We proudly introduce our 4.0 licenses, nowavailable for adoptionworldwide. The 4.0 licenses — more than two years in the making — are the most global, legally robust licenses produced by CC to date. We have incorporated dozens of improvements that make sharing and reusing CC-licensed materials easier and more dependable than ever before.

We hadambitious goals in mindwhen we embarked on the versioning process coming out of the 2011 CC Global Summit in Warsaw. The new licenses achieve all of these goals, and more. The 4.0 licenses are extremely well-suited for use by governments and publishers of public sector information and other data, especially for those in the European Union. This is due to the expansion in license scope, which now coverssui generisdatabase rights that exist there and in a handful of other countries.

Among other exciting new features are improved readability and organization, common-sense attribution, and a new mechanism that allows those who violate the license inadvertently toregain their rights automaticallyif the violation is corrected in a timely manner.

You can find highlights of the most significant improvementson our website,track the course of the public discussion and evolution of the license drafts onthe 4.0 wiki page,and view a recap of thecentral policy decisionsmade over the course of the versioning process.

The 4.0 versioning process has been a truly collaborative effort between the brilliant and dedicatednetwork of legal and public licensing expertsand the active, vocalopen community.The 4.0 licenses, the public license development undertaking, and the Creative Commons organization are stronger because of the steadfast commitment of all participants.

With the 4.0 licenses published, we will be turning our attention toofficial translations of the legal codein partnership with our affiliate network and larger community. Translations of our new deeds are also underway, with asignificant number already completed.

Thank you and congratulations to everyone who participated in making 4.0 a reality!