A Garden of Artistic Delights
by iCommons, Open Community
In Chinese, the word ‘garden’ is often confused with the word ‘band’. In English, the word ‘band’ has a variety of meanings - we think of a group of instrumentalists who play together to make music, one of the best examples of a creative association; or we think of a ‘band of brothers’, a group of people with a united cause; or maybe even a band used to bind or tie something together.
It is appropriate then, that a collaboration of creative professionals in Taiwan has been formed under the name ‘Creative Commons Garden’ (ccGarden). ccGarden represents the singers, artists, writers, website content providers, film makers, law professors and media professionals of Taiwan who are committed to developing creative works which will be licensed under Creative Commons licenses.
“The environment under current intellectual property rights separates the communication between artist and audiences, artist and artist. The members of ccGarden believe Creative Commons allows a much better environment for them to communicate with other artists and users,” said Kuo-Wei Wu, founder of ccGarden and CEO of the National Information Infrastructure Enterprise Promotion Association (NIIEPA), a non-profit organization in Taiwan focused on developing national information infrastructure.
The first official meeting of ccGarden took place on 22 March and has a membership of 28 people, a number which is growing at a fast pace. Membership includes the band PigHeadSkin (who gave ccGarden its name), sites such as music543.com and yam.com, blogs such as silentagreement.com, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts and organizations such as the Campaign for Media Reform (CMR) and the Taiwan Documentary Development Association.
“I knew many artists who are interested in the concept of Creative Commons. By the end of 2005, several artists came to visit me to discuss the idea. After several meetings, I decided to participate and to organize this community using NIIEPA’s strength in strategy, planning, financial and administration support,” Wu explained.
While ccTaiwan provides information to explain Creative Commons licences, more than 75% of ccGarden consists of creative workers, who are focused on producing content licensed under Creative Commons. The goal of ccGarden, as Wu said, is “to create more works under the concept of Creative Commons: we believe the best way to promote Creative Commons is to create more songs, art, films, novels and content under Creative Commons licenses. So, the more works under Creative Commons license, the more examples there are of choices for creators and users, so as to generate an alternative to the current intellectual property rights in Taiwan.”
ccGarden plans to meet its participants every six weeks to update a list of creative works released under Creative Commons licenses. “With more creative works under Creative Commons, we can communicate with creators and consumers much easier. We believe it is the right way to deliver the concept of Creative Commons,” he said.
The organization also aims to share their work with the rest of the world, by hosting Creative Commons events in Taiwan or by sending representatives to any other Creative Commons event in the world. As Wu said, “Sharing and communication should be the best way to collaborate.”
