Planet Creative Commons

This page aggregates blogs from Creative Commons, CC jurisdiction projects, and the CC community. Opinions are those of individual bloggers.

Discussion period open for Draft ShareAlike Statement of Intent

Creative Commons, February 03, 2014 11:38 PM   License: Attribution 3.0 Unported

Today we’re beginning our discussion period for the Draft Statement of Intent for the ShareAlike Licenses. Because of the new provision in the 4.0 ShareAlike licenses allowing licensees to use SA works in Adapted Material under the conditions of a later license version, we are working on a statement of intent that publicly commits to attributes of the ShareAlike licenses that CC will keep constant in future versions. The statement is meant to address concerns about what may happen with future versions of SA, and what it means for licensors.

You can view the initial announcement to the license development list, and the announcement of the new revision and final discussion period.

Many of you are familiar with the existing statement of intent on the scope of ShareAlike, made in preparation for Wikipedia’s migration from GFDL to CC BY-SA, which we wrote about in 2008. This statement isn’t a replacement for it; instead, it will be a supplement to the commitments made there. The 10 items in the current discussion draft include a commitment to a public discussion process for all future license versions, as well as a commitment not to narrow the scope of future versions (though it could be expanded). Items 9 and 10 of the draft are proposals included for consideration, but are unlikely to appear in the final document.

We are discussing the development of this statement on the license development list before publication so that the CC community can provide its thoughtful guidance and feedback before we make this long-term commitment. (You can sign up here to join the discussion.) It will remain open for comment until February 21.

School of Open: “Writing Wikipedia Articles” Course Now Open for Registration

Creative Commons, February 03, 2014 10:54 PM   License: Attribution 3.0 Unported

Below, Sara Frank Bristow invites you to join “Writing Wikipedia Articles: The Basics & Beyond”. Sara is a co-organizer of the course and a member of WikiProject Open. Both projects are part of the School of Open.


The School of Open will offer its popular “Writing Wikipedia Articles” course (WIKISOO) starting 25 February, 2014. This free introductory online course, now in its fourth incarnation, runs for six weeks. Enrollment is open to all.

WikiSOO_Burba

WIKISOO Burba Badge

WIKISOO students learn about the values and culture that have driven hundreds of thousands of volunteers to build Wikipedia. Through their work in the course, they join an effort that has generated millions of free articles in hundreds of languages since 2001.The course covers the technical skills needed to edit articles, and also offers practical insights into the site’s collaborative norms and social dynamics. Students graduate with a sophisticated understanding of how to use Wikipedia both as a reader and as an active participant.

The course focuses on articles about openness in education: open educational resources (OER), MOOCs, Creative Commons licenses and more. Students will forge connections with WikiProject Open, a community of volunteers focused on this topic area. Upon successful completion, students earn the WIKISOO Burba Badge.

The course is sponsored by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the University of Mississippi. Course instructors are:

  • Pete Forsyth, Wikipedia trainer & consultant (Wiki Strategies)
  • Sara Frank Bristow, OER and online education researcher (Salient Research)
  • Dr. Robert Cummings, Associate Professor (University of Mississippi)

Course registration is now open!

Google misleid met nieuwe zoekopties

CC Netherlands, February 03, 2014 12:45 PM   License: Naamsvermelding 3.0 Nederland

Twee weken geleden schreven we dat Google haar zoekopties voor vrij te gebruiken materiaal had versimpelt. Door een filteroptie voor gebruiksrechten toe te voegen kunnen we gemakkelijk afbeeldingen vinden die we kunnen hergebruiken. Wanneer je deze zoekfilters gebruikt moet je wel oppassen: boven de daadwerkelijke zoekresultaten geeft Google soortgelijke zoekresultaten weer. Deze soortgelijke zoekresultaten zijn niet gefiltert op gebruiksrechten. Ga er dan ook niet van uit dat je afbeeldingen uit de bovenste regel kan gebruiken.

Screen Shot 2014-02-03 at 12.09.35

In de voorbeeld afbeelding hierboven hebben we gezocht op “be careful” met gebruiksrechten die commercieel gebruik en aanpassingen toestaan. Rood omlijnt zie je zoekresultaten waarbij je er niet uit van kan gaan dat je deze kan gebruiken. Groen omlijnt zijn de daadwerkelijke zoekresultaten met de gebruiksrechtenfilter.

Przegląd linków CC #118

CC Poland, February 02, 2014 07:41 PM   License: Uznanie autorstwa 2.5 Polska

1. Ministerstwo Edukacji Narodowej wczoraj podczas konferencji prasowej podało dodatkowe informacje na temat planów jednego, darmowego podręcznika dla pierwszoklasistów, który ma być gotowy we wrześniu 2015. Wiemy już, że drukowane podręczniki mają być własnością szkoły, nic nie wiadomo o tym czy ich treść będzie otwarta podobnie do zasobów produkowanych w ramach Cyfrowej Szkoły.

2. W dyskusji nad podobnymi rozwiązaniami w Polsce bardzo często brakuje rzeczowych argumentów i badań dlatego polecamy świeży raport amerykańskiego stowarzyszenia konsumenckiego U.S. PRIG Research Center na temat wad rynku podręczników akademickich, potrzeb klientów czyli studentów i alternatywnych rozwiązań jak otwarte e-podręczniki.

3. To o czym mowa w powyższym raporcie dzieje się też w praktyce, wydawnictwo OpenStax uniwersytetu Rice wydające podręczniki na bazie otwartych zasobów edukacyjnych ogłosiło raz firmą Lumen Learning, że w ramach swojej współpracy chcą doprowadzić do oszczędności na podręcznikach  po stronie studentów przez 2 lata rzędu 10 milionów dolarów.

p2p4. Nowoczesna komunikacja naukowa nie uznaje stereotypów i poszukuje najefektywniejszych metod dystrybucji i popularyzacji wyników badań, dlatego Uniwersytet Massachusetts  uruchomił stronę do publikacji i obsługi publikacji i danych naukowych dystrybuowanych za pomocą torentów. Academic Torrents działa i bardzo prosto tłumaczy na głównej stronie dlaczego sieć wymiany P2P (Peer To Peer czyli równy z równym) jest po prostu formą współczesnej biblioteki.

5. Świetnym uzupełnieniem teoretycznym i problemowych jest wpis Erica Kansa na łamach strony London School of Echonomics bardzo ciekawa i konstruktywna krytyka otwartości naukowej, a raczej jej niedostatecznie radykalnej formy. Kansa pisze o tym jak dużą pozytywną rolę mogą mieć ruchy Open Access i Open Data jeśli tylko przekroczyłyby poziom jedynie prawnej otwartości publikacji, który jego zdaniem bez głębszej reformy i dysrupcji nauki może wręcz wspierać neoliberalny model jej funkcjonowania.

6. Wyszukiwarka firmy Microsoft Bing, podobnie do Google oferuje wygodne filtrowanie wyników wyszukiwania obrazów po licencjach Creative Commons oraz pochodzących z domeny publicznej. Niestety na razie usługa dostępna jest jedynie po przestawienia ustawień wyszukiwarki na Stany Zjednoczone.

7. Z ogromu wiadomości o MOOC-ach polecamy wywiad z Dr. Caren Stalburg autorką kursów, która opowiada o doświadczeniach tworzenia kursów, wykorzystywania w nich otwartych zasobów i otwierania własnych w ramach co raz popularniejszej formy masowych kursów, z których tylko niewielka część zawiera otwarte treści.

8. Big and Open Data to najnowszy wspólny raport Demos Europa i WISE (Warsaw Institute for Economic Studies) na temat wartości danych w sektorze publicznym i prywatnym.

9. Bardzo pogłębioną analizę na temat dystrybucji, niedostępności wiedzy i nierównego rozkładu geograficznego tego gdzie jest tworzona na świecie oferuje praca naukowa “Uneven Geographies of User-Generated Information: Patterns of Increasing Informational Poverty”.

grafika na licencji CC BY-SA, vivid studio/Centrum Cyfrowe.

Stemmen bewaard voor de eeuwigheid

CC Netherlands, January 31, 2014 03:43 PM   License: Naamsvermelding 3.0 Nederland

Wikipedia is een nieuw project begonnen, het Wikipedia Voice Intro Project (WikiVIP) waarin ze bekende mensen vragen een stukje tekst voor te lezen uit hun eigen Wikipedia-artikel. Zo kunnen volgende generaties weten hoe bekende wetenschappers, artiesten, acteurs en zakenmensen klinken. Stephen Fry, bekend voorstander van open delen, deed de aftrap door een stukje op te nemen:

“Hello, my name is Stephen Fry, I was born in London and I’ve been in the entertainment business, well I suppose since 1981″

Uitsnede van Stephen Fry @ BorderKitchen door Marco Raaphorst (CC BY)

Uitsnede van Stephen Fry @ BorderKitchen door Marco Raaphorst (CC BY)

Alles wat op Wikipedia beschikbaar maakt wordt vrijgegeven onder een Creative Commons BY-SA licentie. Dit betekent dat al het materiaal op Wikipedia hergebruikt mag worden zolang je laat weten dat het van Wikipedia komt. Als je nieuwe werken maakt gebaseerd op materiaal uit Wikipedia moet je dat ook weer verder beschikbaar stelt onder een CC BY-SA licentie. We zijn blij dat dit cultureel erfgoed bewaard zal worden, en belangrijker nog: gebruikt kan worden.

Bestaat er een Wikipedia-artikel over je? Neem contact op met Stevie Benton (stevie.benton@wikimedia.org.uk) dan komt er misschien ook een opname van jou!

Gli archivi 3D di Honda in Creative Commons

CC Italy, January 31, 2014 03:30 PM   License: Attribuzione - Condividi allo stesso modo 2.5 Italia

Honda ha recentemente aperto al pubblico un archivio di dati 3D per alcuni dei suoi prototipi realizzati in passato e presentati in vari saloni dell’auto e dimostrazioni.

Il design esterno dei prototipi conenuti nell'Honda 3D Design Archives è messo a disposizione degli utenti con licenza Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0.

