I. Early Steps

The introduction and use of the Creative Commons licenses (the unported CC licenses) in China Mainland began in 2003.  

In January of that year, CNBlog.org started promoting Creative Commons to Chinese bloggers. In August, JI Yanjiang, another early user-promoter of CC and founder of a Chinese open scientific literature depository (qiji.cn), learned of Creative Commons from the Public Library of Science (”PloS”). He then adopted the unported CC license for the contents on qiji.cn website and rendered a Chinese version of the Common Deed of the CC license on that website 

In November of the same year, Isaac Mao, co-founder of CNBlog, and a team of volunteers associated with CNBlog, launched the Creative Commons China project in cooperation with International Commons (iCommons). During that period, serving in the capacity of Project Lead, Mr. Mao and his team created a Chinese draft of the version 1.0 CC License, and the term “Creative Commons” was translated into Chinese language as “创作共用”(Chuangzuo Gongyong), which means “shared use of creative works”. Meanwhile, the unported CC licenses (English version) were used by a number of bloggers who had known about these licenses early on. 

II. Creative Commons China Mainland and the China Mainland version of the CC licenses

In the spring of 2004, under the supervision of Ms. Diane Cabell, founder of the Clinical Program in Cyberlaw at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, and Corporate Counsel of Creative Commons, the updated CC licenses (v2.0) were translated into Chinese by two students of Harvard Law School, ZHANG Jinfei and BU Yuanshi who adjusted the content and terminology of the Chinese text to conform it to the relevant laws in China. Professor WANG Chunyan, Visiting Scholar of Harvard Law School and Associate Professor of Renmin University of China Law School, provided consultation to the Berkman team on the Chinese version of the CC licenses.  

In September 2004, as requested by International Commons (iCommons - now known as Creative Commons International (CCi)), Professor WANG Chunyan attended the first MIT and CORE OpenCourseWare International Conference in Shanghai where she made a presentation on the Chinese Copyright System and Creative Commons licensing.

In January 2005, the Executive Director of Creative Commons International (CCi), Ms. Christiane Henckel von Donnersmarck, appointed Professor WANG Chunyan to be the new Project Lead for Creative Commons China. With the appointment of WANG, Renmin University of China Law School signed a Memorandum of Understanding with CCi and became an official affiliate institution of Creative Commons in China Mainland. Considering the fact that CC is a jurisdiction based community, rather than a nation based one, the name of the official local project was formally changed from Creative Commons China to Creative Commons China Mainland. CC China Mainland was now responsible for translating and porting the CC licenses, and also promoting the ported licenses in China Mainland.

In April of 2005, based on the Chinese draft of the version 2.0 CC licenses completed by ZHANG Jinfei and BU Yuanshi at Harvard, the Project Lead initiated the porting process of the version 2.0 CC license. Project assistants ZHENG Yi and XIN Xingzhi (stephen) had made significant contributions to this porting process. CHEN Jie and CAO Jing, graduate students of Renmin University of China Law School, also provided assistance.  

From December 2005 through February 2006, a draft version of the CC Licenses was made available online for public discussion. On the Creative Commons China Mainland forum on Google, the online CC community shared their valuable opinions on issues such as license titles, the application of non-commercial terms, and the translation of terms such as “URL” for the Chinese language draft. Meanwhile, an expert workshop was held at the Law School of Renmin University of China where judges with experience in intellectual property cases in Beijing, lawyers, scholars and students of intellectual property all gathered together and discussed the draft. Experts, such as CHEN Jinchuan, LIU Yong, ZHANG Jin, GAO Si, ZHAO Xiaoli, LI Xu, JIN Yongjun, ZHANG Yongfan and LIU Xiaochun, provided valuable comments and suggestions about relevant rules and terms regarding such concepts as “fair use”. The final version of the Creative Commons license (v2.5)  incorporated most of the suggestions received from the online public and expert panel discussions. 

In order to articulate the CC ideal of open access and enhance the accessibility of the term “creative commons” to the general public, and to better facilitate the promotion of Creative Commons in diverse constituencies of China Mainland, our team culled opinions from experts and potential users both at home and abroad on the proper way of translating the English term into Chinese. As a result of those discussions that included helpful feedback from Professor Jing WANG of MIT, the term “知识共享(Zhishi Gongxiang)” was chosen, meaning “Knowledge Sharing”. This then became the official Chinese term for “Creative Commons”. 

III. Official launch of the China Mainland Version of the Creative Commons licenses

On March 29, 2006, the China Mainland version of the CC licenses, which had been approved by CCi, was officially launched in Beijing.

Sponsored by Li Ning Co., Ltd, CC China Mainland organized an official launch event under the auspices of Remin University of China Law School. Creators and CC users, together with participants from the Supreme Court, the National Copyright Administration, the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Information Industry of China P. R., China Open Resources for Education, and various universities, law firms, and academic institutions came together to celebrate the launch event. The event was also attended by dignitaries from CC headquarters, CCi, Harvard University, MIT, and the Internet Archive. Stanford Professor Lawrence Lessig, founder of Creative Commons, delivered a keynote speech entitled “The Role of Creative Commons in an Information Economy”. Ms. Christiane Henckel von Donnersmarck, the Executive Director of CCi, also introduced CCi and the development of its international projects in various jurisdictions. The launch event was widely publicized in the Xinhua News Agency, China Daily, People’s Court Daily, and many other media outlets.

Following the official launch, the China Mainland version of CC Licenses was released to the public for free use. At the same time, the official website of Creative Commons China Mainland was launched.

IV. Establishment of the International Advisory Board and the Team Development 

Since the China Mainland version of the CC licenses was officially released, CC China Mainland has been making great progress in building a support infrastructure for the local project.

In May 2006, an International Advisory Board for Creative Commons China Mainland was established. Professor Jing WANG of MIT chairs the Board. Members of the Board include representatives from various fields both in China Mainland and from abroad. The Board members provide advice about the development strategies of the project and fundraising possibilities to sustain it. And the Chair of the Board, Professor Jing WANG, in particular, has been offering strong support and invaluable guidance to the team on those critical matters.

The CC China Mainland has also grown from three members including the Project Lead and two project assistants - ZHENG Yi and XIN Xingzhi - in April 2006 to a size of ten people at the beginning of 2008.  

VI. Development of Creative Commons China Mainland

Since the China Mainland version of the CC licenses was officially released, CC China Mainland has been making great progress in populating the usage and strengthening the public’s awareness of the local version of the CC licenses in China Mainland.

In order to promote the China mainland version of the CC licenses to various creative communities, the project team has been organizing a series of promotional events including CC Salons, the CC Birthday Parties, CC Seminars, and annual CC Photograph Contests, etc. (For details, please visit our official website (http://cn.creativecommons.org/en/) 

We have also been building close collaborations with various partners such as Sohu.com, Mozilla Online, CORE, Nphoto.net, and the Migrant Youth Performing Art and Performance Troupe. Volunteers have joined us from various domains of knowledge, especially from the Law School and Xu Beihong School of Arts of Renmin University of China. They have been actively involved in all the promotional activities.  

In addition to the promotional events, outreach efforts have also been made through conference presentations. The project lead of CC China Mainland has been speaking on the topic of Copyright and CC at various conferences and workshops throughout China and around the world, addressing the areas of education, science, culture, and the arts.

Since the summer of 2007, Creative Commons China Mainland has received the generous support of the Ford Foundation. CC China Mainland is being well maintained and various CC related events are being organized thanks to the Grant from the Ford Foundation. 

All these promotional efforts have resulted in a very positive outcome. Awareness of CC and the amount of CC usage has dramatically increased in the past two years.