Mike Linksvayer

Who is Mike Linksvayer?

Mike Linksvayer was vice president of Creative Commons from 2007 to 2012.

Linksvayer holds a B.A. in economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has experience as a software developer and consultant. He joined Creative Commons as Chief technical officer in April 2003, and held that position until April 2007 when he became vice president. He also co-founded Bitzi.

The former executive director of Creative Commons, Glenn Otis Brown, noted that Mike Linksvayer brought much-needed stability to the organization, comparing his role to that of a drummer in a band.

Linksvayer has encouraged NASA to use public APIs to open up its data, which are in the public domain since they constitute government works. This would allow the data to be used in mashups. He also suggested that scientists and other planetary societies use Creative Commons licenses to disseminate photos and other works so that the public has better access to them.

Following his tenure as vice president, in April 2012 Linksvayer became a part-time Senior Fellow at Creative Commons.