Heather Ford on iCommons

Heather Ford gave an interview to "Paul" at Chilibean, December 3, 2006.  Heather is the Executive Director of iCommons.  Excerpt:

What is iCommons?

iCommons is an organisation, incubated by Creative Commons, that aims to bring together the free culture, free software, open access, and open science communities around the world to debate and contribute towards a global 'commons' of knowledge and creativity.

What is the relationship between iCommons and Creative Commons?

Well, we're currently a subsidiary of Creative Commons which means that CC has been really critical in getting us up and running and supporting us in the initial phase of our development. That means that we are part of the CC team and make use of their infrastructure and support.

What do you see as iCommons' role here in South Africa?

From the very beginning I was determined that, even though the organisation is registered in the UK, that we build our headquarters in the South. Our mandate is to serve the global commons community - but because we're in South Africa and are reporting on local projects and issues, we have quite a keen focus on the local commons environment and we're seeing some really great benefits to the South African commons by our presence here....

What do you see as Creative Commons' role in the protection of content creators' rights in and to their content?

Creative Commons is centered around the creator making their own decisions about how they wish to share and enable others to experience their creativity. CC provides creators with free tools and also shares stories of people who have used the tools to empower themselves and their communities through what CC CEO, Lawrence Lessig calls a 'sharing culture'....