Licenses for the global public good

CC licenses are a global digital public good and part of the essential infrastructure that makes sharing online possible. Today, there are tens of billions of CC-licensed works across the internet, spanning education, science, culture, and art, and more.

CC licenses do more than function legally—they express values. The CC icons, now recognized around the world, represent openness, collaboration, and participation. For example, the CC logo is so ubiquitous it is part of the permanent design collection at The Museum of Modern Art in New York!

Like the public infrastructure we rely on every day – such as roads and public schools – the legal and technical infrastructure behind CC licenses requires ongoing maintenance, updates, and support. Unlike most public infrastructure, however, CC licenses are not funded by taxes or user fees. As a public good, they depend on the support of the community that relies on them.

In the age of AI and mass scraping of openly licensed content, we haven’t seen the kind of reciprocity that’s necessary to sustain the infrastructure of the commons beyond our licenses. We’re currently exploring frameworks to provide licensors with more granular control over machine usage of data.