The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay launched Creative Commons India (ccIndia) this weekend, with the aim of providing easier access to educational and other content.
'At IIT Bombay there is a lot of educational content, including web-based courses that the institute would like to make available under a flexible Creative Commons licence,' said Professor Shishir K. Jha, project lead of Creative Commons India.
The ccIndia was formally launched on Friday 26 January at the IIT Bombay campus in Mumbai. In attendance was Joichi Ito, chairman of the Creative Commons board, who delivered one of the keynote speeches. Workshops were held at the event and addressed issues relating to collaboration on creative projects.
'In the first phase, the Creative Commons licences are likely to be geared towards educational content rather than India's large film industry, popularly known as 'Bollywood',' Jha said.
"People working in education and government-supported research in India are far more open to exploring new concepts such as Creative Commons, than commercial ventures, like large films," he added.
To mark the launch of ccIndia, the cutting edge projects of final year BTech students will be made available for free on the internet, under the name 'Project Eklavya'.
According to Jha, the IIT students produce pioneering work that normally languishes on university shelves. But with the launch of project Eklavya, this seeks to change the current situation by making these resources available to others to use and build upon, under Creative Commons licences.
The first of these projects was released on Friday by Professor Deepak Phatak, who heads the Eklavya team. One of the foremost Eklavya projects is a virtual classroom project that was funded by Intel, and connects teachers and administrators to students, allowing them to stream video lectures, set assignments and grade students. A whole set of other software, such as web applications, p2p networks and audio/video applications, will also be made available free of charge.
ccIndia is currently working on drafting versions of licences that are more in tune with Indian culture and the legal system. 'The concept of 'fair use', known in India as 'fair dealing', is far broader in Indian copyright rules than in the copyright laws of other nations,' Jha said.
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