Con l'apertura dell'archivio alla creatività degli utenti, voluta soprattutto in ragione della crescente diffusione di stampanti tridimensionali, Honda intende dare la possibilità a chiunque di simulare l'esperienza della creazione di un prototipo automobilistico e, nel contempo, stimolare una riflessione su come il processo di manifattura e design stia cambiando grazie all'introduzione delle odierne tecnologie informatiche e digitali.

Comunicato ufficiale di Honda.

leggi tutto

U.S. PIRG report finds students would perform better with open textbooks

Creative Commons, January 31, 2014 05:06 AM   License: Attribution 3.0 Unported

The U.S. PIRG Education Fund released a report this week called, “Fixing the Broken Textbook Market: How Students Respond to High Textbook Costs and Demand Alternatives.” The report features responses to a survey administered to over 2,000 students across 163 college campuses in the U.S. in regards to the rising cost of textbooks and how it affects student usage and academic performance. The report has been making the rounds in major news outlets and is highlighted in a letter to Congress by Senators Durbin and Franken as a push for the Affordable College Textbook Act. It is available for anyone to read online under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, but here are the tl;dr highlights:

What the survey results say

  • 65% of students choose not to buy a college textbook because it’s too expensive
  • 94% report that they suffer academically because of this choice
  • 48% say they altered which classes they took based on textbook costs, either taking fewer classes or different classes
  • Senator Durbin wholeheartedly agrees: “According to the students surveyed in this report, the rising cost of textbooks not only adds to the overall financial burden of attending college, it can also have a measurably negative impact on their academic performance and student outcomes.”
  • 82% of students say they would do significantly better in a course if the textbook were free online and a hard copy was optional!
  • Case studies at both Houston Community College and Virginia State University suggest that classes using open textbooks have higher grades and better course completion rates

Textbook industry facts

(as reported by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund and the Student PIRGs)

  • College textbook prices have increased by 82% in the past ten years, aka 3x the rate of inflation
  • Though alternatives to the new print edition textbooks exist, the costs of these alternatives (such as rental programs, used book markets and e-textbooks) are still dictated by publishers who re-issue editions every few years
  • Ethan Sendack at U.S. PIRG says: “[Students] can’t shop around and find the most affordable option, meaning there’s no consumer control on the market.”
  • On average students spend $1,200 a year on textbooks which = 14% of tuition at a four-year, public college; 39% of tuition at community college

Open textbook facts

  • Open textbooks are written by faculty and peer-reviewed like traditional textbooks
  • Open textbooks are free to access, use, download to electronic devices, and affordable to print — all thanks to the open content licenses on them that legally allows these uses
  • U.S. PIRG estimates that open textbooks could save each student ~$100 per course they take

Find out for yourself

Links to the press release, full report, and news coverage below.

What you can do

Support the Affordable College Textbook Act which would establish open textbook pilot programs at colleges and universities across the country! Learn more at http://www.sparc.arl.org/advocacy/national/act and read Senators Durbin and Franken’s Dear Colleague letter to Congress at http://www.sparc.arl.org/sites/default/files/S.%201704%20Dear%20Colleague.pdf.

Knowledged Unlatched invites university libraries to open access publishing pilot

Creative Commons, January 31, 2014 05:04 AM   License: Attribution 3.0 Unported

This guest blog post was written by Lucy Montgomery, deputy director of Knowledge Unlatched.

Knowledge Unlatched is inviting university libraries to join the pilot of a new approach to achieving open access for specialist scholarly books.

Specialist books in the Humanities and Social Sciences, or monographs, sell for between $50 and $200. Monograph publishing is in danger of extinction. The average monograph now sells just 200-400 copies. In spite of eye-watering prices, monograph publishers are struggling to cover their costs and many are subsidized. There has to be a better way!

Knowledge Unlatched is helping publishers, libraries and authors to secure the future of specialist scholarly books by engaging with the possibilities of open access. By working together, libraries have an opportunity to create incentives for the open access publication of high quality, peer-reviewed books, providing publishers with room to innovate and ensuring that the knowledge contained in books is made available for free to anyone with an internet connection.

Here’s how it works: KU is helping libraries to pool their funds to pay publishers to make a book available under a Creative Commons NonCommercial license as soon as it is published. Publishers remain free to sell other formats.

KU is running a proof of concept pilot, inviting libraries to sign up to support a package of 28 new titles from 13 well-known scholarly publishers. If at least 200 libraries pledge their support for the package by February 28, 2014, all of the books will be made available as fully downloadable PDFs under CC BY-NC or BY-NC-ND. If more than 200 participate, then the cost per library will drop.

If the pilot is successful, KU plans to begin scaling up later this year: offering libraries more selection options including subject specific packages. It eventually aims to make individual titles available so libraries can select individual books that they would like to support.

See www.knowledgeunlatched.org for more information. If you are a library sign up now. The closing date for the pilot is the 28th of February and every pledge counts!

If you are not a library but care about scholarly books, tell your librarian about Knowledge Unlatched.

Honda geeft 3D-modellen vrij onder een Creative Commons Licentie

CC Netherlands, January 30, 2014 01:01 PM   License: Naamsvermelding 3.0 Nederland

Het bekende Japanse automerk Honda heeft bekend gemaakt dat ze de 3D-modellen die ze gebruiken voor hun auto’s vrijgeven onder een CC BY-NC licentie. Dit wil zeggen dat iedereen de modellen voor niet commerciële doeleinden mag gebruiken en veranderen zolang ze vermelden dat ze oorspronkelijk van Honda zijn. Honda heeft een speciale website opgericht voor de designs: honda-3d.com

Beeld van Honda (CC BY-NC)

Beeld van Honda (CC BY-NC)

We zijn benieuwd wat voor effect het vrijgeven van de modellen zal hebben. Honda hoopt zelf dat er een nieuwe generatie autodesigners geïnspireerd zal worden, wij hopen ook een leuke kunstprojecten en gebruik in het onderwijs.

We kunnen nu in ieder geval kleine replica’s maken van Honda’s met een 3D printer.

Open Sourcing a Festival? Open Sourcing Everything!

CC Greece, January 29, 2014 04:20 PM   License: Αναφορά Δημιουργού 3.0 Ελλάδα

Πως κάνουμε ένα φεστιβάλ “open source”; Πως μπορούμε να μοιραστούμε την διαδικασία οργάνωσης ενός φεστιβάλ, ώστε και άλλες ομάδες και οργανισμοί να μπορούν να την χρησιμοποιήσουν και αυτοί; Πως κάνουμε γενικά μια οποιαδήποτε δράση, καλλιτεχνική, επιχειρηματική, εκπαιδευτική, κυβερνητική και κοινωνική “open source”;

Αυτές τις ερωτήσεις προσπαθεί να απαντήσει το Ανοιχτό Κίνημα, με δράσεις, εκδηλώσεις, ομάδες, φεστιβάλ, οργανώσεις και πολιτικές. Μια πρωτοβουλία εξαιρετικής σημασίας έρχεται από το δίκτυο Pixelache Network που αποτελείται από 5 οργανισμούς πειραματικής τέχνης, σχεδίου και τεχνολογίας, με την διοργάνωση εργαστηρίων και σεμιναρίων σε όλη την Ευρώπη το διάστημα 2013-2015. Κατά την διάρκεια αυτής της περιόδου τα φεστιβάλ Piksel(NO),Pikslaverk(IS),Mal au Pixel (FR)και Pixelache (FI) θα συνεργαστούν με στόχο να δείξουν πως κάνουν ένα φεστιβάλ “open source” πως δηλαδή κάνουν ανοιχτές τις φεστιβαλικές τους οργανωτικές ικανότητες και τα εργαλεία που χρησιμοποιούν και θα τα προσφέρουν στο Access Space Networkπου θα τα βάλει σε εφαρμογή και θα οργανώσει το πρώτο μεγάλο ψηφιακό πολιτιστικό φεστιβάλ που θα κλείσει όλη τη διαδικασία. Παράλληλα, το Δίκτυο Access Space θα διαμοιράσει τις πληροφορίες προσφέροντας ένα συνεχές πρόγραμμα εκμάθησης Ανοιχτότητας, βοηθώντας τους συνεργάτες να μάθουν, να δημιουργήσουν και να συμμετέχουν. Στόχος είναι να μαζευτεί όλο το υλικό, η γνώση και η εμπειρία μέσω αυτών των εργαστηρίων και να δημιουργηθεί ουσιαστικά ένα εγχειρίδιο που να περιγράφει πως κάνει κάποιος ένα Ανοιχτό Φεστιβάλ.

Η αρχική ιδέα πίσω από το Open Learning Steps και Open -Sourcing Festivals είναι η ουσία της πειραματικής τέχνης, σχεδίου και τεχνολογίας και ο ρόλος των οργανισμών στο να υποστηρίξουν διαδικασίες Ανοιχτής Εκπαίδευσης. Η κουλτούρα του Open Source/Libre Culture που έχει εξαπλωθεί από το Λογισμικό και τον εξοπλισμό (hardware) μέχρι την τέχνη, τη λογοτεχνία, τον αστικό χώρο αλλά και το οργανωτικό/ επιχειρησιακό επίπεδο, είναι αυτό που μας ενώνει όλους. Παρ όλους τους διαφορετικούς τομείς, κοινός στόχος του εγχειρήματος αυτού είναι να δημιουργηθεί ένα ψηφιακό πολιτιστικό φεστιβάλ και να τυποποιηθεί έτσι ώστε να πραγματοποιείται εύκολα σε όλες τι χώρες του κόσμου.

Η διαδικασία “open sourcing” έχει αρχίσει και εφαρμόζεται σταδιακά σε διάφορους τομείς εκτός λογισμικού. Ανοιχτή Εκπαίδευση με Ανοιχτό Εκπαιδευτικό Περιεχόμενο, Ανοιχτή Τέχνη, Ανοιχτή Διακυβέρνηση, Ανοιχτή Παραγωγή και Ανοιχτή Επιχειρηματική Δράση είναι τομείς που ανθίζουν όλο και περισσότερο μέρα με τη μέρα καθώς γίνονται αντιληπτά τα οφέλη της Ανοιχτότητας. Για να διευκρινίσουμε, περιγράφουμε διεργασίες που γίνονται, οργανώνονται και στηρίζουν την λειτουργία τους πάνω σε Ανοιχτό Λογισμικό και Ανοιχτό Hardware, σε Ανοιχτό Περιεχόμενο, Ανοιχτή Αδειοδότηση και Ανοιχτά Δεδομένα και παράγουν ένα Ανοιχτό Αποτέλεσμα που μπορεί να διαμοιρασθεί.

