Ryan Merkley and Creative Commons: Providing Legal Infrastructure for Creative Sharing

Ryan Merkley is the CEO of Creative Commons, a nonprofit that allows sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free and legal tools. At no cost, their user-friendly copyright licenses offer a simple, standardized way to give public permission to provide and use creative work, on one’s own conditions. Creative Commons develops, supports and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing and innovation.

Ryan studied political science and economics at the University of Waterloo. Prior to joining Creative Commons, he served as the Chief Operating Officer of Mozilla, makers of the Internet browser Firefox. He also worked as the Director of Corporate Communications for the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver and Senior Advisor to Mayor David Miller of Toronto, where Ryan led the mayor’s budget policy and initiated Toronto’s Open Data project. Ryan has advised political campaigns on the local and national levels.