Creative Commons

WikiProject Open is an online School of Open training program for new and seasoned Wikipedia volunteers to collaborate on improving Wikipedia articles related to openness. The aim of the project is two-fold: in addition to improving Wikipedia articles related to openness (such as open access publishing and open educational resources), volunteers seek to improve Wikimedia content generally with the aid of openly licensed materials.

Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-54440-0001 / CC BY-SA

This Saturday, WikiProject Open’s Pete Forsyth and Sara Frank Bristow invite you to join their Barn Raising event from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. U.S. Pacific Time, at the Oakland Impact Hub on 2323 Broadway, Oakland, California. Lunch and refreshments will be provided. You can also join the event online. Sara says:

“At the Barn Raising, we will focus on high priority Wikipedia articles: articles that are widely read, but that — despite ongoing efforts — remain poorly sourced, incomplete, or out of date. (In the wiki world, we often borrow the term “Barn Raising” to evoke the idea of a community coming together to build something substantial in a short time. It’s been described as a way to “make the impossible possible.”)

This event is open to all! Our goal is to make significant improvements to OER related articles; so those who are brand new to Wikipedia and/or open education might want to take a little time to prepare. We will send out helpful resources for beginners as the date gets closer.”

Register here.
Visit the wiki page here.

And read more about School of Open training programs here!

---

About the School of Open

The School of Open is a global community of volunteers focused on providing free education opportunities on the meaning, application, and impact of “openness” in the digital age and its benefit to creative endeavors, education, and research. Volunteers develop and run online courses, offline workshops, and real world training programs on topics such as Creative Commons licenses, open educational resources, and sharing creative works. The School of Open is coordinated by Creative Commons and P2PU, a peer learning community for developing and running free online courses.

Michael Carroll will testify today at 1:00 before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet on the topic “Moral Rights, Termination Rights, Resale Royalty, and Copyright Term.”  The full witness list for the hearing is available here.  The full text of Michael Carroll’s prepared statement (PDF) follows:

Chairman Coble, Ranking Member Nadler, Chairman Goodlatte, Ranking Member Conyers, and members of the Subcommittee, my name is Michael Carroll, and I am a member of the faculty at American University Washington College of Law, where I direct the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property and serve as the Public Lead for Creative Commons USA.  Creative Commons USA is the United States’ project that works under the terms of an agreement with Creative Commons, Inc., a global non-profit corporation headquartered in California.  Creative Commons has agreements with projects in more than 70 countries through which the local project is authorized to represent Creative Commons at the national level.  Creative Commons and Creative Commons USA have some experiences and legal tools that are relevant to the topics of today’s hearing.  Briefly, these are:

Creative Commons and Moral Rights

Creative Commons provides the public with a range of legal tools designed to promote the legal sharing and reuse of works of authorship.  Creative Commons offers six standardized copyright licenses that a copyright owner can choose to grant the public permission for royalty-free use subject to a range of conditions.  See https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ and Appendix A.

These licenses are recognized as the global standard for sharing works and are used by Wikipedia, open access journal publishers, creators of open courseware and open educational resources, bloggers, photographers, musicians, filmmakers, and every other kind of creator imaginable.  There are at least 500 million copyrighted works available under one of these Creative Commons licenses.

Users of Creative Commons licenses require attribution in exchange for permission to use their works of authorship, and this license term overlaps the moral right of attribution. The licensor waivers the remainder of her moral rights to the extent allowed under national law.  Originally, the suite of Creative Commons licenses treated attribution as an optional term.  However, when data showed that more than 98% of license adopters opted for the attribution requirement, Creative Commons made attribution a required term of all six licenses.  Other conditions that can be imposed are restricting use to non-commercial use, requiring that any derivative works produced from the licensed work are licensed under the same terms (the “Share Alike” term), or that the work can be shared but not modified.  A more detailed explanation of these licenses is attached as Appendix A.

In the experience of Creative Commons, creators have a strong interest in receiving attribution for their work, and this interest in some cases is more important to the creator than any interest in profit or compensation.  If Congress were to consider creating an exclusive right of attribution, doing so would be more difficult than may appear at first glance.  A quick summary of the kinds of issues that have arisen in the Creative Commons experience include what is the threshold creative contribution that must be made to receive an attribution right, how should attribution be given for works created in iterative and group settings, and must the attributing party specify who contributed what elements of the work of authorship when giving attribution?  These issues suggest that as strong as the attribution interest is, proper attribution is a contextual matter.

Creative Commons and Copyright Term

Creative Commons also provides two tools directly related to the term of copyright.  One is the CC0 (pronounced CC Zero) tool that enables copyright owners to effectively shorten the term of protection for their work by dedicating their copyright to the public domain. See http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/. The other is the Public Domain Mark, which is just a label that enables members of the public to mark works as having the full range of reuse freedom that comes when a work enters the public domain. See http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

CC0 has been used in a number of contexts, such as by a repository of public domain clipart, by creators of scientific databases, and by public bodies in countries that extend copyright to government works.

Creative Commons and the Termination Right

Exercising the termination right is overly cumbersome and confusing to many authors and their heirs.  Creative Commons created and hosts an Internet based tool still in its beta version that provides those with a potential termination right a means of assessing whether and when they may exercise their termination rights.  See http://labs.creativecommons.org/demos/termination/

Creative Commons did this to aid authors or heirs seeking to reclaim their copyrights for the purpose of sharing their works through a CC license.  In that regard, one obstacle is financial.  Even after an author or heir has run the administrative gantlet, termination is not effective until they pay the Copyright Office recordation fee of a minimum of $105 for one transaction and one title.  See U.S. Copyright Office, Calculating Fees for Recording Documents and Notices of Termination in the Copyright Office at http://www.copyright.gov/fls/sl4d.pdf. While modest for economically valuable copyrights like those in a character such as Superman, this recordation fee is potentially cost prohibitive for scholars, journalists, or others who have created and published many copyrighted works that they would like to share with the public through a Creative Commons license.