Στην Ελλάδα, εμφανίζονται σιγά σιγά πολλές πρωτοβουλίες που βασίζουν την δράση τους στην Ανοιχτότητα. Χώροι εργασίας, hacker/fab/open spacesανοιχτές κοινότητες, ιδιωτικοί και δημόσιοι οργανισμοί, φεστιβάλ και φυσικά όλο και περισσότεροι Έλληνες δημιουργοί είναι μερικά παραδείγματα. Πρόσφατα οργανώσαμε το #Open Creative Commons Greece @Frown Festival όπου παρουσιάσαμε Ανοιχτό Λογισμικό και Ανοιχτά Εργαλεία για καλλιτεχνική δημιουργία κυρίως και Έλληνες καλλιτέχνες που χρησιμοποιούν Open Source και άδειες Creative Commons. Αυτή τη περίοδο οργανώνεται για δεύτερη συνεχή χρονιά το Commonsfest – To Φεστιβάλ των Κοινών, μια εξαιρετικά ενδιαφέρουσα πρωτοβουλία από το Ηράκλειο της Κρήτης. Σήμερα το Commonsfest στο πλαίσιο των εργασιών για τη επίτευξη του και φέτος ανακοίνωσε μια παρόμοια δράση με αυτή του Pixelache Network. Σύμφωνα με ανακοίνωση του “Η οργανωτική ομάδα του Φεστιβάλ των Κοινών που θα γίνει για δεύτερη χρονιά στο Ηράκλειο στις 9,10,11 Μαΐου, στα πλαίσια των ενοτήτων α)δημιουργία κοινών αγαθών και β) διαχείριση κοινών αγαθών καλεί όλες τις ομάδες που διοργανώνουν εκδηλώσεις και φεστιβάλ, σε μια συνάντηση για να συζητήσουμε την προοπτική της δημιουργίας ενός κοινού εξοπλισμού και την δημιουργία κοινών δομών προσφοράς υπηρεσιών για τη κάλυψη αναγκών που έχουμε όσον αφορά τις παραπάνω διοργανώσεις (See more at: http://commonsfest.info/2014/dimiourgontas-kina-agatha-gia-ekdilosis/#sthash.QJ6RHTun.dpuf)” Τέλος θα θέλαμε να σας υπενθυμίσουμε ότι η Η Εταιρεία Ελεύθερου Λογισμικού / Λογισμικού Ανοικτού Κώδικα (ΕΕΛ/ΛΑΚ) σε συνεργασία με το Εθνικό Κέντρο Τεκμηρίωσης (EKT), συντονιστή του ευρωπαϊκού δικτύου Enterprise Europe Network – Hellas και το CoLab Workspace διοργανώνουν εκδήλωση με θέμα “Ανοιχτά Επιχειρηματικά Μοντέλα στην Πράξη”, το Σάββατο 1η Φεβρουαρίου. Στόχος της εκδήλωσης είναι να παρουσιαστούν τα βασικά στοιχεία της κατάρτισης και αξιολόγησης ανοιχτών επιχειρηματικών μοντέλων, δηλαδή μοντέλων που βασίζονται σε ανοιχτές τεχνολογίες, λογισμικό, περιεχόμενα ή δεδομένα.

4.0 translation process begins

Creative Commons, January 29, 2014 02:18 PM   License: Attribution 3.0 Unported

We are excited to announce the launch of the official translation process for the 4.0 license suite. As most of you know, CC made a significant push to make this latest version of the licenses as internationally robust as possible. The result is a set of licenses we hope will be used around the world. As part of that effort, we plan to publish official translations of the licenses in as many languages as possible, so that people around the world can read the legal code in their own languages. We will need the help of our affiliate network and the larger CC community to accomplish this goal.

We have prepared a formal translation process to help us achieve such an ambitious undertaking. The process requires coordination across jurisdictions, as the goal is to create a single translation of any given language wherever possible. Communication and teamwork will be critical, as will attention to detail. (As with all CC official legal code, once published, it will be permanently locked per CC’s long-standing commitment not to change the legal code once published for adoption.)

The CC regional coordinators will be leading the translation teams and helping to organize the effort across jurisdictions. CC Legal will oversee each translation project to help ensure the official translations have the same legal meaning and effect as the original. To aid the effort, we have created several guides designed to help translators complete the project. There is a translation guide, which will be continually updated with new tips and guidelines as we learn more throughout this process, a guide to building the other five licenses in the suite once the first license is translated, and a worksheet to help translators and CC Legal stay on the same page.

If you would like to get involved in this important internationalization effort, please contact a CC regional coordinator.

Honda releases 3D models under CC

Creative Commons, January 28, 2014 07:09 PM   License: Attribution 3.0 Unported

This morning, auto manufacturer Honda released 3D data for the exterior designs of several of its concept models under a CC Attribution-NonCommercial (BY-NC) license. From the press release:

With the data downloaded from the website “Honda 3D Design Archives,” Honda’s concept models can easily be replicated by a household 3D printer, which is becoming more popular in recent years. By offering data of its concept models, which embody the spirit of “Honda Design,” Honda offers opportunity to enjoy a simulated experience of Honda’s “art of manufacturing.”

You can view the designs on the new Honda 3D site or download them in STL. Since the designs are licensed under BY-NC, anyone can share, modify, and remix them noncommercially. Now that these designs are in the wild, it will be cool to see who mods them in unexpected and creative ways.

Related: CC and the 3D Printing Community

Εκδήλωση: #Open @CoLab Ανοιχτά Επιχειρηματικά Μοντέλα στη Πράξη!

CC Greece, January 27, 2014 12:44 PM   License: Αναφορά Δημιουργού 3.0 Ελλάδα

Η Εταιρεία Ελεύθερου Λογισμικού / Λογισμικού Ανοικτού Κώδικα (ΕΕΛ/ΛΑΚ) σε συνεργασία με το Εθνικό Κέντρο Τεκμηρίωσης (EKT),συντονιστή του ευρωπαϊκού δικτύου Enterprise Europe Network – Hellas και το CoLab Workspace διοργανώνουν εκδήλωση με θέμα«Ανοιχτά Επιχειρηματικά Μοντέλα στην Πράξη«το Σάββατο 1η Φεβρουαρίου. Η εκδήλωση θα διεξαχθεί στο Colab Workspace Athens (Πετράκη 28, Αθήνα) στις 11.00.

Στόχος της εκδήλωσης είναι να παρουσιαστούν τα βασικά στοιχεία της κατάρτισης και αξιολόγησης ανοιχτών επιχειρηματικών μοντέλων, δηλαδή μοντέλων που βασίζονται σε ανοιχτές τεχνολογίες, λογισμικό, περιεχόμενα ή δεδομένα. Τα μοντέλα ανοιχτής επιχειρηματικότητας ή τα μοντέλα επιχειρηματικότητας που σε κάποιο στάδιο της αλυσίδας αξίας χρησιμοποιούν ανοιχτές άδειες αποτελούν ολοένα και περισσότερο αναπόσπαστο μέρος της σύγχρονης επιχειρηματικής δραστηριότητας. Το βιωματικό εργαστήριο που θα πραγματοποιηθεί στο πλαίσιο του Εnterprise Europe Network – Hellas (EEN) θα παρουσιάσει πρότυπες μεθόδους κατάρτισης επιχειρηματικών μοντέλων, βασικά στοιχεία αδειοδοτικών λύσεων και θα βοηθήσει τους συμμετέχοντες να δημιουργήσουν τα δικά τους ανοιχτά επιχειρηματικά μοντέλα.

Αρχικά θα γίνει παρουσίαση του δικτύου Enterprise Europe Network – Hellas και των υπηρεσιών που προσφέρει. Στη συνέχεια θα υπάρξει παρουσίαση για το πώς χρησιμοποιείται το “Business Model Canvas” για τη δημιουργία επιχειρηματικών μοντέλων. Παράλληλα θα γίνουν γνωστές λεπτομέρειες για τηνΑνοιχτή Αδειοδότηση, τις άδειες Creative Commons και την ομότιμη παραγωγή, και οι παριστάμενοι θα γνωρίσουν ποια επιχειρηματικά μοντέλα μπορούν να προκύψουν από την χρήση τέτοιων αδειών. Τέλος, θα παρουσιαστούν μερικά ανοιχτά επιχειρηματικά μοντέλα στην πράξη, εξηγώντας το παράδειγμα του CoLab.

Αναλυτικά το πρόγραμμα όπως έχει διαμορφωθεί είναι:

  • 11.00 – 11.15 Εγγραφές – Χαιρετισμοί
  • 11.15 – 11.30 Ενημερωτική παρουσίαση Δικτύου Enterprise Europe Network – Hellas (Ηρακλής Αγιοβλασίτης – ΕΚΤ)
  • 11.30 – 12.00 Μέθοδος Ανοιχτών Επιχειρηματικών Μοντέλων «Business Model Canvas» (Σπύρος Καπετανάκης – CoLab Workspace)
  • 12.00 – 13.00 Παρουσίαση Ομότιμης Παραγωγής, Κοινών και Χρήσης Ανοιχτών Αδειών (Πρόδρομος Τσιαβός – ΕΕΛ/ΛΑΚ και Μαρία Μερτζάνη – Creative Commons Greece)
  • 13.00 – 15.00 Ανοιχτά Επιχειρηματικά Μοντέλα στην Πράξη / Το παράδειγμα του coLab (Σπύρος Καπετανάκης – CoLab Workspace)

Η συμμετοχή στην εκδήλωση είναι δωρεάν. Για την καλυτερη οργάνωση του χώρου, παρακαλούνται οι ενδιαφερόμενοι να δηλώσουν τη συμμετοχή τους εδώ.

