CC Global Summit 2021

This paper explores the debate over intellectual property and tobacco control - focusing on various efforts to neutralise the powerful advertising campaigns of Big Tobacco. There has been a tradition of culture-jamming against Big Tobacco's advertising - with Australia's B.U.G.A.U.P. graffitists, Canada's Adbusters, and John Oliver's segment on 'Tobacco', featuring Jeff the Diseased Lung.  Under the leadership of Health Minister and Attorney-General Nicola Roxon, Australia passed legislation, mandating standardized packaging of tobacco products. The introduction of plain packaging of tobacco products has been defended by Australia in the High Court of Australia, an ISDS hearing, and the World Trade Organization (WTO). The measure has since been adopted by a dozen other nations in an effort to combat the global tobacco epidemic. A number of pioneering public health-minded countries - such as New Zealand and Finland - have gone further and have been formulating policies and strategies to achieve a tobacco endgame. In this context, this paper contends that the Creative Commons movement could play a socially useful and productive role in social marketing and behavioral economics - through promoting public health policies and initiatives, and counteracting tobacco advertising and social media.In other words, the Creative Commons could help foster a Public Health Commons.