Creative Commons USA recommends that the Subcommittee consider a measure that would waive the recordation fee in cases in which the terminating party seeks to reclaim copyright for the purposes of making the work of authorship freely available over the Internet under the terms of an open license.

With this background, I now turn to the issue of copyright term that I was invited to address.

The Term of Copyright Is Too Long

From the public’s perspective, copyright is a trade-off.  It provides incentives for investors to supply funds for creative endeavors and for some professional creators to create new works.  But, copyright restrains freedom of expression and serves as a tax on the cost of purchasing educational, entertainment, and related expressive works. As the English parliamentarian Thomas Macauley recognized long ago, lengthening the term of copyright is economically equivalent to passing a tax increase:  “The principle of copyright is this. It is a tax on readers for the purpose of giving a bounty to writers.”

Focusing on the economic effects of copyright, the issue of copyright term is a question of how long the public should have to pay the copyright tax for any given creative work.  The general economic principle is that the term should be no longer than necessary to induce enough creators and enough investors to devote their efforts to creating and distributing new works of authorship. Recognizing this trade-off, the Founders, when granting Congress the power to create copyright law, also required that copyrights expire. Congress has specific power to enact copyright law for the purpose of “promot[ing] the progress of science and useful arts,” subject to the condition that the “exclusive right” that Congress gives to authors in their “writings” be only “for limited times.”  U.S. Const., art. I, § 8, cl. 8.

Under current law, copyright lasts for the life of the author plus another 70 years, or in the case of works made for hire, 120 years from the date of creation or 95 years from the date of publication.  As a group of leading economists, including five Nobel laureates, have shown this term is too long to serve copyright’s purposes because for all intents and purposes it is virtually equivalent to a perpetual term.  The proper time horizon for copyright is one that provides a meaningful incentive for creators and investors to create new works.  As these economists explained, profits that might be had many decades after an author is deceased are worth less than pennies on the dollar today and therefore cannot be said to be doing any work in promoting the progress of science and useful arts.

This is a problem.  There are three kinds of actions that Congress should consider to remedy this problem, or at least, not make it worse:

(1)    Shorten the term
(2)    Refuse to the lengthen the term any further
(3)    Require registration with the Copyright Office to enjoy the final 20 years of protection

A Shorter Term in the American Tradition

Ideally, Congress would reclaim the American tradition on copyright term and substantially reduce it, if the United States’ international copyright relations were not an issue. A good benchmark for doing so would be to consider reverting copyright term back to what it was prior enactment of the Copyright Act of 1976: an initial term of 28 years that could be renewed for another 28 years.

This policy had two beneficial features.  First, the term of protection was relatively easy to determine because it was based on a work’s date of publication. Second, the renewal requirement acted as a beneficial filter.  Works that retained economic value after the first 28 years of protection had their copyrights renewed.  Those that did not – and this was the majority of registered copyrighted works – were not renewed and went into the public domain.

However, our international copyright relations are a valid consideration that influences policy on copyright term. Congress lengthened the term in the 1976 Act with an eye toward one day joining the Berne Convention, a treaty of European origin reflecting the European model that, among other things, measured the term of protection by the life of the author plus 50 years. Joining the Berne Convention would confer some benefits on some American authors, but it would do so by imposing an increase in the copyright tax on the American public. Congress then passed a copyright tax increase in 1998 when it enacted the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, Tit. I, Pub. L. No. 105-298, 112 Stat. 2827 (Oct. 27, 1998), which extended the term of copyrights both prospectively and retrospectively for an additional 20 years.

Extending the term of existing copyrights was the basis for a constitutional challenge in the Supreme Court on the basis that doing so violated the free speech rights of the public and violated the principles of limited government because the Constitution authorizes Congress to grant copyrights only for “limited times,” and retrospective extensions of term are a means of granting, in the words of my colleague Peter Jaszi, a perpetual term “on the installment plan.” Over two vigorous dissents, the Court rejected this argument, deciding that Congress had the power to extend copyright’s term. Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186 (2003).

No More Extensions

At a minimum, Congress should not lengthen the term of copyright any further.  The Court in Eldred posed the constitutional question as whether Congress had a rational basis for extending the term of copyright for an additional 20 years.  But even a rational basis does not make term extension good policy.  For all of the reasons expressed in Justice Breyer’s dissenting opinion in Eldred, 537 U.S. at 242, which I hereby incorporate by reference, extending the term of copyright imposes a series of harms on the public that are not justified by any offsetting benefits.

Specifically, there is no incentive based support for term extension. See Eldred, 537 U.S. at 256-57 (Breyer, J., dissenting). Term extension did not provide the claimed benefits of uniformity, and going forward this argument would be without basis because we already have acquiesced in the European version of copyright term. And, arguments about longer lifespans actually undermine the case for any term extension rather than supporting it.  See id. at 263.

I should also note that the public has become much more aware of the costs of overly long copyrights than it was in 1998. The problem of orphan works has become exacerbated, and it frustrates the ability of those who would make older copyrighted works available over the Internet to do so. Were Congress to entertain proposals to extend the term of copyright, it should expect vigorous opposition. As evidence, consider the open letter that opposes the United States’ proposal to include in the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement a term requiring all parties to extend their terms to life + 70.  The letter was signed six days ago on July 9, 2014, by a broad coalition of creators and users of copyrighted works organized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation that was sent to negotiators working on the See https://www.eff.org/files/2014/07/08/copyrightterm_tppletter_print-fnl.pdf

A Middle Ground – the Public Domain Enhancement Act

As a middle ground between the American tradition of fixed copyright terms, and the European model of life of the author plus a number of years, I would support the reintroduction of the Public Domain Enhancement Act. First co-sponsored by Representative Lofgren and Doolittle in 2003, H.R. 2601, 108th Cong., and then reintroduced in 2005, H.R. 2408, 109th Cong., the bill in its last form would have required that for works first published in the United States, after the term of the life of the author plus 50 years had passed, the copyright owner seeking the next 10 years of protection up to the maximum term would have to renew the copyright by paying $1 and filing the requisite paperwork with the U.S. Copyright Office. Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante spoke in favor of this proposal when she testified before this Subcommittee. This proposal complies with the United States’ international obligations while also addressing the costs of an overly long copyright term by asking copyright owners to signal that they still value copyright protection by renewing it at a more than reasonable cost.