Przegląd linków CC #117

CC Poland, January 26, 2014 10:24 PM   License: Uznanie autorstwa 2.5 Polska

1. 15 marca na całym świecie organizowany będzie Free Bassel Day. Akcja ma na celu zwrócenie uwagi (i miejmy nadzieję) i doprowadzenie do uwolnienia przetrzymywanego przez syryjski reżim Bassela Khartabiliego, inżyniera komputerowego, aktywisty i koordynatora Creative Commons Syria

2. Warto zacząć planować wydarzenia i działania na kolejny Międzynarodowy Tydzień Otwartej Edukacji (10-15 marca). Ze strony internetowej można już pobrać pierwsze materiały promocyjne, a my będziemy zapowiadać informacje o wydarzeniach w Polsce.

otwarte_zasoby_edukacyjne

3. Czy inwigilacja prowadzona przez amerykańską służbę bezpieczeństwa narusza prawa autorskie? Na to trudne pytanie rozważnia oferuje na swoim blogu prawnik i działać Creative Commons Andres Guadamuz http://www.technollama.co.uk/is-the-nsa-infringing-copyright

4. Jeśli prawne zagadnienia związane z inwigilacją są dla Was zbyt głębokie i depresujne i szukacie czegoś bardziej rozrywkowego polecamy utwór kapeli YACHT pt. “Party at the NSA” na licencji CC BY-NC-SA, za którego płatne pobranie dotację kierowane są do fundacji EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) działającej na rzecz

5. Szał i nadzieja MOOC-ów (Massive open online course) zapewne będą  http://www.hackeducation.com/2014/01/25/the-hype-and-hope-of-moocs/

6. Amerykański start-up wydawniczy Unglue-it uruchomił miesiąc temu nową usługę, buy to ungle, w której jeśli książkę kupi odpowiednia ilość osób jej wersja elektroniczna zostanie udostępniona w otwarty sposób. Kilka dni temu taką permierę miała pierwsza książką otworzona w ten sposób zbiór literatury S-F pt. Lagos_2600.

7. Na swój sposób logiczne działanie lecz i tak niespodziewane: dział badań Microsoft ogłosił swoją politykę open access czyli otwartego dostępu do wyników ich badań.

8. Na koniec wideo od BCampus, o zaletach licencji Creative Commons dla organizacji pozarządowych.

Creative Commons Licenses for Non-Profit Organizations from BCcampus on Vimeo.

Stack Exchange CC-data arkiveres av Internet Archive

CC Norway, January 24, 2014 06:55 AM   License: Navngivelse 3.0 Norge

Stack Exchange er en samling av nettsteder som forsøker å gi svar på en rekke ulike temaer, både om programmering, og om en rekke andre emner. Alt innholdet på nettstedene er brukergenerert og brukerkuratert. Kurateringen skjer gjennom spillifisering (gamification).

Fra nå av vil dette brukergenererte innholdet og det meste av metadata bli arkivert som åpne data av Internet Archive under lisensen Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0. Disse dataene kan både bli lastet ned i sin helhet i form av en zip-fil, og de kan søkes i online, direkte i arkivet.

Kilde: Stack Exchange Creative Commons data now hosted by the Internet Archive.

Free Bassel Day 2014

CC Netherlands, January 23, 2014 04:20 PM   License: Naamsvermelding 3.0 Nederland

Alweer twee jaar geleden is Bassel Khartabil (ook bekend als Bassel Safadi) gearresteerd gedurende een golf van arrestaties in Syrië. Bassel is een activist die zich inzet voor een open internet. Vorig jaar heeft Creative Commons samen met andere organisaties Free Bassel day georganiseerd. In Nederland was er ook een Free Bassel campagne. Een jaar later is de situatie van Bassel helaas niet veranderd.

8559700000_a7ce734718_c

Dit jaar organiseert Creative Commons Nederland dan ook weer een campagne op 14 maart. Wil je helpen, neem dan contact met ons op. Kijk ook op FreeBassel.org.

 

Free Bassel Day, coming March 15

Creative Commons, January 23, 2014 04:42 AM   License: Attribution 3.0 Unported

Bassel Khartabil is a computer engineer who, through his innovations in social media, digital education, and open-source web software, played a huge role in opening the internet in Syria and bringing online access and knowledge to the Syrian people. Many people reading this blog know Bassel through his work as lead for CC Syria.

Coinciding with the 4th Arab Bloggers Meeting (at which Bassel was sorely missed) and the Geneva II Peace Conference, the #freebassel Campaign is announcing the call for pledges for Free Bassel Day 2014.

The second Free Bassel Day will be held globally on March 15, marking the second anniversary of his imprisonment and the third anniversary of the beginning of the Syrian civil war. We encourage you to join the CC and #freebassel communities and get involved.

For more information or to share your pledge for Free Bassel Day, contact the #freebassel campaign at love@freebassel.org.

Projects already in the works:

For more information or to submit your Free Bassel Day event or project, visit freebasselday.org.

Related

Help bridge our open communities: Open Coalition Project Coordinator Job

Creative Commons, January 22, 2014 10:55 PM   License: Attribution 3.0 Unported


Construction of the Story Bridge, Brisbane, 1939 / State Library Queensland / No known copyright restrictions

Last November, a bunch of us from Wikimedia, Mozilla, P2PU, OKFN, Creative Commons, School of Open, and other communities got together for a session at Mozfest called “Collaborations across the Open Space.” That session not only laid the groundwork for better communication among open organizations, but also resulted in the momentum to draft a job description for a project coordinator who will “support the development of a stronger network of organizations working in the areas of open knowledge and open access.”

The part-time position is being funded by Wikimedia UK with the hope that another organization will pick up it up after the initial 6 month term. The full description is at https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Open_Coalition_Project_Co-ordinator – but here are the highlights of what we envision the person to be doing:

  • Have a thorough understanding of issues relating to open knowledge, open access, open source, and open content licences
  • Lead on the development of a small event for organisations working in this space, including Wikimedia UK, Open Knowledge Foundation, Creative Commons, Mozilla, Open Rights Group, and OpenStreetMap, among others
  • Act as a conduit for organisations acting in the open space, facilitating discussion and collaboration
  • Lead on the creation of a website and booklet explaining what it means to be an open organisation, what the “open sector” is and the benefits it brings
  • Build a relationship of trust with the group and the wider open community
  • Develop and deliver sessions about the open coalition at Wikimania in London, August 2014

The position is based in London, but will be working with open community members from around the world. Have a look at the position and also at the notes from the original Mozfest session for reference.

Disquiet Junto honors Bassel Khartabil

Creative Commons, January 22, 2014 08:06 PM   License: Attribution 3.0 Unported

We’re big fans of Disquiet Junto, a group of Creative Commons musicians who create original works and remixes each week around a different theme.

This week, Disquiet Junto is honoring Bassel Khartabil, the Syrian CC community leader who’s been in prison in Syria since March 2012, with a music project dedicated to Bassel.

From Disquiet Junto:

On Thursday, January 23, a special collaborative sound and music project will help raise awareness about Palestinian Syrian programmer and Creative Commons advocate Bassel Khartabil, who has been detained in Syria since March 15, 2012. As the two-year anniversary of Bassel’s incarceration approaches, the Disquiet Junto music community on SoundCloud.com will spend four days developing original sound works in Bassel’s honor. This week’s project will invite musicians to flesh out a work-in-progress that Bassel has, naturally, not been able to complete due to his imprisonment.

Late in the day each Thursday, a new compositional prompt goes out to members of the Disquiet Junto, who then have until 11:59pm the following Monday to submit a piece of music. The Bassel project will be the 108th weekly Disquiet Junto project. As of this date, over 3,000 original pieces of music have been uploaded to the Disquiet Junto group on SoundCloud by over 400 musicians from around the world. The Disquiet Junto began the first week of January 2012, and has continued weekly ever since. Past Disquiet Junto projects include the interpretation of polling data as a graphically notated score, the use of wind chimes as a percussive instrument, the creation of “goodbye music” for the Voyager 1 space probe made from the sounds of interstellar space, and numerous Creative Commons–inspired remixes of music originally published on netlabels.

The Disquiet Junto was created and is moderated by Marc Weidenbaum, the San Francisco–based author of the book Selected Ambient Works Volume II, based on the Aphex Twin album of that name. Subscribe to the Disquiet Junto email announcement list.

Update (January 24): The challenge has now launched. Submit your project by Monday!

Related

Åpne data i Kulturrådet

CC Norway, January 22, 2014 03:08 PM   License: Navngivelse 3.0 Norge

Foto med logo

Den 6.-8. februar åpnes dørene for hackere, designere og andre som vil lete etter gode historier i databaser fra offentlige aktører. Først et seminar om åpne data. Deretter, i to dager, skal deltagerne på #Hack4NO kode, visualisere og i felleskap skape noe nytt av åpne data.

Programmerere og andre interesserte vil få mulighet til å visualisere og videreformidle kunnskapen som ligger gjemt i åpne datasett med blant annet bilder, kart, flyfoto, kulturminner og kunstverk. #Hack4NO er et hackathon i regi av prosjektet Kultur- og naturreise, hvor Kulturrådet er en av partnerne.

— «#Hack4NO er en unik mulighet til å leke med åpne data fra en rekke offentlige aktører, i felleskap med andre engasjerte utviklere », sier prosjektleder for Kultur- og naturreise, Siri Slettvåg. «Vi er spent på resultatene og gleder oss til to dager med samarbeid og sosialt samvær! »

  • 6. februar: Seminar om åpne data på Nasjonalmuseet.
  • 7-8. februar: Hackathon (HACK4NO) i Kulturrådet.

Se også: Hacking i Kulturrådet.

Seminar om åpne data – 6. februar

Torsdag 6. februar arrangerer Kulturrådet et seminar om åpne data i kultursektoren. Seminaret foregår i auditoriet i Nasjonalmuseets administrasjonslokaler i Kristian Augusts gate 23 (8. etasje). Programmet starter kl 9.30, med registrering og kaffe fra kl 9. Seminaret er gratis.

Museer, arkiver og andre kulturinstitusjoner samler og forvalter et bredt spekter av data om gjenstander og kunstverk i samlingene sine. Denne informasjonen er en stor ressurs som kan utnyttes mer og bedre enn den gjør i dag.

Mer informasjon og program for seminar om åpne data 6. februar på Kulturrådets nettside: Åpne data i kultursektoren.

