Creative Commons enforced in Chile

(via Erick Iriarte) The Chilean NGO Derechos Digitales has successfully issued its first cease and desist letter to enforce a work released under a Chilean Creative Commons licence (read the original story in Spanish here). The image (pictured on the right) is the work of young designer Armando Torrealba, and it was part of a promotional campaign of Chilean rock group Marlou. Torrealba wanted to distribute the image in a way that would allow fans to remix it and reuse it, so he released it under the Chilean CC.

However, the picture was picked up by department store Falabella and used in their own Internet advertising campaign. Torrealba contacted Derechos Digitales, who decided to help the designer enforce his work against the commercial use by drafting and sending a cease and desist letter. The missive was successful and Falabella has taken down the picture.

Congratulations to Claudio Ruiz and his team in CC-Chile for their work, which demonstrates that Creative Commons licences can be enforced in Civil Law systems. This also shows that a support system is required in order to properly enforce open licences, as evidenced by the power wielded by organisations such as GPL-violations.org. Chile is lucky to have an excellent team behind the licences, and similar support can be found throughout many jurisdictions.

Legal issues aside, am I the only person who thinks that the panda is particularly cool-looking? The Sex Pistols meets WWE meets Andy Warhol. Nice.