在7月10日的炎熱下午，由台灣創用CC計畫、網絡行動科技有限公司和BOOKSHOW 說書會聯合舉辦的「公眾領域實務座談與展示會」熱鬧舉行，由台灣創用CC計畫主持人莊庭瑞先生主持，邀請法國CNRS 研究員 Mélanie Dulong de Rosnay 博士及多位各領域學者專家淺談公眾領域和著作權法間之關係、在文化發展中扮演的角色和各領域實務運用上的經驗或困難，並在會後與參加民眾進行小型交流。

• 上半場：座談會

閱讀全文

Hello World.

Today's my last official day as a librarian. Today, 15 March 2014, is exactly 17 years and 5 months since I started work at the National Library Board.

Slightly more than a year back, I reviewed where I was and where/ what I could be going/ doing. The conclusion was that the conditions (personal, external and so on) were right for me to pursue the creative side of things. Fulfilling a childhood ambition, perhaps.

In August last year, I started a modest little media studio with a friend (email me and ask me about it). I've moved from being a librarian to being an entrepreneur. Behind the initial sense of excitement of starting something new, there's a quiet anxiousness of not knowing how things will turn out. I take heart in the support of friends, colleagues and family. I've considered possible success and failure, and concluded that the only real failure is to not try at all.

You could say my Project 365 Sketches was a pre-cursor to my career change, though I've been making music and art for a long time now. The difference is that I hope to do it as paid work.

I started as a Assistant Librarian and left as an Assistant Director. It's quite fitting, the "Assistant" designation. It's an oversimplification, but I'd sum up librarianship as a role that ultimately assists people in their search for connections -- connections to information, ideas and to some extent, people (authors, like-minded readers etc).

In truth, I'm not particularly knowledgeable about library work, library technologies or library management. If anything, I was merely the first Singaporean librarian, who used my real name, and blogged a little about what went on in the library (but even that was largely public programming).

For the folks who have left comments at this blog, or exchanged emails with me as as a librarian, I sincerely thank you all. Blogging has opened new vistas for me. We've largely forgotten why blogging was such a big deal then (leaving "comments" on a website was not the norm). Almost 10 years ago, Blogging had a bad name in Singapore (go search the newspaper archives). Later, people attended talks to understand what was a Blog. I remember a participant asking me (at the very first public talk I gave), after she said she understood what a Blog was, how one "crossed the line" to become a blogger. Those were pretty interesting times.

Will I start another blog? Probably not. Or not yet anyway. I remember telling the journalist, in a 2006 interview, that I'll blog only if I have something meaningful to say.

So.

All stories must come to an end, eventually.

I'm still contactable via ramblinglibrarian [ at ] gmail.

Keep Reading. Keep Learning.

140 linki publikujemy w wersji za dwa tygodnie, z rozbudowanym działem naukowym współprowadzonym z serwisem Uwolnij Naukę.

Otwarta edukacja i kultura

1. Kilka dni temu odbył się doroczny zjazd Koalicji Otwartej Edukacji, poświęcony dalszym planom oraz dyskusji nad stanem otwartej edukacji i nauki w Polsce. Grzegorz Stunża na łamach Edukatora Medialnego rozwija wątki z tych dyskusji, zwłaszcza na temat rządowego darmowego podręcznika i tego czy może on przyczynić się do głębszych zmian w systemie edukacji. Polecamy lekturę.

2. Jan L. Neumann, koordynator projektów pracujący m.in dla UNESCO na swoim blogu rozpisał dość szczegółowe czym są polityki otwartości i jakie ich modele można wyróżnić. Ważną rolę wg. Neumanna w skutecznych implementacjach pełni uwzględnianie warunków i zmian kulturowych, w które polityka ingeruje i które ma zmieniać.

3. Dobrym uzupełnieniem tekstów Neumanna i Stunży może być post na Ed Techie (Martin Weller) o modelu budowania zaangażowania w otwarte zasoby edukacyjne. Weller wyróżnia poziomy użytkowników otwartych zasobów w edukacji i to jakie są ich możliwości zaangażowania i wspierania otwartości (przez aktywne wykorzystywanie i przetwarzanie zasobów).

4. Creative Commons opublikowało swój doroczny raport o działalności i stanie ruchu otwartości na świecie pt. The Future is Open.

5. Mimi Ito na łamach Boing Boing pisze krytycznie o aktualnej edukacji w sieci jako pogłębiającej podziały społeczne, mimo pozornej otwartości na osoby uczestniczące. Alternatywą, którą Mimi  Itowraz ze współpracownikami oferuje to kursy letnie online konstruowane z myślą o uczniach, którzy nie wzięliby udziału np. w popularnych MOOC’ach. Projekt integruje nauczanie z animacją i wsparciem udzielanym przez lokalne biblioteki.

6. Chińska firma IT Huawei oraz jeden z większych i starszych portali otwartych zasobów edukacyjnych Curriki ogłosiły współpracę nad stworzeniem OZE z zakresu funkcji matematycznych, rachunku różniczkowego i innych.

7. Jeśli czasem szukacie bardzo konkretnych argumentów za wykorzystywaniem licencji Creative Commons w Waszej pracy i tak się składa, że jesteście archeologami/żkami to proszę, post właśnie dla Was na blogu Middle Savagery.

8. Departament Edukacji USA przeprowadzi badania efektywności nauczania w modelu odwróconej lekcji z wykorzystaniem Khan Academy.