#HACK4NO – 7-8. februar

I løpet av hackathon fredag 7. og lørdag 8. februar kan programmerere og andre interesserte grave i åpne datasett med blant annet bilder, kart, flyfoto, kulturminner og kunstverk.

Oversikt over tilgjengelige datasett.

Åpne offentlige data er et satsingsområde for Norge, og vi vil med #HACK4NO synliggjøre betydningen av åpne data for tjenesteutvikling og nyskaping.

Statssekretærene Knut Olav Åmås fra Kulturdepartementet og Paul Chaffey fra Kommunal- og moderniseringsdepartementet åpner #HACK4NO fredag kl. 11.00. Etterpå blir er det inspirasjonsseminar til kl. 13.00.

Programmet for inspirasjonsseminaret fredag 13. februar:

  • #apps4norge – hva fikk vi ut av det? Heather Broomfield, Difi.
  • #hack4dk som pådriver i utviklingen av åpne data i Danmark. Jacob Wang, Nationalmuseet, København.
  • Åpne kulturdata i Sverige, trinn på veien. Johanna Berg, Digisam.
  • Frie kartdata. Kristian Kihle, Kartverket.
  • Data needs poetry – hva skal til for å forvandle informasjon & data om til kunnskap og handling? Tom Halsør, NRK Beta.
  • Store norske – kikk på egne data. Ida Jackson, Store norske leksikon.
  • Åpne værdata – dine data. Kristin Lyng, Meteorologisk institutt.
  • Om arbeidet med Ætteforsker–appen (foreløpig tittel). Martin Havnør, prisvinner i #apps4Norge.

#HACK4NO arrangeres av Kultur- og naturreise i samarbeid med Kulturrådet.

Copyright Week: Δημόσιος Διάλογος για την Μεταρρύθμιση του Νόμου περί Πνευματικής Ιδιοκτησίας!

CC Greece, January 20, 2014 03:39 PM   License: Αναφορά Δημιουργού 3.0 Ελλάδα

Διανύουμε την Εβδομάδα Πνευματικής Ιδιοκτησίας (Copyright Week) παγκοσμίως, πλησιάζει η επέτειος του θανάτου του Aaron Swartz , και δύο χρόνια μετά τις διαδηλώσεις για τον SOPA έχει ξεκινήσει η χρονιά που θα οδηγήσει σε αναδιάρθρωση του νόμου περί Πνευματικής Ιδιοκτησίας. Διάφοροι Οργανισμοί που ασχολούνται με το Διαδίκτυο, Ιδρύματα, Μη Κερδοσκοπικοί Οργανισμοί αλλά και Εταιρείες συνεργάζονται το τελευταίο διάστημα για να διασφαλίσουν ότι οι φωνές των χρηστών του Διαδικτύου θα ακουστούν καθαρά σε σχέση με την αναδιάρθρωση του Νόμου. Τα Creative Commonsη Communiaτο Open Knowledge Foundation, το Electronic Frontier Foundation και η Ευρωπαική Ένωση έχουν ξεκινήσει ήδη τον Δημόσιο Διάλογο για τις μεταρρύθμιση του Νόμου περί Πνευματικής Ιδιοκτησίας, το μέλλον του Διαδικτύου, των Κοινών, του Δημόσιου Κτήματος και των Ορφανών Έργων.

Σύμφωνα με την Communia “Αν οι πολίτες και οι χρήστες δεν φροντίσουν οι ίδιοι να ακουστούν, το αποτέλεσμα της Συζήτησης της Ευρωπαικής Ένωσης και η αναδιάρθρωση του Νόμου περί Πνευματικής Ιδιοκτησίας ενέχει τον κίνδυνο να περιορίσει και άλλο τα δικαιώματα μας στο Διαδίκτυο και να παρεμποδίσει τη δημιουργία, το διαμοιρασμό και την πρόσβαση στον πολιτισμό και την επιστήμη και να αποδυναμώσει το Κοινό Κτήμα”

Η Communia με στόχο να αποτρέψει κάτι τέτοιο ένωσε τις δυνάμεις της με διάφορες Μη Κυβερνητικές Οργανώσεις και γενικά Φορείς για να δημιουργήσει ένα εργαλείο που θα βοηθήσει τους πολίτες και τους επαγγελματίες να απαντήσουν στο Διάλογο της ΕΕ με τρόπο τέτοιο ώστε να προωθείται η πρόσβαση στον Πολιτισμό και να ενδυναμωθεί το Κοινό Κτήμα. Το εργαλείο αυτό μπορείτε να το βρείτε στην διεύθυνση  youcan.fixcopyright.eu

Το εργαλείο αυτό σας επιτρέπει να δείτε 80 ερωτήσεις από τα επίσημα έγγραφα του Διαλόγου και τις απαντήσεις εκατοντάδων χρηστών, γονιώνδασκάλων και ακαδημαϊκών, ερευνητών, εταιριών και ελεύθερων επαγγελματιών βιβλιοθηκάριων, Bloggers και Οργανισμών. Υπάρχει η επιλογή να απαντήσετε σε όλες τις ερωτήσεις και το site προσφέρει βοήθεια και πληροφορίες για το πως να απαντήσετε.

Αν σας ενδιαφέρει το Σύστημα της Πνευματικής Ιδιοκτησίας και πως αυτό μπορεί να προωθήσει την καινοτομία και την πρόσβαση στο Πολιτισμό και την Έρευνα την ψηφιακή εποχή και αν νοιάζεστε για το Δημόσιο Κτήμα πάρτε λίγο χρόνο και μπείτε και εσείς στον Δημόσιο Διάλογο.

Δεν συμβαίνει πολύ συχνά οι πολίτες να έχουν την ευκαιρία να ακουστούν στις πολύπλοκες και πολύ συχνά δυσνόητες συζητήσεις για την Ευρωπαϊκή Πολιτική περί copyright. Είναι η πρώτη φορά που η Ευρωπαϊκή Επιτροπή ανοίγει διάλογο για το πόσο σωστό είναι το υπάρχον πλαίσιο της Οδηγίας  2001 Copyright in the Information SocietyΗ συγκεκριμένη οδηγία καθόρισε τις ελευθερίες που έχει κάποιος χρήστης περιεχομένου χωρίς αδειοδότηση από τον δημιουργό για εκπαιδευτικούς λόγους, για άτομα με ειδικές ανάγκες και για πρόσβαση στην πολιτισμική κληρονομιά ή για προσωπική κρίση.

Αυτές οι ελευθερίες είναι καίριας σημασίας στην διαμόρφωση του copyright, στο τι περιορίζεται από το νόμο και τι είναι ελεύθερο για χρήση. Πιέζοντας να καθιερωθούν αυτές οι ελευθερίες και να αυξηθούν ή να γίνουν πιο συγκεκριμένες οι εξαιρέσεις στο Νόμο περί Πνευματικής Ιδιοκτησίας, στόχος είναι να έχουμε ένα πιο δίκαιο σύστημα προστασίας των δημιουργικών έργων που προστατεύει μεν τα δικαιώματα των δημιουργών αλλά δεν περιορίζει την πρόσβαση στην γνώση και τον πολιτισμό στη κοινωνία σαν σύνολο. Ο διάλογος που έχει ανοίξει η Επιτροπή δίνει την ευκαιρία να ενισχύσουμε αυτό το επιχείρημα αρκεί να υπάρχει συμμετοχή.

Σαν πολίτες της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης μας δίνεται η ευκαιρία να συμμετέχουμε στα Κοινά και να φροντίσουμε η αναδιάρθρωση του Νόμου περί Πνευματικής Ιδιοκτησίας να προάγει τη δημιουργία, τον διαμοιρασμό, την καινοτομία και να ταιριάζει καλύτερα στη φύση ενός από τα μεγαλύτερα επιτεύγματα της ανθρωπότητας, ενός εργαλείου που έχει ήδη αλλάξει τον τρόπο που αντιλαμβανόμαστε τα πράγματα, τις τέχνες, την πολιτική και την κοινωνία την ίδια, του Διαδικτύου.


Congress passes spending bill requiring free access to publicly funded research

CC USA, January 20, 2014 02:35 PM   License: Attribution 3.0 United States

[Time Vollmer, Creative Commons, Link, (CC-BY]

Photo by C.E. Kent (CC-BY)

Photo by C.E. Kent (CC-BY)

Both the U.S. House of Representative and Senate have passed the 2014 omnibus appropriations legislation (2.9 MB PDF). President Obama is expected to sign the bill shortly.

What’s so special about this legislation? Federal agencies with research budgets of at least $100 million per year will be required provide the public with free online access to scholarly articles generated with federal funds no later than 12 months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal. The agencies affected by the public access provision of the appropriations bill include the Department of Labor, Department of Education, and Department of Health and Human Services (which includes research-intensive sub-agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

According to SPARC, the bill “ensure[s] that $31 billion of the total $60 billion annual U.S. investment in taxpayer-funded research is now openly accessible.”

The inclusion of the public access provision builds upon existing initiatives, such as the NIH Public Access Policy. And it echoes the more recent push for public access to publicly funded research advocated through the introduction of the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR) and the White House directive. But with FASTR tabled in Congress last year and the federal agencies dragging their feet on complying with Obama’s public access directive (plans were due in August 2013), the passage of the 2014 spending legislation is a welcome measure for increasing access to publicly funded research.

SPARC thinks the language in the bill could be strengthened by adopting a shorter embargo period (e.g. six months), which would benefit the public without harming journal publishers. In addition, they suggest that research articles be shared via a central repository similar to PubMed Central and incorporate provisions to ensure the ability to conduct text and data mining on the entire corpus of federally-funded articles. Creative Commons and other groups have also communicated the need for not only free public access, but also access whereby publicly funded research is made available under open licenses.

Open Access icon was created by Duke Innovation Co-Lab and in the public domain.
U.S. Department of Education seal is in the public domain.
U.S. Department of Labor seal is in the public domain.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services seal is in the public domain.

Przegląd linków CC #116

CC Poland, January 20, 2014 09:12 AM   License: Uznanie autorstwa 2.5 Polska

Creative Commons otwarte zasoby1. Na łamach Krytyki Politycznej komentarze do rządowej propozycji darmowego i jednego podręcznika dla pierwszoklasistów od Beaty Stasińskiej ( Wydawnictwo WAB), Jarosława Lipszyca (Fundacja Nowoczesna Polska) i Piotra Pacewicza (Centrum Edukacji Obywatelskiej).

