Creative Commons Announces New Management Team

Sep 18, 2002 — www.creativecommons.org – Creative Commons today announced its newly formed leadership team, expanding its efforts to cultivate a vibrant public domain within the current copyright system.

Founding Executive Director Molly Shaffer Van Houweling recently completed her long-planned transition from Creative Commons to become Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan Law School and member of the Creative Commons Board of Directors.

“We are proud to have had Molly lead the team to where it is today - her extraordinary contributions helped make Creative Commons a reality,” said Creative Commons Chairman Lawrence Lessig. “Our new management’s impressive track record will help bring our efforts to a new level by bridging the copyright world with the public domain and removing barriers to creativity. We are poised for tremendous success.”

Former Deputy Director Glenn Otis Brown, now Executive Director, has worked closely with Van Houweling to ensure a smooth transfer of responsibilities that include overseeing the organization’s strategic, technical, and development activities.

Brown joined Creative Commons early 2002, having worked for the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Miami and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. He is a published author on copyright issues with works appearing in The Economist, the Harvard Law Review, and The New Republic.

“The founding team raised awareness about the unexplored possibilities for interplay between copyright and the public domain,” said Brown. “We are now focused on helping the public take part in this mission. We’re excited about launching our copyright licenses free of charge this autumn; soon people will be able to express a preference for sharing their work on their own terms.”

Other additions to the management team are:

- Associate Director Neeru Paharia, formerly of McKinsey & Company and Coro Fellow in Public Affairs. A noted filmmaker, illustrator, and blues guitar player, her work has been showcased in various film festivals and publications. Paharia received her Master of Science in Public Policy and Management with a concentration in Information Systems from Carnegie Mellon University.

- Consulting Technical Director Ben Adida, founder and CTO of open source technology consultancy Open Force. Best known as co-founder of ArsDigita, Adida helped develop the ArsDigita Community System, the first free toolkit for building collaborative database-backed Web sites. Adida received his Master and Bachelor degrees in Computer Science from MIT. His writings have appeared in IEEE Internet Computing, IEEE Software, and Open Magazine.

- Consulting Communications Director Sally Khudairi, communications strategist for the Apache Software Foundation and Web Standards Project. Active in the Web for nearly a decade, she directed communications strategies for some of the industry’s most prominent specifications, including XML, HTML 3.2 and 4.0, and HTTP/1.1. Khudairi is a leading proponent for emerging initiatives such as the Semantic Web, Web Services and Intellectual Property Rights.

Biographic information on the Creative Commons team can be found at www.creativecommons.org/learn/aboutus/people

About Creative Commons

Bridging the copyright world with the public domain, Creative Commons promotes the innovative reuse of all types of intellectual works. An assemblage of renowned cyberlaw, intellectual
property, and technology experts collaborated on Creative Commons’ first initiative planned for public release in Autumn 2002. Through this project, copyright holders can choose from a collection of licenses to easily inform others that their works are free for copying and other uses under specific conditions. Creative Commons is an independent, non-profit organization based at Stanford Law School. For more information, visit www.creativecommons.org