9. Jaką rolę maję i będą mieć otwarte zasoby edukacyjne w środowisku edukacyjnym kształtowanym przez popularyzację tzw. MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses)? Czy MOOC-i będą wypierać OZE czy raczej uda się je skutecznie integrować? O tych problemach pisze OER Research Hub.

Otwarta nauka

10. Mark Hahnel pisze w „Educause Review” o znaczeniu otwartego udostępniania danych badawczych. Hahnel nawiązuje do idei „open data” wdrażanej przez różne państwa w stosunku do danych publicznych. I dowodzi, że coraz częściej dane są wymieniane wraz z artykułami naukowymi jako wyniki badań, które powinny podlegać otwartemu udostępnieniu. Pilotaż otwartego dostępu do danych badawczych został uruchomiony w ramach unijnego programu Horyzont 2020.

11. Do idei otwartych danych nawiązuje też tekst Susanny-Assunty Sansone na blogu „Impact of Research Hub”. Sansone opisuje nowe rodzaje publikacji naukowej – data paper i data descriptor, służący publikowaniu danych w sposób przejrzysty i podlegający peer review.

12. Koalicja bibliotek naukowych SPARC przyznała swoją doroczną Innovator Award. Otrzymała ją organizacja Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL), działający na rzecz „wiedzy bez barier”. Gratulujemy EIFL, która także w Polsce wspiera działania na rzecz otwartego dostępu.

13. I wreszcie. Inicjatywa Otwieracz opublikowała wyniki badania „Nowe technologie i prawo autorskie w ISNS UW”. W badaniu zapytano studentów, doktorantów i wykładowców ISNS, co sądzą o wolnym dostępie do nauki – czy sami z niego korzystają i czy się do niego przyczyniają udostępniając swoje prace naukowe. Ekipę Inicjatywy zachęcamy do udostępnienia również surowych danych!

14. The International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (STM) opublikowało własny zestaw licencji dla otwartego dostępu (open access). Dlaczego to bardzo zły pomysł, niekompatybilny z Open Definition oraz dodatkowo potęgujący rozproszenie licencji i więcej trudności dla użytkowników pisze Andrés Guadamuz.

Otwarte zasoby

15. Cooper Hewitt, muzeum wzornictwa Smithsonian Institute w Nowym Jorku podczas odświeżania swojej identyfikacji wizualnej m.in. logo postanowiło nowo-zaprojektowaną przez Cherstera Jenkinsa czcionkę udostępnić na otwartej licencji oraz jako otwarte pliki wektorowe UFO (Universal Font Object). Więcej o tym dlaczego tak zrobili w magazynie Quartz.

16. Nie tylko na wolnej licencji (CC BY-SA 4.0), ale również w duchu open source (tekst dostępny jest na platformie github) został opublikowany The Digital First Aid Kit (Zestaw Pierwszej Pomocy Cyfrowej), poradnik który ma pomagać aktywistom, dziennikarzom i obrońcom praw człowieka w radzeniu sobie ze współczesnymi zagrożeniami takimi jak przejęcie kont lub urządzeń z ważnymi danymi.

17. Electronic Frontier Foundation przekazało do domeny publicznej zdjęcie lotnicze ogromnego data center narodowej agencji bezpieczeństwa (NSA) w Utah.

Prawo

18. Nadal silnie utajniane negocjacje TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) nie przynoszą dobrych wiadomości na temat prawa autorskiego. W ramach przecieków z negocjacji oraz wielu działań podejmowanych przez organizacje takiej jak EFF, które starają się przekazać negocjatorom informację o ryzykach jakie TPP niesie ze sobą, wiemy m.in. o propozycjach przedłużenia ochrony utworów oraz przeniesienia na dostawców internetowych uprawnień policyjnych w kwestii ścigania naruszeń IP.

19. Dziś (12 lipca) w Wielkiej Brytanii (ale oczywiście można przyłączyć się internetowo na całym świecie) do akcji #noTTIP (The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negocjowanego właśnie między USA a Unią Europejską. TTIP, uzupełnienie porozumienia TPP oskarżane jest o próbę ograniczania praw konsumenckich i zaostrzania prawa autorskiego.

CC is supporting the Bouchout Declration for Open Biodiversity Knowledge Management by becoming a signatory. The Declaration’s objective is to help make biodiversity data openly available to everyone around the world. It offers the biodiversity community a way to demonstrate their commitment to open science, one of the fundamental components of CC’s vision for an open and participatory internet.

In April 2013 CC participated in a workshop on Names attribution, rights, and licensing convened by the Global Names Project which led to a report titled Scientific names of organisms: attribution, rights, and licensing that concluded:

“There are no copyright impediments to the sharing of names and related data. The system must reward those who make the contributions upon which we rely. Building an attribution system remains one of the more urgent challenges that we need to address together.”

Many of the attendees of the workshop and of the report cited above are among those who met in June in Meise, Belgium and released the Bouchout Declaration.

The declaration calls for free and open use of digital resources about biodiversity and associated access services and exhorts the use of licenses or waivers that grant or allow all users a free, irrevocable, world-wide, right to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly as well as to build on the work and to make derivative works, subject to proper attribution consistent with community practices, while recognizing that providers may develop commercial products with more restrictive licensing. This is not only aligned with the vision of CC itself, CC is also the creator and steward of the legal and technical infrastructure that allows open licensing of content.

The declaration also promotes Tracking the use of identifiers in links and citations to ensure that sources and suppliers of data are assigned credit for their contributions and Persistent identifiers for data objects and physical objects such as specimens, images and taxonomic treatments with standard mechanisms to take users directly to content and data. CC has participated from the beginning in the activities that led to the Joint Declaration of the Data Citation Principles and that promotes the use of persistent identifiers to allow discovery and attribution of resources.