2. Amerykański Kongres uchwalił prawo nakazujące instytucjom federalnym o budżecie powyżej 100 mln. dolarów rocznie publikację w otwartym dostępie wyników badań naukowych maksymalnie 12 miesięcy od publikacji w czasopiśmie naukowym. Więcej o prawie w komunikacie koalicji  na rzecz Open Access SPARC.

3. Na łamach serwisu fundacji Electronic Frontier Founbdation możecie przeczytać komentarz w ramach “Copyright week” o roli dużych wydawców i operatorów baza czasopism w blokowaniu rozwoju modelu Open Access co raz powszechniej wdrażanego oddolnie przez uczelnie, autorów i rządy.

4. Dość niespodziewanie Google znacząco ułatwiło pracę wszystkim poszukującym zdjęć na licencjach Creative Commons. Od kilku dni filtrowanie po prawach do użytkowania znajduje się w zakładce “Narzędzia” na głównej stronie wyników wyszukiwania (wcześniej należało przejść aż do wyszukiwania zaawansowanego by to zrobić).

5. Dziś w godzinach 15-18 możecie obejrzeć na żywo publicznego wysłuchania raportu “New technologies and open educational resources” w komitecie Kultury i Edukacji Komisji Europejskiej.

6. Amerykański startup panOpen, który chce rozwijać narzędzia łatwiejszego odkrywania i pracy z otwartymi zasobami edukacyjnymi z sukcesem znajduje kolejnych inwestorów.

7. Na łamach Scientific American Alex Wild, naukowiec i fotograf pisze o problemie nieelastyczności wydawców Open Access używających licencji Creative Commons w sytuacjach gdy np. autor chciałby nie publikować na danej licencji fotografii dodanych do treści artykułu.

8.  Na koniec na chwilę wrócimy do wątku podsumowań roku (jeśli jeszcze macie na nie siły) i polecimy Dwutygodnik.com z podsumowaniem/prognozą kulturowo-technologiczną.

9. Do grona publikujących metadane na licencji Creative Commons Zero dołączyła Niemiecka Biblioteka Narodowa.

Public domain wins copyright week!

Mike Linksvayer, January 20, 2014 12:46 AM   License: CC0 1.0 Universal

public domain wins copyright weekEFF coordinated a six day copyright week, with suggested readings and actions in support of six principles, below with readings + actions count:

  • Transparency: 10 + 1 = 11
  • Building and Defending a Robust Public Domain: 16 + 0 = 16
  • Open Access: 9 + 2 = 11
  • You Bought it, You Own It: 8 + 3 = 11
  • Fair Use Rights: 14 + 1 = 15
  • Getting Copyright Right: 7 + 1 = 8

I couldn’t help but notice that the public domain “wins” by the metric of total readings + actions, perhaps indicative of relative enthusiasm and evaluation of importance by the communities EFF reaches. Good.

The apparent “loser” is getting copyright right, which I’ll also take undue satisfaction in: it’s an impoverished objective, relative to expanding and protecting intellectual freedom. Alternatively, public domain maximalism (second alternative, corresponding to the runner-up: fair use maximalism) is getting copyright right. But I acknowledge advocating “getting copyright right” (and the entire exercise of copyright week) is a fine thing to do given constraints, and its “loss” is likely due to being a more difficult writing assignment, and falling on the last day.

The latent “loser” though is the role of commons initiatives in changing the knowledge economy, thus the range of policies which can be imagined, and the resources available to support various policies. Some initiatives are mentioned, but almost exclusively as victims of costs imposed by bad policy. Daniel Mietchen’s Wikimedia and Open Access might be the reading closest to what I’d like to see a whole day dedicated to (on the seventh day of copyright week, commoners made their own freedom). Though starting with copyright-imposed costs to the project, Mietchen proceeds to describe collaboration among Wikimedians and the Open Access movement, and ends with (implied) competition:

wider exposure of Open Access materials through Wikimedia platforms may perhaps serve as an incentive for researchers to reconsider whether putting their articles behind access and reuse barriers is an appropriate approach to publishing them.

Related, because it is the domain of the most robust commons initiatives, it is too bad software was not the primary topic of several copyright week readings and actions. But even ignoring the seventh day angle, it is incredibly short-sighted to treat software as a separate category, whether for purposes of study or policy (e.g., copyright). All of the traditional subjects of copyright are now largely made with and mediated by software, but that’s just the beginning. Soon enough, they’ll all be software, or be obsolete. (In hindsight I should have noticed copyright week approaching, and urged various free/open source software initiatives to participate, and explain their policy relevance and potency.)

Back to cheering, I highly recommend at least skimming a few of the readings in each category, linked on the EFF copyright week page. Unless you follow knowledge policy writ large really closely, you’re almost certain to learn something new about policy battles that will play a large role in shaping the future of society.

To make up for the lack of copyright week “actions” recommended for building and defending a robust public domain: sign the public domain manifesto, upgrade your work to the public domain, and enjoy and share the greatest public domain film to date.

Copyright Week: What happened to the Brazilian Copyright Reform?

Creative Commons, January 18, 2014 08:10 AM   License: Attribution 3.0 Unported

A few years ago, a major copyright reform in Brazil seemed imminent. What happened? On the Creative Commons Brazil blog, Mariana Giorgetti Valente and Pedro Nicoletti Mizukami have an excellent post on the complicated history of copyright reform in Brazil:

In December 2007, the Brazilian Ministry of Culture — then under Minister Gilberto Gil’s administration — started the National Copyright Law Forum, a series of seminars across the country with the participation of lawyers, researchers, artists and industry representatives, with the goal of gathering information and pave the way for a copyright reform process. Based on these events, and other closed and open meetings with different stakeholders, the Ministry of Justice prepared a draft copyright reform bill, which was submitted to public consultation in 2010.

The consultation took place in an online platform similar to that used for the Marco Civil consultation on Internet regulation. Comments could be submitted on an article by article basis, and the analysis of almost 8,000 contributions resulted in a project that was considerable superior to current law, with greater attention to public interest issues, an expanded list of copyright exceptions — including a general clause, the permission to circumvent DRM/TPMs in certain conditions, checks on the collective management of copyright (a serious problem in Brazil), and the explicit recognition that copyright may be limited by consumer protection law, antitrust law, as well as human rights.

When Dilma Rousseff was elected the 36th President of Brazil, however, the copyright reform process suffered its first major setback. To succeed Juca Ferreira as her Minister of Culture, Rousseff chose Ana de Hollanda, a singer with close ties to the recording industry and ECAD — the central office for collecting societies in Brazil, one of the greatest adversaries of the draft bill. Indicative of how different her approach to copyright policy would be, one of the first measures de Hollanda took as Minister was to remove Creative Commons licensing from the Ministry of Culture’s website. Soon after, de Hollanda replaced most of the staff of the Ministry’s Intellectual Rights Directorship (Diretoria de Direitos Intelectuais), and mostly stalled the reform process, despite concluding a revision of the text.

Read the full post.

Copyright Week: What happened to the Brazilian Copyright Reform?

CC Brazil, January 18, 2014 01:54 AM   License: Atribuição-CompartilhaIgual 3.0 Brasil

Mariana Giorgetti Valente (@mrnvlnt)
Pedro Nicoletti Mizukami (@p_mizukami)
Creative Commons Brazil
Center for Technology and Society @ FGV Law School, Rio

[Versão em português/Portuguese version]

While open licensing can be a powerful strategy to correct some of the many distortions produced by an unbalanced copyright system, there’s only so much that can be accomplished without a major overhaul of copyright law. Creative Commons has recently acknowledged this in a very eloquent statement in support of global copyright reform:

CC licenses are a patch, not a fix, for the problems of the copyright system. They apply only to works whose creators make a conscious decision to affirmatively license the right for the public to exercise exclusive rights that the law automatically grants to them. The success of open licensing demonstrates the benefits that sharing and remixing can bring to individuals and society as a whole. However, CC operates within the frame of copyright law, and as a practical matter, only a small fraction of copyrighted works will ever be covered by our licenses.

Brazil is one of many countries facing the difficult task of copyright reform, and Copyright Week is a good opportunity to reflect on what has — and has not — been accomplished so far. The current law, passed in 1998, ranks as one of the worst rated copyright laws in Consumer’s International IP Watchlist, with a C- grade. When it comes the ongoing process to reform it, there are reasons to be both optimistic and concerned.

In December 2007, the Brazilian Ministry of Culture — then under Minister Gilberto Gil’s administration — started the National Copyright Law Forum, a series of seminars across the country with the participation of lawyers, researchers, artists and industry representatives, with the goal of gathering information and pave the way for a copyright reform process. Based on these events, and other closed and open meetings with different stakeholders, the Ministry of Justice prepared a draft copyright reform bill, which was submitted to public consultation in 2010.

The consultation took place in an online platform similar to that used for the Marco Civil consultation on Internet regulation. Comments could be submitted on an article by article basis, and the analysis of almost 8,000 contributions resulted in a project that was considerably superior to the current law, with greater attention to public interest issues, an expanded list of copyright exceptions — including a general clause —, the permission to circumvent DRM/TPMs in certain conditions, checks on the collective management of copyright (a serious problem in Brazil), and the explicit recognition that copyright may be limited by consumer protection law, antitrust law, as well as human rights.

When Dilma Rousseff was elected the 36th President of Brazil, however, the copyright reform process suffered its first major setback. To succeed Juca Ferreira as her Minister of Culture, Rousseff chose Ana de Hollanda, a singer with close ties to the recording industry and ECAD — the central office for collecting societies in Brazil —, one of the greatest adversaries of the draft bill. Indicative of how different her approach to copyright policy would be, one of the first measures de Hollanda took as Minister was to remove Creative Commons licensing from the Ministry of Culture’s website. Soon after, de Hollanda replaced most of the staff of the Ministry’s Intellectual Rights Directorship (Diretoria de Direitos Intelectuais), and mostly stalled the reform process, despite concluding a revision of the text.

