This report evaluates and responds to the outcomes of CCau Industry Forum, a research-focused industry engagement event held in November 2006. The event was organised by the CCi Creative Commons Clinic and Creative Commons and Open Content Licensing research projects in response to the Digital Content Action Agenda published by the Department of Communications, IT and the Arts (see link below). It was specifically designed to follow up the Action Agenda’s recommendation that industry "engage with work occurring in the area of alternative approaches to intellectual property licensing, such as Creative Commons".

Focusing on the government, education and the creative industries sectors, the Forum aimed to evaluate understanding of and attitudes towards copyright, open content licensing (OCL) and the Creative Commons initiative within Australia. With the rapid growth of digital technologies over the last decade has led to a revolution in the creation and dissemination of knowledge – a revolution that has created unprecedented challenges for copyright law. The ‘all rights reserved’ model of traditional copyright law, with its complex legal concepts and requirement for permission for even the most common and non-controversial of uses, does not fit well with an environment which both enables and requires reproduction and communication on an unprecedented scale. From a legal perspective, one of the most significant responses to these changes has been the development of new OCL systems designed to open up access to and use of protected material. These OCL models preserve the creator’s intellectual property rights whilst giving permission in advance for the content to be used more broadly than would be permitted under default copyright law. The most popular and widespread of these licensing models in relation to creative material is Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org).

This report presents a strategy for continued research into Creative Commons in Australia.