Finally, the declaration calls for Policy developments that will foster free and open access to biodiversity data. CC works assiduously on creating, fostering, nurturing and assisting in the promulgation of open policies and practices that advance the public good by supporting open policy advocates, organizations and policy makers.

We have a few concerns: most copyright laws around the world treat data as not protected by copyright, thus would not require licensing. We are also aware that some cultures wish to preserve and protect traditional knowledge, so we want to make sure information is released by only those who have the right to do so without impinging on the rights of such segments that might otherwise be negatively affected by its release. However, overall we believe that open biodiversity information is crucial for science and society. Be it heralding the Seeds of Change, participating in the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), or assisting the Paleobiology Database to move to CC BY license, CC is playing a vital role in the progress of open science in the areas of biodiversity and natural resources. CC has committed to assisting organizations joining Google in the White House Climate Data Initiative. On a personal front I have released the entire codebase of Earth-Base under the CC0 Public Domain Dedication making possible applications such as Mancos on the iOS App Store.

Most of the world’s biodiversity is in developing countries, and ironically, most of biodiversity information and collections are in developed countries. Agosti calls this, “Biopiracy: taking biodiversity material from the developing world for profit, without sharing benefit or providing the people who live there with access to this crucial information.” (Agosti, D. 2006. Biodiversity data are out of local taxonomists’ reach. Nature 439, 392) Opening up the data will benefit the developing counties by giving them free and easy access to information about their own biological riches. Friction-free access to and reuse of data, software and APIs is essential to answering pressing questions about biodiversity and furthering the move to better understanding and stewarding our planet and its resources. Signing the Bouchout Declaration strengthens this movement.

CC is very proud to announce three additions to its Asia-Pacific community – two new affiliate teams in Mongolia and the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, and a revitalised team in the Republic of India. This boosts our Asia-Pacific community to 16 members and adds a great deal of valuable expertise to our affiliate network.

Rakib Hasan Sumon / CC BY

The first of these new groups to join us was CC India, which had its re-launch in November 2013. CC has had affiliate representation in India previously; however, the new team represents a substantial expansion of our Indian community following many years of networking and outreach by key people locally and internationally. It brings together three groups each of whom are already lead advocates for open culture and its benefits in India – the Centre for Internet and Society, based in Bangalore, will be be providing legal expertise; Acharya Narendra Dev College, who will take the lead in Open Education Resources; and Wikimedia India, who will focus on social outreach and community development. Each group contributes its own lead to help manage the governance of the team – Dr. Savithri Singh (Public Lead, Acharya Narendra Dev College), Sowmyan Tirumurti (Public Lead, Wikimedia India), Pranav Curumsey (Public Lead, Wikimedia India), Pranesh Prakash (Legal Lead, The Centre for Internet & Society). This new team has achieved a great deal over the past year, including workshops, translations and a collaborative competition for their own logo.

alles-schlumpf / CC BY-NC-SA

The next to arrive on the scene was CC Mongolia. Based out of the New Policy Institute’s DREAM IT and the Open Network for Education, ONE Mongolia, this team began to self-organise through a series of seminars designed to spur open culture in Mongolia, including a workshop lead by CC’s then Regional Coordinator for the Asia-Pacific, Chiaki Hayashi. Spurred by the energy from these events, as well as the success of the 2012 UNESCO OER Declaration, a team formalised late last year with leads drawn from across several organisations: Mr.Z.Batbold (Executive Director, New Policy Institute), Dr.D.Enkhbat (Public Lead), Ms.D.Nergui (Legal Lead), Ms.Baasansuren Burmaa (Technology Lead), and Dr. N.Norjhorloo (Community building in civil society). Following on from the founding workshops, they have begun their first project releasing open material through ONE Academy.

Nasir Khan / CC BY-SA

Last but not least, the very newest members of the CC family are CC Bangladesh. Once again, this team grew out of an enthusiastic group of people who were already working to encourage the adoption of open principles in Bangladesh, in this case the Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN), which has been operating locally since 2005. The team will be led by Nasir Khan Saikat (Public Lead) and Munir Hasan (Lead, (BdOSN). Their goal is to create a broad organization where the open source and open content communities can exchange ideas and embark on new initiatives designed to raise awareness and encourage people to share information and resources.

Both CC Mongolia and CC Bangladesh plan to hold formal launch events later this year.

We welcome these new members of our community, and will seek to assist them in any way we can to achieve their goals. We look forward to great things from these already very active and experienced teams. Welcome to the family!

Το να κλέβεις είναι παράνομο, αλλά μερικές εικόνες είναι νόμιμα ελεύθερες για να τις χρησιμοποιήσεις χωρίς κάποιο κόστος. Σε αυτό το άρθρο προτείνονται πέντε τρόποι να αναζητήσετε φωτογραφίες, που είναι ελεύθερα διαθέσιμες.

1) Google

Επειδή υπάρχουν εικόνες στην αναζήτηση της google δεν σημαίνει πως είναι όλες ελεύθερες προς χρήση. Ωστόσο, η google πρόσφατα πρόσθεσε μια καρτέλα στα εργαλεία αναζήτησης για τα δικαιώματα χρήσης, όπου με αυτό τον τρόπο μπορείτε να φιλτράρετε τις εικόνες και να ανακαλύψετε εάν είναι διαθέσιμες με άδειες creative commons. Επίσης χρήσιμο είναι και το Search Creative Commons. Αυτό το εργαλείο σας εξυπηρετεί να βρείτε φωτογραφίες στο Google Images, Flickr, Fotopedia, και Open Clip Art Library με άδειες creative commons.

Να είστε προσεκτικοί διότι υπάρχουν διαφορετικές άδειες creative commons και μπορεί χωρίς να θέλετε να παραβιάσετε πνευματικά δικαιώματα. Για παράδειγμα πολλές άδειες προσδιορίζουν τη μη εμπορική χρήση. Έτσι, διαβάστε τους όρους και τις προϋποθέσεις πολύ προσεκτικά για να βεβαιωθείτε ότι έχετε τη δυνατότητα να χρησιμοποιήσετε την εικόνα.

