The launch of Creative Commons licenses in The People's Republic of China on 29 March, was according to Chunyan Wang, project leader of Creative Commons Mainland China (ccChina), a 'giant success'.

With a few weeks passed since the event, Wang reflected on its success, challenges to the project and plans for the future.

The launch, which took place at the opening ceremony of an international conference on the topic, 'Intellectual Property and Creative Commons in the Digital Age', was held at Renmin University of China and Peking University, in Beijing.

The launch and associated conference saw the meeting of diverse groups of representatives from international institutions, such as Lawrence Lessig, CEO and Chairman of Creative Commons, Jonathan Rees from the Science Commons; William Fisher, Professor of Law at Harvard University and Director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society; as well as representatives from the People's Republic of China such as Judge Zhipei Jiang of the Supreme Court and Deputy Director General Chao Xu of the National Copyright Administration of China. Other participants hailed from various universities, research institutes, government agencies and civil society groups.

Apart from creating a platform for interaction between these representatives, Wang was pleased with the announcement of a new CD called 'Pat Pet', which was released under a ccChina license.

'Furthermore, Chinese citizens learned about the launch of the Mainland China version of the Creative Commons license through extensive coverage in the media,' Wang said. Articles on the launch were written and distributed through The Xinhua News Agency, China Daily and other Chinese media outlets.

Despite the media coverage around the event, Wang identified the need to get the Chinese community to understand and accept the Creative Commons licenses in the future.

'The Creative Commons licenses will act as an important promotional tool to help widely disseminate art and music, especially traditional Chinese art and music, such as KunQu which is considered an important part of our World Cultural Heritage. On the other hand, people around the world will also now be able to benefit from the rich and diverse Chinese culture of art and music.'

But plans are being set in motion to spread the word about Creative Commons, as Wang said, 'We will have more people joining our team as we are now working on contacting artists and other creative people to introduce the Creative Commons licenses to them.'

Another challenge to ccChina would be to find additional financial support for the project. 'As our counterparts in other jurisdictions have been experiencing, ccChina is being maintained by volunteers. The current team, including the project lead, Mr. Yi Zheng, Mr. Stephen Xin, and many others, have generously devoted much of their time to the project in the past year,' Wang said.

Other project plans include posting presentations from the launch online and on the Internet Archive, as well as distributing the video recording of the event. Wang also plans to set up and advisory board for the project so as to 'reinforce the institutional strength of ccChina.'

'The board will include leading thinkers and advocates from China and from abroad,' she said, 'and of course, we continue to work on seeking additional support for maintaining the project here.'

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