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Cathy Casserly by Joi Ito / CC BY

“One of the most important moments in the history of Creative Commons happened on the day the Supreme Court upheld (incorrectly, in my view, but let?s leave that alone) the Copyright Term Extension Act in Eldred v. Ashcroft. After reading the decision, I had my head in my hands, buried in sadness, when my assistant reminded me that I had a 10am meeting with two people from the Hewlett Foundation. This was exactly one month after we had launched Creative Commons.

Cathy and Mike had heard about the Supreme Court?s decision. They recognized I wouldn?t be in much of a mood to chat. So they launched right into the reason for the meeting: The Hewlett Foundation had decided to help launch Creative Commons with a grant of $1 million dollars.

I won?t say that after I heard that news, I forgot about the Supreme Court. But from that moment on, it was much more important to me to prove Hewlett?s faith right than to worry about what the Supreme Court had gotten wrong. And I was especially keen to get to know these two people who understood our mission long before most had even recognized the problem that CC was meant to solve.?

We welcome Cathy and thank Joi for his fruitful two years as CEO. We are equally excited that Joi will remain Chair of the CC Board, and look to both Cathy?s and Joi?s strong leadership to move CC forward in 2011.

• CC talked with Mark Surman from the Mozilla Foundation about the connection between Mozilla and CC, and CC?s role in the broader digital ecosystem. CC also talked with the Maine Department of Education about how they are investing their educational grants in OER.

• Journalist Dan Gillmor reflected on the challenges and rewards of publishing ?Mediactive? under CC.

• CERN Library and the University of Michigan Library released hundreds of thousands of bibliographic records into the public domain using CC0.

• CC filed comments in the U.S. Department of Commerce?s Inquiry on Copyright Policy, Creativity, and Innovation in the Internet Economy.

• In an effort to balance legally sound terminology with culturally palatable translations, CC Affiliates in the Spanish-speaking and Arabic-speaking worlds have harmonized the language in their license deeds.

• Finally, CC turned eight last month. In celebration, ?Building on the Past? creator re-released his video under CC BY. Watch the video and read about Justin Cone?s motivations.