2) Flickr

Οι περισσότερες φωτογρφίες στο Flickr έχουν πνευματικά δικαιώματα, αλλά όχι όλες. Με τη βοήθεια ενός προηγμένου εργαλείου αναζήτησης μπορείτε να βρείτε φωτογραφίες εκδηλώσεων, τοπίων ή προσωπικοτήτων από χρήστες που είναι πρόθυμοι να σας επιτρέψουν να τις χρησιμοποιήσετε με αντάλλαγμα την αναφορά στο δημιουργό. Όπως όμως αναφέρθηκε και παραπάνω διαβάστε προσεκτικά την άδεια με την οποία διατίθεται.

3) Free stock-photo websites

To Stock.xchnge, που τώρα ανήκει στο Getty Images, είναι μια δημοφιλής ιστοσελίδα με περίπου 400.000 φωτογραφίες από ερασιτέχνες φωτογράφους σε όλο τον κόσμο. Όπως πάντα, δεν είναι όλες οι φωτογραφίες Creative Commons, οπότε βεβαιωθείτε ότι το έχετε ελέγξει.

Το Morguefile και το Stockvault  είναι άλλα παρόμοια μέσα, αν και το Stockvault επιτρέπει μόνο τις εικόνες που χρησιμοποιούνται για μη επαγγελματικούς σκοπούς.

Το Free Digital Photos είναι μια καλή πηγή για επιχειρήσεις και για προσωπική και εκπαιδευτική χρήση. Και πάλι, δεν είναι όλες οι εικόνες δωρεάν.

4) CD και βιβλία χωρίς πνευματικά δικαιώματα

Υπάρχει πληθώρα εικόνων από βιβλία και cd οι οποίες είναι ελεύθερες δικαιωμάτων. Το βιβλιοπωλείο Dover Books είναι ένα εξαιρετικό μέρος για τέτοια βιβλία.

Αυτά τα βιβλία περιέχουν οποιασδήποτε μορφής εικόνων από παλίες ιατρικές εικόνες έως Βικτοριανές γκραβούρες. Επίσης είναι μια καλή πηγή για σχέδια και διανύσματα.

5) Ρώτα ανθρώπους

Εξακολουθείτε να αγωνίζεστε για να βρείτε τη σωστή φωτογραφία; Μπορείτε να κάνετε ότι οι αίθουσες ειδήσεων εδώ και χρόνια, να ζητήσετε από το κοινό. Τόσο το BBC όσο και η Guardian έχουν τμήματα στην ιστοσελίδα τους που προβάλουν φωτογραφίες από  αναγνώστες τους.

Ρωτήστε τους ακόλουθους σας στο Twitter. Ρωτήστε τους φίλους σας στο Facebook.

Μία μικρή προειδοποίηση: Χρησιμοποιείστε μια αντίστροφη εικόνα μηχανής αναζήτησης όπως το TinEye για να βεβαιωθείτε ότι δεν διακινείτε κλοπιμαία.

Πηγή: www.creativebloq.com

Today, Creative Commons and over 35 other organizations published an open letter urging negotiators of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to rescind a proposal to extend copyright terms by another 20 years beyond its current, mandatory term.

This week, 12 Pacific rim countries are meeting in Ottawa, Canada, to continue secret negotiations of the widely criticized TPP trade agreement. Under the current TRIPS agreement, signatories are required to enact legislation granting copyright protection to individuals for the life of the author plus another 50 years. TPP negotiators, under the influence of large rights-holding companies, want to add another 20 years to the minimum copyright term.

If adopted, this extension would work to keep creative works out of the public domain for decades beyond the current term. It’s essentially a double-life sentence for all new works. This would be an incredible loss for the commons.

All creativity and knowledge owes something to what came before it – every creator builds on the ideas of their predecessors. Copyright is a limited right that is given to creators, but it also has a term limit to ensure we all benefit from culture and knowledge. Both the rights granted to creators and rights afforded to the public are necessary for a vibrant culture and the proliferation of knowledge. And the “Commons” in Creative Commons starts with the public domain. It’s the original corpus for remix. It’s why we’ve developed tools to better mark and dedicate content to the public domain. Together with hundreds of millions of works whose creators have chosen to share under generous terms of reuse with CC licenses, the commons is growing richer everyday.

Extending the term of copyright will undermine the potential of the public commons and needlessly limit the potential for new creativity. There is no logical reason to increase the term of copyright – an extension would create a tiny private benefit at a great cost to all of us. Most people agree that the existing term already lasts far past the amount of time required to incentivize creation (the original purpose of copyright) by granting creators a limited monopoly over a creative work. Copyright should strike a balance, giving an incentive to create while also giving the public permission to use and build on that creativity. In 2002, CC co-founder Lawrence Lessig argued against an additional 20 years of copyright protection in Eldred v. Ashcroft. Even Milton Friedman opposed the copyright term extension, calling it a “no-brainer.” Nearly all contemporary economists agree.

Increasing the term of copyright protection harms the commons. Any public policy that will further delay their entry into the public domain is contrary to the values we support – realizing the full potential of the Internet through universal access to the creativity that promotes active participation in culture and society.

Participating countries should should reject any measure in the Trans-Pacific Partnership introduced to increase the term of copyright protection. And TPP negotiations should be held in public and with the input of a broad set of stakeholders that include civil society and public interest representatives.

Although the letter has been presented to TPP negotiators today, they will remain open for further signatories to express their support. Interested organizations can endorse the letter here. Everyone can speak out by signing the petition at ourfairdeal.org.

Cuando hablamos de obras Creative Commons, normalmente nos referimos a música, imágenes y video. Pero evidentemente hay mucho más que eso. Hoy te presentamos algunos juegos de mesa que puedes descargar de forma gratuita, compartir con tus amigos y, si las reglas no te satisfacen o crees que puedes mejorarlas, modificar a tu antojo.

