In 2006 during the launch of ccColombia, eltiempo.com, the online version of the most important nationwide newspaper, also launched the tools to apply CC licenses to the content in the 'social participation' section of the site. The tools allow the site's bloggers, as well as, video and photo bloggers, to license their content under Creative Commons licenses. By doing so eltiempo.com became the first online traditional media website in Colombia (and probably worldwide) to offer their citizen journalists the opportunity to use Creative Commons licenses.

This special approach from eltiempo.com during last year evolved into their newest project "ComparteArte" (ShareArt) that was launched one month ago. The main idea of Comparte Arte is to allow anyone to share and remix paintings from important Colombian artists, Fernando Botero, Ana Mercedes Hoyos and Nadin Ospina, all of whom are nationally and internationally recognised artists.

While Ana Mercedes Hoyos considers this project important because of the impact for the public, Fernando Botero likes the initiative because, not only will the newspaper warrant a huge response among people, but also because it allows anyone to have an original Botero painting that will only exist in an electronic format and therefore will be special in this way (Fernando Botero is probably the most important colombian painter alive which gives his decision special relevance).

Finally, Nadin Ospina is aware of the new possibilities of sharing that new approaches to copyright can give. He speaks about copyleft and finds great possibilities for allowing people to recreate his painting because they can make their very own masterpiece. Ospina`s sensitivity towards these issues is not by chance, he constantly uses images from the popular culture for his creations (for instance he merges Bart Simpson with indigenous pottery showing the new icons of our culture), therefore he understands the need to share and reuse to express creativity.

From the eltiempo.com website the public will be able to download each masterpiece (from each artist) during 48 hours at different moments. The project finally started today with Ospina`s "Constelación". This is a 9 piece painting you can download in 2 different resolutions (high resolution or low resolution) and reuse them with a CC Attribution-NonCommercial-Sharealike Colombian license.

Download and enjoy!

Please see the Spanish version of this article here.

tags: Bogota Colombia culture creative-commons share download art

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