Creative Commons gets star power in Hong Kong

Creative Commons is getting hip in Hong Kong: Cantopop starlet and actress Ella Koon has released her photo gallery and desktop/mobile wallpaper under a Creative Commons Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Ella Koon has parked her website at a ".asia" domain. Edmon Chung, DotAsia's CEO, has been encouraging ".asia" clients to use Creative Commons licenses whenever it makes sense to do so. For Ella Koon, it makes a great deal of sense to release photos with "some rights reserved" instead of "all rights reserved" so that her fans can legally share her pictures and create fan art with them, as long as they attribute the original source. Since she has used a non-commercial license, that means for-profit media can't freely use the photos without permission or (if she demands it) payment, just as in the traditional "all rights reserved." But fans are free to use them as they wish, as long as they don't try to sell them and adhere to the "share alike" requirement and share any new works under the same kind of CC license.

Until now, though, Hong Kong users haven't been able to use CC licenses localized under Hong Kong law. On Saturday that will change with the launch of CC Hong Kong. With licenses adapted by Hong Kong IP lawyers to stand up in Hong Kong court, web businesses like the Hong Kong-based blogging portal MySinablog are getting ready to make them available as a publishing option for their users.

If you'd like to learn more about how you can use Creative Commons or just want to know what's been keeping me so busy over the past few months, please join us for our launch ceremony and festival celebration on Saturday at the HKICC Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity, 135 Junction Road, Kowloon.

Or perhaps a stronger incentive might be a chance to meet CC founder Lawrence Lessig and CC's current CEO Joi Ito?  Nutshell schedule:

Main Programme, Inauguration with special guests (2:00 - 3:30pm)

• Professor Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law School, Founder of Creative Commons
• Mr. Joichi Ito, CEO of Creative Commons
• Panel discussion with Pindar Wong (Chairman of CCHK's Preparatory Executive Committee), Charles Mok (Hong Kong Internet Society), and Edmon Chung of DotAsia

Festival activities (noon-2 p.m and 3:30-6pm)

• OpenCourseWare Presentation
• Photographs Exhibit (Hong Kong Flickr Groups)
• Script reading of “An Instant Patriot” - a play by Mrs. Elizabeth Wong
• Live Music ( Snoblind )
• The Making of CC Documentaries ( v-artivist and inmedia)
• Hong Kong Bloggers workshop (Panelists: Jacky See, Poon Wing Hang, Jeff Au Yeung)

Full program with a lot more details can be downloaded here (PDF). Maps, directions, and online registration here.

And that's not all: On Friday from 5-6:30pm come hear Prof. Lessig give a public lecture titled: "Free Culture and Free Society: Can the West Love Both?" Lessig has just come out with a new book, Remix.

Another exciting development: DotAsia has just announced a new partnership with Creative Commons to help promote the use of CC licenses in Asia, and to help facilitate more active collaboration between CC-user communities in different Asian countries. A new website, creativecommons.asia, has just been set up. The plan is for the new CC Asia site to serve as a hub and platform for Asia-wide creative collaboration.

Still not entirely sure what CC is all about? Here's a gorgeous new video, "A shared culture" in which CC's founders and key community members talk about the philosophy behind it:

Comments

[Aurelie]

Congratulations on the release of CC Hong Kong! Best of luck!

Also, I thought about your blog this morning when I read this article in the Washington Post: "Olympic Hangover - the Games are over, but Hu Jia is still in prison." You've probably read it by now, but just in case...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/23/AR2008102302884.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter

[Alexander Wong]

Congratulations!
That's a great news =)!

Anything i can help? Feel free to tell me if i can =)!

Good luck and have a nice day~