s website: "Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation
dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build
upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of
copyright. We provide free licenses and other legal tools to
mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to
carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any
combination thereof."

There were one million Creative Commons licensed works in 2003,
4.7 million licensed works in 2004, 20 million licensed works
in 2005, 50 million licensed works in 2006, 90 million licensed
works in 2007, and 130 million licensed works in 2008.

Science Commons was founded in 2005. As explained on its
website: "Science Commons designs strategies and tools for
faster, more efficient web-enabled scientific research. We
identify unnecessary barriers to research, craft policy
guidelines and legal agreements to lower those barriers, and
develop technology to make research, data and materials easier
to find and use. Our goal is to speed the translation of data
into discovery -- unlocking the value of research so more people
can benefit from the work scientists are doing."

ccLearn was founded in 2007. As explained on its website:
"ccLearn is a division of Creative Commons dedicated to
realizing the full potential of the internet to support open
learning and open educational resources. Our mission is to
minimize legal, technical, and social barriers to sharing and
reuse of educational materials."

2002: A WEB OF KNOWLEDGE

= [Overview]

The MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW) is an initiative launched by
MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in 2002 to put its
course materials for free on the web, as a way to promote open
dissemination of knowledge. In September 2002, a pilot version
was available online with 32 course materials. In November
2007, all 1,800 course materials were available, with 200 new
and updated courses per year. From 2003 onwards, in the same
spirit of free access of knowledge, the Public Library of
Science (PLoS) launched several high-quality online
periodicals. New kinds of encyclopedias were set up, for the
general public to both use available articles and contribute to
their writing. Wikipedia, launched in 2001, became the leading
online cooperative encyclopedia worldwide, with hundreds and
then thousands of contributors writing articles or editing and
updating them, leading the way to other initiatives like
Citizendium