.

“A Turn in the Road” by Alfred Sisley (1873), CC0, Art Institute of Chicago, remixed with “TAROCH balloon” by Creative Commons/Dee Harris, 2025, CC0. The (Under-Realized) Potential of Open Heritage To understand our present, we need to know our past: our memories, our history, our heritage. Over the last two decades, pioneers of open heritage…

New Community Chat Platform: Moving from Slack to Zulip

Community
Pink Tulips in the foreground in clear focus, with a dark blue mountain out of focus behind.
"2012 Tulip Festival @ Agassiz, BC, Canada" by GoToVan is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Creative Commons is making an important change: we are transitioning our community chat from Slack to Zulip. After considering three platforms—Matrix, Discourse, and Zulip—and gathering input from the community, Zulip came out as the clear favorite. We’d like to warmly invite everyone who sees themselves as part of the CC global community to join us on Zulip.

The Benefits of Open Heritage in the Digital Environment

Open Culture
Landscape from 1875 or people walking next to a river.
"Watering Place at Marley" by Alfred Sisley, 1875, CC0, Art Institute of Chicago, remixed with "TAROCH balloon" by Creative Commons/Dee Harris, 2025, CC0.

“Watering Place at Marley” by Alfred Sisley, 1875, CC0, Art Institute of Chicago, remixed with “TAROCH balloon” by Creative Commons/Dee Harris, 2025, CC0. Open Heritage and Contemporary Creativity Apollo or Venus in your living room? This is the proposition made by Denmark’s Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK) upon openly sharing its vast collection of 3D…

Understanding Barriers to Accessing Heritage

Open Culture
Landscape along the Seine with the Institut de France and the Pont des Arts
"Landscape along the Seine with the Institut de France and the Pont des Arts" by Alfred Sisley, 1875, CC0, Art Institute of Chicago, remixed with "TAROCH balloon" by Creative Commons/Dee Harris, 2025, CC0.

“Landscape along the Seine with the Institut de France and the Pont des Arts” by Alfred Sisley, 1875, CC0, Art Institute of Chicago, remixed with “TAROCH balloon” by Creative Commons/Dee Harris, 2025, CC0. We’re kicking off a three-part series leading up to the launch of the Open Heritage Statement in October. The Statement, developed by…

AI and the Commons: A Reading List

Licenses & Tools
Bird's eye view photo of a small hut and a concrete path through a lush green forest. However, the image is slightly distorted by digital artefacts.
Distorted Forest Path © 1999 by Lone Thomasky & Bits&Bäume is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Distorted Forest Path © by Lone Thomasky & Bits&Bäume is licensed under CC BY 4.0 Here at CC, we have the goal of defending and sustaining the digital commons in the face of developments in artificial intelligence. We’ve recently introduced a new framework, CC signals, to offer a new way for stewards of large collections…

We Asked, You Answered: How Your Feedback Shapes CC Signals

Licenses & Tools, Policy
Signals © 2021 by Hugo Parasol is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Signals © 2021 by Hugo Parasol is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Signals © 2021 by Hugo Parasol is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 In June we kicked off a public feedback period on our proposal for CC signals. CC signals is a preference signals framework designed to sustain the commons and ensure the continued sharing of knowledge in the age of AI.  The goal is to…

Creative Commons Becomes an Official UNESCO NGO Partner

Community, Open Culture, Open Science, Press
UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France
UNESCO © 2023 by Brigitte Vézina is licensed under CC BY 4.0

UNESCO © 2023 by Brigitte Vézina is licensed under CC BY 4.0 We are proud to announce that we are now established as an official NGO partner to UNESCO (consultative status). UNESCO stands for “United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization” and is the UN’s specialized agency that aims to foster international cooperation in the…

Recommended Licenses and Tools for Cultural Heritage Content

Open Culture
Painting showing a coastal landscape.
Havsstrand by Maurice Denis. Public Domain. Swedish National Museum

Havsstrand by Maurice Denis. Public Domain. Swedish National Museum Many people can benefit from open access to cultural heritage in a variety of ways and for a variety of purposes — from creators seeking inspiration to researchers discovering new interpretations, all the way to cultural heritage institutions (CHIs) connecting with more audiences, and the general…