The NZCommons site began in August 2014.
The website was initiated and maintained by CC Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand in conjunction with InternetNZ and Prefer. Other partners included Land Information New Zealand.
New Zealand Creative Commons and Copyright Help
NZCommons was a community-based website dedicated to sharing original articles about New Zealand’s culture and knowledge based on the growing interest in New Zealand from around the world. They focused on the copyright and licensing of online information and offered support for individuals and organizations looking to share their online resources about New Zealand and its culture.
The website’s content was generated by the public who would volunteer to write about and share original information for free to the international audience. One could simply go to the Contribute page and choose one of the suggested topics that NZCommons wanted to have information on. They encouraged new and returning writers in New Zealand to contribute to the project.
They claimed no direct responsibility to answer to the business values of Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand. Instead, any opinions posted on the site were explicitly tied to the author of each individual post respectively.
Generally, Creative Commons was an organization dedicated to helping people navigate the complexities of copyrights and gave copyright holders a chance to share information about New Zealand’s culture through a range of permissions. This bridged the gap between producer and consumer of valuable information, breaking the barriers of confusing legalese involved in copyright law.
If someone desired to stay connected to the site and its mission, one could participate in the discussion list, sign up for their monthly newsletter, follow them on Twitter, email the administrators, or join the Loomio group which could be joined by asking permission via email.
Creative Commons New Zealand Topics & Information
The main topics of information on the NZCommons site were:
- Arts
- Copyright
- Data
- Education
- Heritage
- Images
- Research
- Government
Some of the article titles included “Institutional Repositories 101” by Amanda Curnow, “What’s in a License?” by Matt McGregor, “The Rise of Open Textbooks” by Bill Anderson, “Why NZ Needs Open Education” by Victoria Rea, “Creative Commons in the Kitchen” by Mike Riversdale, “Welcome to NZCommons” by Matt McGregor, “A New Digital Divide?” by Paul Callister, “Taupaki School” by Matt McGregor, “Richard White” by Hannah Mettner, “Open Access Megajournals” by Peter Binfield, and more.
There was an FAQ-style page for NZCommons as well as instructions on how to write for or contribute articles to the site. The basic instructions included setting a deadline, writing and submitting the article, a quick edit and image pairing for your article, and then publishing.
The site was active until about August 2018.
