Creative Commons South Africa is a volunteer powered co-operative effort to make Creative Commons licences work for South Africa. This websites is a web portal dedicated to showcasing the work of local creators, educators and administrators who use Creative Commons licences to distribute their ideas and creative expressions.

South Africa’s Role

South Africa is, in many respects, well prepared for the revolution in the field of “intellectual property rights”. Although new to the western world, the idea that collective knowledge should form the starting point of a fluid, continuously-evolving creation process is not new to South Africans. Living by the philosophy of ‘ubuntu’, South Africans have always created in collaborative groups. ‘Ubuntu’ is most effectively encapsulated in the phrase: ‘umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu’, which can be roughly translated as: “a person is a person through other people” or “I am what I am because of you”. This philosophy engenders itself in song, dance and music, where all individuals in the community participate in the creation process.

The philosophy of Ubuntu is perfectly linked to the philosophies of open source and open content development – embracing a process where creation is acknowledged as evolving out of the community, and recognising that at least some of the value coming out of that creation process needs to be given back to the community in order to strengthen future contributions.

Vision

The vision of Creative Commons South Africa is of a thriving African internet community using Creative Commons licenses to educate our people, grow our markets, share our knowledge and celebrate Africa ’s culture and heritage with people around the world.