iCommons, the international arm of the Creative Commons movement, is raising money to provide scholarships to attendees at this year's iCommons Summit in Dubrovnik, Croatia. The iCommons movement has projects in more than 80 countries, projects that work to convert the license to local language and law, and to promote their use. They've been incredibly successful — for example, the Bulgarian foreign ministry is licensing all its materials under Creative Commons.
Copyright is a global problem — the US has exported its worst laws to countries all over the world. In Russia, they've just agreed to implement the DMCA and then some; they're going to license and police-inspect their CD and DVD presses (so much for freedom of the press, guess Glasnost had to end sometime). The iCommons movement is global in scope — in fact, it's the most widespread, credible and effective global organization working for copyright reform.
The iSummits are incredibly useful to the movement. Last year in Rio, the group adopted two resolutions, one condemning the WIPO Broadcast Treaty (which is now on life-support and is widely expected to kick the bucket), the other condemning the use of DRM for Creative Commons licensed works. These two powerful messages have reverberated all year long, and all around the planet.
But these things are expensive. I'm going to Dubrovnik, and I hope to see many of the activists I met last year. I've just donated $250 to the scholarship fund to make that happen. It's tax-deductible, and it's good value for money: these summits are crucial to the long-term health of free culture around the world.
