Singapore

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Singapore is a very young jurisdiction in its usage of Creative Commons Licenses. The Singapore licenses were officially made available in November 2008. The Singaporean site on Creative Commons is currently a Wordpress blog that is frequently updated with profiles of various adopters of CC in Singapore and related news.

Contents 1 Team 2 Initiatives and events 3 Analysis and commentary 4 Future outlook 5 Key adopters and supporters

[edit] Team

The main objective of the CC SG team is to promote the culture of sharing and ultimately help the creative movement in Singapore. Improving CC awareness and educating potential users as well as institutional partners on the correct use of CC licenses have been identified as the key priorities for the team.

• Legal Project Lead: Lam Chung Nian
• Public Project Lead: Giorgos Cheliotis
• Community Manager: Ivan Chew
• Members and affiliates: Harish Pillay, Warren Chik, Sofia Morales, Elizabeth Cardoza, Ankit Guglani, Clint Gono
• Former Legal Project Lead: Anil Samtani

[edit] Initiatives and events

Presentation at HIP Parent Seminar by Giorgos Cheliotis (April 2009)

Giorgos Cheliotis presented on the opportunities and dangers of UGC, in an effort to educate parents on the associated risks (which extend well beyond copyright), but also to suggest that they should encourage their children to post/remix content and through that improve their media literacy skills. The presentation was part of a seminar intended to raise parents’ awareness their children’s activities online, of which a large part is user generated content. More information of the event can be found here.

Launch of ported CC-SG licences (November 2008)

The CC-SG license were finalized and launched with the help of Anil Samtani of NTU, Warren Chik and Ankit Guglani of SMU, and Creative Commons teams in San Francisco and Berlin. The blogpost documenting this can be found here.

Panel Discussion at ISEA 2008 (July 2008)

The panel is an introduction to the key copyright issues that arise as a consequence of new technologies in interactive and digital media. The panel highlighted steps that can be taken by creators and users of copyrighted works to avoid some of the copyright landmines that exist. The panel also explained the aims and philosophy of the Creative Commons initiative and the specific nature and uses of the Creative Commons licensing suite. It was organized by the Centre for Asia Pacific Technology Law & Policy (CAPTEL) and Creative Commons Singapore.

[edit] Analysis and commentary

Compared to the rest of Asia, Singapore has a higher freedom score. With 31.5% of Singaporeans choosing the most liberal BY license, compared to Asia with 7.1%. BY-NC-ND was also a popular choice with almost 24%. However, compared to 43.7% of Asia choosing the same license, Singaporeans still choose less restrictive licenses as a whole. According to Ivan Chew, the community manager of Creative Commons Singapore, adoption of CC in Singapore is relatively low, and awareness is not high either. When asked about the types of people who adopt Creative Commons licenses for their work, he said, “From the few CC Adopters whom I know in person, I'd say they do it because they personally believe that there's more to benefit by sharing it under CC than any potential losses or infringement of their copyright. So it's more of an intrinsic motivation.”

CC License Adoption - Search Results

License	by	by-sa	by-nd	by-nc	by-nc-sa	by-nc-nd	Total
Count	15,116	2,692	4,521	537	6,811	16,341	46,018
Percent	32.85	5.85	9.82	1.17	14.8	35.51	100

Freedom score 3.3

Ranking Volume Freedom Rank 45 out of 52 14 out of 52

See also Jurisdiction Comparison

Source: Yahoo!   Date: 2009-11-19   Help

Giorgos Cheliotis, the Public Project Lead for CC SG thinks that imitation might be part of the reason why people adopt. When their friends, put it onto their blogs, they might think that it is “cool” and therefore adopt it on their own blogs.

Challenges

In the interview, Chew listed four challenges that he thinks are the most salient in promoting CC in Singapore.

