Technology has enabled computers to be connected together and has democratised how we share information at low or no cost.

Speaking at Thinking Digital in Gateshead today Joichi Ito, venture capitalist and CEO, Creative Commons (CC), told the 500-strong audience that the next significant challenge for technologists lies in the collaborative manipulation of applications and content.

“We need to create standards that harness the opportunity for collaboration that the Internet enables,” said Ito.

His contention is that it’s wrong that legal and licensing costs are now the most significant barrier between third parties seeking to collaborate and reckons CC is the answer.

CC has defined six flavours of legal contracts from full copyright to public domain that are available and enforceable in almost every country in the world.

Ito said that the benefits of using a CC licence are both creative and financial.

He cited the example of Nine Inch Nails. When it released Ghosts under a CC license it drove amateur remixes and hype that resulted in it becoming the number one paid MP3 download on Amazon in 2008.

Other CC customers include Al Jazeera, Flickr, Google and Wikipedia.