--- Part 2: Workshop (08.12.2023)

Below is a detailed documentation of the workshop on the "Collective Reading of Creative Commons License Translations in Persian and Kurdish," which was held by the Khamoosh community on 8 December 2023. This documentation serves as a virtual workshop and resource for the Persian and Kurdish speaking communities to use, study and review.

The 2-hour workshop is shortened and divided here into sections and includes English explanations for easier read. The language is Persian/Farsi with the last half an hour with English facilitation.

Please feel free to share this report widely, leave any feedback or comments here, and/or volunteer to peer-review our translations (in Persian/Farsi or Kurdish [Sorani]). Your contributions to this collective effort will be appreciated and credited on this webpage [update: February 2024].

Please refer to part one of this report to read the reflection on the process of translating Creative Commons [CC] licenses and their legal codes into Farsi/Persian and Kurdish (Sorani) by the Khamoosh community.

Workshop Invitation poster in Kurdish (Sorani)

Agenda

1. Introduction (1':25'')
2. Where is Creative Commons, and why? (3':05'')
3. Keywords and CC layers  (3':47'')
4. CC licenses (3':56'')
5. Creative Commons and Khamoosh (3':29'')
6. Legal notes and challenges (7':30'')
7. Farsi/Persian linguistic notes and challenges (8':28'')
8. Kurdish (Sorani) notes and challenges (5':48'')
9. Invitation for a collective peer-reviewing (1':21'')
10. Examples of CC licenses in the Khamoosh sound library (7':22'')
11. Audience discussions (20':29'')
12. Q&A with CC Counsel, Yuanxiao Xu (in English) (42':03'')

The slides are available in .pdf below, and you can then watch each section of the agenda separately.

1) Introduction (1':25'')

In this section, we provide a brief introduction that includes a helpful article about CC licenses and their history in Persian. The article was written by Elaheh Naseri and Maryam Sarrafzadeh. 

2) Where is Creative Commons, and why? (3':05'')

We discuss the philosophy of shared knowledge as the main principle of CC and explain how we can contribute to reading and shaping legal frameworks for open access education. We also provide an example of how CC licenses allow users to use, modify, and redistribute materials. 

******

3) Keywords and CC layers (3':47'')

4) CC licenses (3':56'')

We thoroughly review each license and explain their meanings, using the keywords we learned in the previous section. Additionally, we offer a brief guide on choosing the best license.

5) Creative Commons and Khamoosh (3':29'')

In this section, we explain the process of translations within the Khamoosh collective and discuss why and how the project began. We reflect on the working process and communication with Creative Commons.

******

6) Legal notes and challenges (7':30'')

 We discuss the legal issues surrounding copyright in Iran, with a specific focus on its relation to the CC translation project. 1) There is limited literature available on copyright issues, 2) legal reinforcement around copyright issues is also limited and we rely on new laws in Iran regarding the protection of art ownership, and 3) we explore how CC licenses can assist Iranian users who are interested in publishing and distributing their work globally.

******

7) Farsi/Persian linguistic notes and challenges (8':28'')

We discussed the relation between knowledge-making and language, emphasizing the crucial need for a dynamic conversation between CC licenses translations and the Farsi/Persian language. Instead of using direct translations using English words, we decided to think of Farsi/Persian terms in a contextualized manner that would allow for the expansion of literature in this field and its use in Persian. We also explored how the generative capacity of the language can contribute back to the CC community through translations into Farsi/Persian over a longer period of time when they are used and shared.

To facilitate collective peer-reviewing, we added a new column to the CC translations worksheet that serves as a guide. Each entry may have several suggestions or noted issues from both linguistic and legal perspectives. A list of all these terms is available for the peer-reviewers to use.

You can access this table here.

8) Kurdish (Sorani) notes and challenges (5':48'')

In this section, we talk about the challenges within Kurdish translation with different strands of Kurdish languages and dialects spoken. There is no unified language spoken among all Kurdish speakers. The basis were the Kurdish speaking community in Iran, and the translation was done directly from English, with Farsi/Persian for some terms. Legal terms can be different in Kurdish in different Kurdish languages in different countries. 

9) Invitation for a collective peer-reviewing (1':21'')

We invite the audience, including the readers of this report, to join this collective effort and we will acknowledge their support to be published alongside the translations on CC website. 

Also, as part of our community communication with CC, we applied for partly-funded scholarships for "CC Certificate for Open Culture/ GLAM", and in this section, with support from Khamoosh budget, we offered two fully-funded slots to the participants. 

******

10) Examples of CC licenses in the Khamoosh sound library (7':22'')

We review each license and listen to examples from the Khamoosh sound library. 

******

11) Audience discussions in Farsi (20':29'')

******

12) Q&A with CC Counsel, Yuanxiao Xu in English (42':03'')