1. People are entrenched in the typical copyright model, which requires the user to seek permission first. Otherwise they presume they understand copyright and that there is only one way to license content.
2. Even if people are made aware of CC and they see relevance for what they do, they may hesitate because they don't see CC as supported by the law. Copyright is perceived to be more legitimate because Singaporeans can find the Copyright Act in the Government Statutes online. CC, on the other hand, isn't associated with the Singaporean government, which gives it less legitimacy. (Update: CC is building a relationship with the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore, IPOS, who have taken a very positive stance on CC and wish to educate Singapore-based authors and users on the use and meaning of CC licenses)
3. CC makes it easy for potential users to understand the terms of use but it may not be that clear-cut for adopters. There are aspects to CC that non-IP lawyers may find it hard to take a definitive position.
4. It is difficult to convince people how the benefits of sharing under CC exceed the risks of being exploited. People tend to understand risks better than they understand potential benefits.

Illustrating the points above, Chew told the following story: “I know of a IT-professional who's knowledgeable in the general CC movement. He's also into photography but he has been cautious in adopting CC for the photos he shares online. He explained to me that his understanding is that once a particular CC license is adopted, there is no turning back. If he adopts a BY-NC license and then decide to go back to "All Rights Reserved", he feels that isn't logical. So he'd rather not adopt a CC for the time being unless he is absolutely sure that he does not ever intend to go back to a stricter license.”

However, Cheliotis thinks that such concerns are usually overreactions. “How many people actually make money off their content,” he asked. Explaining further, he said that most people overestimate the value of their own creations which makes them overprotective of content that would be more beneficial to share rather than to 'lock up'. Furthermore, it is always possible for an author to change the licensing on his works at any time.

Kiasuism

A peculiar characteristic of Singapore culture that may be relevant in shaping perceptions and attitudes towards CC in Singapore is what is widely referred to as a kiasu culture. Kiasu literally means "afraid to lose" and refers to an attitude of extreme loss aversion in the population which may also lead to more conservative attitudes towards licensing and IP in general. Loss aversion is not specific to Singapore, but to the extent that it is more pronounced in local culture we may see in the future that Singaporeans will be much more cautious in selecting an appropriate license for their works, and perhaps overprotective of the rights granted to authors by copyright law. For now, however, we do not have a clear indication that this is reflected in attitudes towards CC.

[edit] Future outlook

Cheliotis thinks that the it would take 5 to 10 years for Creative Commons to become truly mainstream in Singapore, in that it will be recognized and understood by the general population and not only by a few pioneering Internet users. “People are learning about Creative Commons,” he said. The same sentiments were echoed by Chew. “Adoption will be slow, but it will take form and shape steadily. It's relevance will only increase,” said Chew.

In addition, Chew gave three trends in Singapore which makes him optimistic about Creative Common’s future.

1. A strong foundation for CC, since there is an understanding of copyright and Intellectual Property in Singapore. The general awareness of the "Don'ts" of copyright is there, thanks to awareness talks by the efforts of IPOS, BSA and teachers in schools. Though the level of understanding may not necessarily be correct (e.g. you have people saying "my idea is copyrighted", which is false as you cannot copyright an idea until you express it in tangible form), the general awareness is a foundation to understanding and CC.
2. IT and internet is very much part of the Singapore lifestyle, in work, school and leisure. There can only be an increase in those who are seeking usable content online, and also among those who wish to share their content online. CC will be highly relevant and useful to both groups.
3. "Creative output" will grow. There are government-initiated efforts to promote the Creative Industries. And there are also recognition of the value in being creative, such as schools and parents recognizing the need to let the child be creative, and growing acceptance of creative and non-mainstream careers. When creative outputs increase (e.g. amateur art, photography, music) it's natural that much of the output will be shared online. If they see the relevance of CC, then adoption will increase as well.

[edit] Key adopters and supporters

• i.JAM, a program run by the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA) is one of the earliest adopters of Creative Commons. The organization aims to promote sharing ideas to support and develop Interactive and Digital Media (IDM) in Singapore. They adopted CC in July 2007 for their website.
• The National Heritage Board, a prominent government agency, also adopted CC for the "yesterday.sg" website. NHB promotes public awareness and appreciation of Singapore’s heritage through educational, outreach and community programmes and provide archival and conservation services through the National Archives of Singapore and Heritage Conservation Centre.