West Africa starts talking Creative Commons

I’m writing to you from Accra, in Ghana, where I joined a group from the Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT on Tuesday to talk about the potential of Creative Commons in West Africa. It was a fascinating discussion – led by Centre Director, Dorothy Gordon and Guido Sohne, a local FOSS proponent and software development who are interested in coordinating a project to port the licences to the Ghanaian legal system. Guido is a free and open source advocate in Ghana who was so inspired when he heard Larry Lessig talking at the Wizards of Os conference in Berlin last year, that he decided to start a project in his home country.

Peter Benjamin from the Open Knowledge Network contributed an interesting introduction on a project with Bridges.org to port Creative Commons licences to 6 African countries. The OKN wants to use the licences to facilitate content sharing among hubs in villages and cities around Africa.

‘All the information necessary for Africa’s development can be found within Africa. All we need to do is to connect up those knowledge points. This is what the Open Knowledge Network hopes to achieve,’ said Peter.

The workshop was a really great opportunity to talk to participants about whether open content and Creative Commons was a good idea. Talking critically with people who are closely engaged with ICTs and development around the continent, I was reminded of the many obstacles that still stand in the way of African participation, and the main difference between developed and developing countries when it comes to implementing intellectual property rights policy.

And the main difference is this. In the United States and other developed countries, creative expression and innovation in ICTs is hampered by the law. In Africa, creativity and innovation is hampered by much more immediate obstacles such as literacy, education and access, before the law even comes into play.

Tunji Lardner, who runs ‘Wangonet’ in Nigeria, told me about his experiences with developing local content in his community. His main point was that local content production in Africa is difficult to keep sustainable. Tunji had a passion for developing local content on the internet 5 years ago. But today, his organization has had to turn to providing other services such as web development, leaving little time or resources for creative expression and innovation.

This is not to say that Creative Commons isn’t necessary and relevant in Africa. Tunji was making the very valid point that Creative Commons projects in Africa need to collaborate with others in order to build holistic commons solutions focusing on all elements of the publishing process: the people, the communities, the infrastructure, the access and the capacity. Only then will we see any significant contribution to an African Commons.