One year and eight months after being appointed, de Hollanda was ousted from the Ministry, in great part — though not exclusively — due to her mishandling of copyright-related issues. The new minister, Marta Suplicy, signaled towards a continuation of the Gilberto Gil/Juca Ferreira years by hiring back Marcos Souza, who had been let go by de Hollanda, as the head of the Intellectual Rights Directorship. This took place in October 2012. Between then and now, the text went through a new round of modifications, and is now at the office of the Chief of Staff of the President of Brazil, ready to be sent to Congress.

Why, then, has it not been sent yet? And why wasn’t the final text published, considering this was a process that was conducted with a reasonable degree of transparency, at least in its initial stages?

1. Marco Civil and the battle over ISP liability. One of the most controversial bills currently at the House of Deputies is the aforementioned Marco Civil, which deals with, among other themes, net neutrality and ISP liability.

The issue of ISP liability in Marco Civil has clear copyright ramifications. The initial bill, also the result of a public consultation process, created a system in which content would be removed from the Internet only in response to court order, eschewing a notice-and-takedown system. Nonetheless, concessions made to cultural industry stakeholders, spearheaded by Organizações Globo, established an exception to the rule: the Marco Civil system is not applicable to copyright infringement, which will be dealt with by the copyright reform bill. Copyright reform should then stage one more spinous controversy.

2. The 2014 elections as an incentive for delayed action. Brazil will hold presidential elections in 2014. There is absolutely no incentive for Government to send major proposals to Congress before the matter of Dilma Rousseff’s reelection is settled.  Since some of bills at the House of Deputies in 2013 was already controversial enough — Marco Civil included — the Government decided to avoid the thorny issue of copyright reform. It is reasonable to expect that the copyright reform bill will not be introduced until after 2014 — and if Dilma is reelected.

Given this scenario, what is most troubling about the future ahead is that the entire copyright reform process could lose considerable momentum in 2014. A lot was already lost during 2013, considering civil society has turned its focus to Marco Civil. On top of that, the Snowden leaks and the upcoming Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance, to be held in São Paulo, have turned copyright into a secondary concern. Privacy and surveillance seem to have taken the front stage.

A further complicating factor is that one of the main items in the copyright reform agenda has actually been passed into legislation last year: collective management regulation. Law 12.853/2013 provides for more efficiency and transparency in the management public performance rights, addressing a problem that was certainly among Brazil’s most serious when it comes to copyright and the recording industry. While this is definitely not be regarded as a step back, detaching the issue of collective management from the body of the copyright reform bill means that some of the stakeholders that were previously supporting the broader process will not be as interested in continuing to push for reform. A few might even oppose some of the reform items.

Finally, while the Ministry of Culture must be commended for its efforts in moving the conversation forward, researchers and civil society have not had access to the latest draft of the text — the one currently in the office of the Chief of Staff of the President of Brazil. Civil society organizations are trying to reestablish the network that was created during the initial stage of the reform process. It’s about time: we still have a long way to go, and the challenges ahead require a great deal of coordination and support from reform-minded individuals and organizations.

[Read other contributions to Copyright Week]

Copyright Week: O que aconteceu com a reforma do direito autoral no Brasil?

CC Brazil, January 18, 2014 01:54 AM   License: Atribuição-CompartilhaIgual 3.0 Brasil

Mariana Giorgetti Valente (@mrnvlnt)
Pedro Nicoletti Mizukami (@p_mizukami)
Creative Commons Brasil
Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade da FGV Direito Rio (CTS/FGV)

Este texto foi originalmente escrito para a Copyright Week. A versão original pode ser lida aqui.

Ainda que o licenciamento aberto seja uma estratégia poderosa para corrigir algumas das muitas distorções produzidas por um sistema de direito autoral desequilibrado, não se avança muito sem uma ampla reforma do direito autoral. O Creative Commons recentemente reconheceu esse fato em uma declaração bastante firme em apoio de reformas pelo mundo:

As licenças CC são uma solução provisória, e não definitiva, para os problemas do sistema de direitos autorais. Elas são aplicáveis somente às obras cujos criadores optem, conscientemente, por licenciar ao público um direito exclusivo que a lei lhes concede automaticamente. O sucesso do licenciamento aberto demonstra os benefícios que o compartilhamento e o remix podem trazer para os indivíduos e para a sociedade como um todo. No entanto, o CC opera dentro dos parâmetros dos direitos autorais, e, consequentemente, apenas uma pequena fração de obras protegidas será coberta pelas nossas licenças.

O Brasil é um dos muitos países que hoje enfrentam a difícil tarefa de reformar sua legislação de direitos autorais, e a Copyright Week é uma boa oportunidade para refletirmos sobre onde se avançou — e onde nem tanto — até o momento. A lei atual, de 1998 (Lei n. 9.610), é considerada uma das piores leis do mundo pela Consumer’s International IP Watchlist, tendo sido classificada com uma nota C-. No que diz respeito ao processo em andamento de reformá-la, temos tanto razões para ser otimistas quanto razões para ficar preocupados.

Em dezembro de 2007, o Ministério da Cultura, então sob administração de Gilberto Gil, deu início ao Fórum Nacional do Direito Autoral, uma série de seminários pelo país que contaram com a participação de advogados, pesquisadores, artistas e representantes da indústria cultural brasileira. Com base nesses eventos e tantas outras reuniões, abertas e fechadas, com diferentes atores do cenário, o Ministério da Justiça preparou um anteprojeto de reforma do direito autoral, que foi submetido à consulta pública em 2010.

A consulta ocorreu numa plataforma online bastante semelhante à que foi usada para a consulta pública do Marco Civil. Comentários podiam ser enviados artigo por artigo, e a análise de quase 8.000 contribuições resultou num anteprojeto que era consideravelmente superior à lei atual, com maior destaque a aspectos relativos ao interesse público, uma lista expandida de limitações ao direito autoral — incluindo uma limitação geral —, uma permissão para violação de DRM/TPMs em determinados casos, fiscalização da atividade de gestão coletiva (um problema grave no Brasil), e o reconhecimento explícito de que o direito autoral pode ser limitado para fins de defesa do consumidor, pelo direito antitruste, bem como por direitos humanos.

No entanto, quando Dilma Rousseff foi eleita, em 2010, o processo de reforma dos direitos autorais sofreu seu primeiro baque. Para suceder Juca Ferreira como seu Ministro da Cultura, Rousseff indicou Ana de Hollanda, uma cantora com relações próximas à indústria fonográfica e ao ECAD — um dos maiores adversários do anteprojeto. Foi bastante representativo de sua nova postura frente a direitos autorais que uma de suas primeiras medidas tenha sido remover as licenças Creative Commons do site do Ministério da Cultura. Logo depois, de Hollanda substituiu a maior parte das pessoas que trabalhavam para a Diretoria de Direitos Intelectuais do MinC, e praticamente pôs um fim ao processo de reforma, apesar de ter empreendido uma revisão do texto.

Um ano e oito meses depois de ter sido empossada, de Hollanda foi afastada do Ministério, em grande parte, embora não exclusivamente, devido ao seu tratamento às questões de direito autoral. A nova ministra, Marta Suplicy, sinalizou pela continuação dos anos Gilberto Gil/Juca Ferreira, recontratando Marcos Souza, o antigo Diretor de Direitos Intelectuais, que havia sido afastado por Ana de Hollanda. Isso ocorreu em outubro de 2012. Desde então, o anteprojeto passou por mais uma série de modificações, e está agora na mesa da Casa Civil, pronto para ser enviado ao Congresso.

Mas por que, então, ele ainda não foi enviado? E por que a versão final não foi publicada, considerando-se que o processo fora conduzido com um grau razoável de transparência, pelo menos nos estágios iniciais?

1. Marco Civil e a disputa sobre a responsabilidade de intermediários. Um dos projetos de lei mais cotroversos sendo debatidos hoje na Câmara dos Deputados é o já mencionado Marco Civil, que lida com, entre outros temas, neutralidade de rede e responsabilidade de intermediários.

A questão da responsabilidade de intermediários no Marco Civil está umbilicalmente ligada ao direito autoral. O projeto inicial, também resultado de uma consulta pública, criava um sistema mediante o qual um conteúdo só pode ser removido da Internet em resposta a uma ordem judicial, em clara oposição a um sistema de notice-and-takedown. No entanto, concessões feitas a atores da indústria, encabeçados pelas Organizações Globo, estabeleceram uma exceção à regra: o esquema do Marco Civil não é aplicável nos casos de infração a direito autoral, cujas regras devem ser estabelecidas, determina o texto, na reforma do direito autoral. A reforma ganhou então mais uma espinhosa controvérsia.

2. As eleições de 2014 como um fator para o atraso. O Brasil terá eleições presidenciais em 2014. O Governo não tem qualquer incentivo para enviar propostas importantes para o Congresso antes que a reeleição (ou não) de Dilma Rousseff seja decidida. Em 2013, como alguns dos projetos na Câmara dos Deputados já foram controversos o suficiente, incluindo o Marco Civil, o Governo decidiu evitar entrar na disputa por essa reforma. Não seria surpreendente se o Governo decidisse esperar até depois de 2014 para enfrentar a questão — isso se Dilma for reeleita.

Dado o cenário, o que é mais perturbador sobre o processo todo é que a reforma do direito autoral corre o risco de perder proeminência durante 2014. Muito já se perdeu em 2013, dado que a sociedade civil brasileira esteve empenhada na aprovação do Marco Civil. Além disso, os vazamentos de Snowden e o encontro que ocorrerá em 2014 em São Paulo sobre o futuro da governança global da Internet fizeram com que o direito autoral se tornasse um problema secundário. Privacidade e espionagem parecem ter assumido a posição de destaque.

Um outro fator complicador é que um dos pontos mais importantes da agenda de reforma foi aprovado durante 2013: regulação da gestão coletiva. A Lei 12.853/2013 contém disposições para mais eficiência e transparência na administração de direitos de execução pública, potencialmente resolvendo um dos problemas mais sérios que o Brasil enfrentava no que diz respeito a direito autoral e indústria fonográfica. Evidentemente, essa reforma não pode de forma alguma ser vista como um passo para trás; no entanto, separar a questão da gestão coletiva da reforma geral de direitos autorais significa que alguns dos mais proeminentes atores que pressionavam pela reforma podem perder interesse nela. Alguns deles podem inclusive se opor a alguns dos itens.

