Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Creative Commons in China

Older article, still really interesting: Bingchun Meng, Articulating a Chinese Commons: AnExplorative Study of Creative Commons in China, 3 International Journal of Communication 192 (2009):
In general, when CC was introduced to China as a new initiative, it faced an environment where Confucianism still had a significant legacy, and where the authoritarian control of information persisted, and the privatization of creative works was emerging. In these circumstances, a movement that was started in order to combat the overexpansion of copyright changed course. I explain here how it was transformed into a platform for educating Chinese people about the importance of copyright protection. More broadly, CC China has also contributed to the prevalence of proprietary discourse, as well as to discourses on personal rights. This is unfolding at two different levels. Firstly, for individual bloggers who have adopted CC licenses, the CC symbol is primarily a statement of copyright ownership, rather than placing restrictions on such ownership. Secondly, CC licenses help civil society groups and NGOs carve out a communicative space between the state and the market.  

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