Para terminar, ao mesmo tempo que precisamos reconhecer os esforços do Ministério da Cultura em avançar na discussão, pesquisadores e a sociedade civil ainda não tiveram acesso ao texto final do anteprojeto — o que está atualmente na Casa Civil. Organizações da sociedade civil estão tentando restabelecer a rede que fora criada nos estágios iniciais do processo de reforma. Já era hora: ainda temos um longo caminho pela frente, e os desafios que virão exigirão uma forte organização e o amplo apoio de indivíduos e organizações pró-reforma.

Copyright Week: Five Reasons Fair Use Best Practices Are Changing the World

CC USA, January 17, 2014 07:38 PM   License: Attribution 3.0 United States

copyright week croppedThis piece by AU Professors Peter Jaszi, Patricia Aufderheide, and Brandon Butler, is cross posted from ARL Policy Notes, Link (CC-BY).

Copyright Week is the perfect occasion to celebrate fair use, certainly the most dynamic and arguably the most important doctrine in copyright law. The last 15 or 20 years have seen a remarkable series of developments that make fair use, now more than ever, the most vital protection of the public interest in the Copyright Act. For Copyright Week, we wanted to highlight a part of the fair use landscape that, perhaps more than any other, puts fair use in the hands of practitioners who need it most: the Fair Use Best Practices movement.

With a little help from a team of researchers at American University, an ever-growing cadre of communities has identified where their work necessarily encounters copyright and the kinds of fair uses that are essential to the communities’ continued flourishing and success. Each code (read them all here) contains a short but powerful description of fair use’s broad history and meaning, followed by a set of principles that describe situations where fair use may apply accompanied by limitations that describe the outer bounds of community consensus. The effects of these documents can be dramatic. Documentary filmmakers came first, and had great success, but they’ve been joined by educators, scholars, poets, online video makers, journalists, and (most importantly for this blog) librarians. As more and more people need fair use to continue getting things done, best practices are an idea whose time has come.

So, without further ado, we give you five reasons fair use best practices are changing the world:

  1. They’re based on solid legal footing. Specifically, path-breaking research by copyright scholar Michael Madison. Madison surveyed over a century of fair use decision making and found that, over and over again, courts determining whether a use was fair inquired into the mission and values of the communities standing before them to vindicate their fair use rights. Uses firmly grounded in the socially beneficial mission of a practice community were much more likely to be blessed as fair.Each code starts from that insight, together with the dominant paradigm of “transformative use” that informs court decisions in fair use. The community norms developed on this foundation are then further shored up by a legal review by five independent experts from diverse backgrounds who certify that the Code represents a reasonable application of fair use law to the practice area. Practices consistent with the Documentary Filmmakers Code have been blessed by federal courts, as have practices identified as fair in the #Librarianscode. Indeed, between Georgia State and HathiTrust, the practices described in four of the eight principles in the #librarianscode have been blessed by federal courts.
  2. They clear away the crud. Anyone who engages with copyrighted material for more than a few minutes will encounter a dizzying array of so-called ‘guidelines,’ rules of thumb, ‘negotiated’ agreements, and urban myths and legends that proliferate around copyright. The goal of best practices is to identify the best approaches to recurring fair use scenarios, rather than to measure the lowest common denominator of the status quo and freeze it in amber forever. Therefore, developing best practices is an opportunity for communities to step back and question current practice in light of the latest developments in fair use law and the broadest, deepest understanding of the mission of the community. Librarians, for example, categorically rejected the arbitrary numerical limits in the 1976 Classroom Photocopying Guidelines. On reflection, they were simply impossible to justify in light of the actual needs of librarians and the contours of modern fair use law.
  3. They make the law less alien, and rights less scary. By grounding fair use choices in practices and norms that are native to a community, best practices change attitudes toward fair use. People with a Code go from a kind of grudging, fearful “compliance” with an alien copyright law imposed from above to a unified exercise of core First Amendment rights that emerges from their own values. Teachers, librarians, filmmakers, and poets who used to feel like they were acting alone in the face of an intimidating body of law come to understand that they are actually engaged collectively in legitimate, lawful acts that are normal, indeed essential, for their profession.
  4. They help you get things done. The bottom line for any group with a shared mission and goals is whether they are able to advance mission and achieve goals. Where myth, misinformation, fear, uncertainty, and doubt dominate, any number of important projects and practices can be suppressed, driven underground, or stymied altogether. Films don’t get made, or they don’t get distribution; poems aren’t written or published; works languish in archives inaccessible to remote or print-disabled researchers. Best practices are relentlessly pragmatic and mission-centered; through them, practitioners articulate fair use solutions to real, live problems. When the community takes best practices seriously, real work gets done—work that might otherwise have been inconceivable.
  5. They help you get management on board. Almost everyone has a supervisor, counselor, or other gatekeeper who decides what projects they can pursue, whether their work will see the light of day, and so on. Whether it’s a Dean, a TV producer, or a publishing agent, sooner or later you’ve got to convince someone else that what you’re doing is legit. Understandably, gatekeepers are often expected (forced, even) to play the role of “copyright cop,” saying “no” to any project that looks like it might raise an eyebrow.Before best practices, each practitioner would face these folks alone, often as non-lawyers, and try to convince them to take a risk based on, well, who knows what. But with best practices in hand, practitioners can go to their Deans, their publishers, their producers, whomever, and say, “What I’m doing is normal. It’s grounded in the values of my community. And it’s in line with a document that’s been vetted by experts and endorsed by leading organizations in my field.” That’s powerful stuff! No wonder the Documentary Filmmakers code has been so transformative, as has the #Librarianscode, and many many others.

So, there you have it. As Copyright Week winds down and we contemplate the copyright system we have, and the opportunities for change and improvement, we submit that fair use best practices are, by far and away, the most accessible, effective, and powerful tool in the hands of the public.

For more information, check out the full roster of best practices at the Center for Media and Social Impact and check out Pat and Peter’s book, Reclaiming Fair Use.

Make your voice heard to fix copyright in the EU!

Communia Association, January 17, 2014 01:50 PM   License: CC0 1.0 Universal

As we have mentioned here before, the European Commission has launched a consultation on the future of European copyright policy. The responses provided to the questionnaire must be submitted by 5 February 2014 and will be used as a justification for future policy proposals from the Commission. If citizens and professionals don’t make their voice heard the outcomes of the consultation will likely be used to further limit citizens’ rights to create, share and access culture and to further weaken the public domain.

Fix copyright – take part in the consultation

In order to prevent this from happening, COMMUNIA has joined forces with a range of other NGOs and professional associations to produce a tool that helps citizens and professionals to respond to the consultation in a way that promotes access to culture and a strengthening of the the public domain. The results of this collaboration can be found at youcan.fixcopyright.eu.

The tool lets you filter the 80 questions from the consultation document based on a number of different personas (we have compiled selections for online users, parents, teachers/academics/researchers, freelancers/entrepreneurs/businesspersons, librarians/cultural heritage professionals, bloggers/remixers, disabled users and rights holders). There is of course an option to answer all questions. The website also provides background information and advice on how to respond to the questions.

If you care about a copyright system that promotes innovation and access to culture in the digital environment and if you care about the public domain, you should respond to the consultation today! You may also want to ask friends and colleagues to do the same.

The Copyright Directive and User Freedoms

It is not very often that citizens get the chance to make their voice heard in the complicated and often very opaque discussions about European copyright policy. This is the first time that the European Commission is soliciting a broad range questions (some of which are rather sensible, others not so much) about the core of the existing legal framework, the 2001 Copyright in the Information Society Directive. This directive establishes a number of user freedoms (‘exceptions and limitations’ in the language of the directive) to make use of copyrighted material without prior authorisation for purposes related to education, use by disabled persons, access to cultural heritage and private use.

These user freedoms are important in shaping the contours of what is regulated by copyright and what is not. By pushing for an extension of these user freedoms, copyright can be brought back to a more sensible system that protects the legitimate interests of creators without needlessly limiting uses that are beneficial to society as a whole. The consultation provides a lot of opportunities to make this argument.

In addition, the consultation contains questions on lots of other topics that are dear to COMMUNIA. These include the length of copyright protection (hint: it is too long) and questions about registration of works (an important idea). You can find more information on how the questions in the consultation relate to our own policy recommendations in our previous post on the consultation.

Still with us? Then please go and answer the consultation now!

Congress passes spending bill requiring free access to publicly funded research

Creative Commons, January 17, 2014 01:35 AM   License: Attribution 3.0 Unported

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Update: The bill was signed by President Obama January 17, 2014.

Both the U.S. House of Representative and Senate have passed the 2014 omnibus appropriations legislation (2.9 MB PDF). President Obama is expected to sign the bill shortly.

What’s so special about this legislation? Federal agencies with research budgets of at least $100 million per year will be required provide the public with free online access to scholarly articles generated with federal funds no later than 12 months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal. The agencies affected by the public access provision of the appropriations bill include the Department of Labor, Department of Education, and Department of Health and Human Services (which includes research-intensive sub-agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

According to SPARC, the bill “ensure[s] that $31 billion of the total $60 billion annual U.S. investment in taxpayer-funded research is now openly accessible.”

The inclusion of the public access provision builds upon existing initiatives, such as the NIH Public Access Policy. And it echoes the more recent push for public access to publicly funded research advocated through the introduction of the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR) and the White House directive. But with FASTR tabled in Congress last year and the federal agencies dragging their feet on complying with Obama’s public access directive (plans were due in August 2013), the passage of the 2014 spending legislation is a welcome measure for increasing access to publicly funded research.

SPARC thinks the language in the bill could be strengthened by adopting a shorter embargo period (e.g. six months), which would benefit the public without harming journal publishers. In addition, they suggest that research articles be shared via a central repository similar to PubMed Central and incorporate provisions to ensure the ability to conduct text and data mining on the entire corpus of federally-funded articles. Creative Commons and other groups have also communicated the need for not only free public access, but also access whereby publicly funded research is made available under open licenses.

Open Access icon was created by Duke Innovation Co-Lab and in the public domain.
U.S. Department of Education seal is in the public domain.
U.S. Department of Labor seal is in the public domain.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services seal is in the public domain.