Zombie in my pocket: es un juego creado por Jeremiah Lee, donde debes cumplir una serie de pruebas para vencer a los zombies que amenazan con convertirte en uno de ellos. Pensado para un solo jugador, cada partida toma entre cinco y 15 minutos.

Zombie in my pocket tiene una licencia Creative Commons BY – NC – SA. Haciendo clic acá encontrarás todo lo necesario para jugar. Existen distintas versiones y adaptaciones que puedes revisar acá, mientras que acá encuentras una versión en español.

Cards against humanity: popular juego de cartas creado por un grupo de escolares estadounidenses, que se jacta de su humor políticamente incorrecto, lo que evidentemente levanta suspicacias sobre el juego, pero se supone que es muy divertido.

Las reglas son flexibles y están pensadas para ser cambiadas, pero, básicamente, el juego consiste en dar respuesta a preguntas extraídas de un mazo de cartas negras, con un mazo de cartas blancas.

Cards against humanity está licenciado bajo Creative Commons BY-SA y se puede descargar acá. Existen varias versiones en español, una de ellas la puedes descargar acá.

Sovereign: Es un complejo juego de estrategia, donde los jugadores deberán recolectar siete tarjetas para ganar, a través de la expansión de ciudades, la creación de unidades y la investigación de tecnologías.

El juego involucra mapas (sí, en plural) cartas, dados de 12 caras y tiene versiones especiales para 2, 3, 4 y 6 jugadores, que puedes descargar acá, todo licenciado bajo Creative Commons BY – SA.

Puedes encontrar más juegos de mesa Creative Commons y Open Source acá.

Deze week heeft het hoofdkwartier van Creative Commons haar jaarlijkse rapport beschikbaar gesteld. Het heet The Future is Open en gaat in op de ontwikkeling van de 4.0 versie van de licenties, het werk dat Creative Commons doet voor wereldwijde hervorming van het auteursrecht en de community-building op het gebied van open onderwijs, overheid, zorg en meer.

Paul Brest, voorzitter van de Board of Directors van Creative Commons, schreef:

CC and its licenses are part of the infrastructure that powers the web we know and love. But building the licenses is just the first step; the next step is to use those licenses as a tool for change. All of us can work together to demonstrate the value of sharing to individuals, governments, policy-makers, institutions, and corporations, and to build a future in which everyone is more free to participate in society. While the task is significant, I know we can achieve it together.

Wij vinden het een geslaagd rapport, veel plezier met bladeren!

 

Después de más de dos años de trabajo, las esperadas licencias 4.0 de Creative Commons (CC) ya están disponibles. Gracias al trabajo de la red de expertos en el ámbito legal y de licencias públicas, y a la comunidad activa, las licencias 4.0 son las más globales y adaptadas a los usuarios que se hayan propuesto desde CC.

Entre las mejoras, cabe destacar que las licencias 4.0 se adaptan mejor a gobiernos y editores públicos del sector de la información gracias a la expansión de la cobertura de las licencias, al incluir desde ahora las bases de datos, y también gracias a los nuevos mecanismos legales que fortalecen las licencias. Todas estas mejoras se pueden consultar en el web de CC.

De hecho, las licencias 4.0 tienen el objetivo de llegar a cualquier parte del mundo y por eso los colaboradores de CC han hecho posible las traducciones oficiales del código legal a numerosos idiomas, entre los cuales hallamos el aranés.

La llegada de las licencias 4.0 va a suponer una auténtica revolución en el concepto de conocimiento en abierto y de cultura libre. De momento, os animamos a usar estas nuevas licencias y a difundirlas al máximo para que sean una realidad compartida.

2014-07-04 来自温医大仁济洞头实践队的报道

“书籍是人类进步的阶梯”，为了让鹿西的图书馆建设更加完善，让知识走近每一位鹿西人。我们举行了以“书香溢满园我爱读书”为主题的书展活动。

此次活动共分书籍展览和社区图书馆的建立两部分。展览书籍范围广泛，文化类、科技类、益智类都有哦！。丰富的书籍材料为大家提供了更多选择。活动现场，小 伙伴们集体读书的场景营造了良好的读书氛围，吸引了不同年龄的村民加入到读书的行列中。为了使书籍更好服务于大众，服务团与当地文化大礼堂进行授书仪式， 为当地输入大量书籍材料。

这些捐赠的图书都来自于前期捐赠，旧书新用，让那些城里孩子们捐出自己不需要的书籍，将这些书籍送去需要的地方。书籍的捐赠推动了鹿西乡的图书馆建设，为村民提供了丰富的阅读材料。

[Post by Professor Barton Beebe]  I’ve posted online at http://www.bartonbeebe.com/TrademarkLawCasebook.html my new casebook, Trademark Law: An Open-Source Casebook.  The book, provided in .pdf and .doc formats, is and will always be available under a CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.  No price, no suggested price.  Feel free to adapt all or any of it (under the terms of the CC license).

A few notes on the style of the casebook:

1. The paragraphs of all opinions are numbered (for students who want to take the .doc version and reformat it for their preferred device; for professors who want to be able to use last year’s notes while teaching from a revised version of the casebook).
2. The book emphasizes survey evidence a bit more than other trademark law casebooks, and on certain topics in trademark law, it tries to give lots of examples, typically in the form of brief summaries of related cases including quotes from the heart of the relevant opinion.
3. As compared to casebooks generally, it’s sometimes relatively light on notes and comments following opinions.  It’s also relatively direct in its presentation.  It frequently tries to explain to the reader why we’re bothering reading some particular opinion and may give the holding of the opinion in advance.  It often proposes questions before the opinion that the student should consider while reading the opinion (rather than offering these questions after the opinion).  I’d like to think the book doesn’t offer much of an ideological slant.  It leaves that for the classroom – and your own edits and additions.
4. The book is up-to-date.  It contains a brief description of the Uniform Rapid Suspension System and includes the first opinion issued under the URS.  It contains an edited version of Blackhorse.  It also includes the May 2014 TTAB opinion Chanel v. Makarczyk (which provides a very straightforward example of blurring facts and blurring analysis).
5. The book is written for a 4-credit trademark law class, which is what I teach here at NYU (I used a draft of the book last fall).  This means that if anyone wants to adopt the book for a 3-credit course, they should consider taking an afternoon to work through the .doc versions of the parts and deleting out what they don’t want to assign.  Certain parts tend to have an extra opinion that can easily be deleted.  (For example, it includes both In re Heeb Media and a lengthy version of the Blackhorse opinion; on descriptive fair use, both Dessert Beauty and Kelly-Brown v Winfrey; on Rogers, both E.S.S. and Brown v. EA).  Contact me for a few professors who I know are already planning to prepare a 3-credit version for use in the fall.
6. The book contains a short part on false advertising and a short part on right of celebrity.
7. I’ll happily send you the powerpoint slides I used while teaching from the book last fall, including the videos related to certain opinions.
8. Beware, anyone who adopts the book becomes, if they’re willing, an “advisory board” member.  If enough professors actually adopt the book (and I think we may already be there), we can think about a discussion forum and central repository for teaching resources.

Please feel free to write me with any questions.

2014对知识共享组织来说挑战与希望并存。这一年，我们取得了一些重要进展，寻觅到了新的组织领导者，同时扩充了CC司法管辖区全球网络。2013年10月，知识共享发布了4.0版协议。这部新协议是我们的巨大成就，凝聚了不计其数伙伴们的奉献，其中包括全球知识产权领域的领袖人物。

4.0版协议是迄今为止最国际化的CC协议，没有这些领袖人物和CC司法管辖区全球网络同仁们的共同努力，我们无法取得这样的成绩。这部协议应用范围广泛，它所能覆盖的内容是我们11年前所不能想象的。与此同时，丰富多样的CC协议使用社群也为CC协议的推进注入动力。

没有这些社群的参与，CC协议可能只是一个有趣的想法，并仅此而已。通过他们的参与，知识共享组织不断成长，并将知识、文化和信息如何共享这项运动向前推进。各司法管辖区，围绕开放获取协议和开放实践，进行了不懈的努力；他们的工作赋予CC协议更强的关联性和意义。

2013年，知识共享组织的员工、董事会、各司法管辖区和国际社群在布宜诺斯艾利斯举行全球峰会，共商CC组织未来的长期发展规划。我们一致认为：仅靠CC协议无法实现CC组织的梦想——实现全球知识和文化的共享，法律也需要适时而变。会后数周，CC组织正式表明了我们支持全球版权改革的立场。我们敦促法律制定者考虑，过于严格的版权法带来的非计划性后果；这样的立场源自我们的社群民意。

2014年5月，历经层层筛选，Ryan Merkley先生成为CC组织新任首席执行官。Ryan先生在技术、非营利性机构、政府事物等方面经验丰富，曾任Mozilla基金会首席运营官。他为CC带来了卓识远见和满腔热情，已经开始CC组织下一阶段的建设工作。作为CC董事会主席，我对CC的前景倍感兴奋。

CC组织和CC协议作为我们所了解、所热爱的互联网，提供动力的基础设施的一部分。CC协议的建设是工作的第一步，下一步则以这些协议为工具，进行变革。我们将通过共同努力，彰显知识共享对个人、政府、政策制定者、机构、公司的价值；建立一个人人自由参与其中的社会。尽管这项工作非常重大，我相信我们能够共同完成。

知识共享董事会主席

Paul Brest

Except where otherwise noted, The future is open by Creative Commons is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Today, we’re excited to launch our new annual report, The future is open. In this report, you’ll learn about:

• Why the 4.0 CC licenses were a truly global effort.
• The astounding community-building work that CC affiliates are doing all over the world.
• Our work in open policy and support for global copyright reform.
• How software developers are using CC licenses to make sharing on the internet easier.
• The cool things you’re doing with CC licenses.

The report features illustrations by the awesome webcartoonist Luke Surl.

Check it out!

Dopo un periodo di lavoro interno e la revisione preliminare da parte di Creative Commons Internazionale, il gruppo di lavoro di CC Italia è lieto di pubblicare la bozza di traduzione in italiano delle licenze Creative Commons 4.0.

La pubblicazione apre un periodo di consultazione a cui sono invitati tutti quanti siano interessati alle licenze Creative Commons: l'obbiettivo è di raccogliere commenti al testo, nonché di segnalare eventuali errori (inclusi quelli di battitura) o inesattezze concettuali o sostanziali presenti all'interno delle bozze qui presentate. Il periodo di consultazione si chiuderà il giorno 20 agosto 2014. Seguirà la ratifica definitiva da parte di Creative Commons Internazionale e la presentazione pubblica della traduzione ufficiale.

Ricordiamo che le licenze 4.0 sono già attualmente utilizzabili: lanciate ufficialmente il novembre scorso, le licenze presentano un testo redatto appositamente in modo da essere valido in tutto il mondo senza necessità di specifici adattamenti. La traduzione in diverse lingue sarà a tutti gli effetti ufficiale e rappresenterà un testo giuridicamente vincolante, ma non differirà, per contenuto e possibilità di essere fatta valere in giudizio, dalla versione originale in lingua inglese (che già oggi chiunque può utilizzare in tutto il mondo).

La bozza è disponibile su GoogleDoc per commenti online.

In alternativa, potete scaricare la bozza delle licenze usando i seguenti link ed inviare i vostri commenti ai contatti indicati sotto.

• Licenza BY 4.0 (GoogleDoc)
• Licenza BY 4.0 (formato ODF)
• Licenza BY 4.0 (formato PDF)
• Licenza BY-NC 4.0 (GoogleDoc)
• Licenza BY-NC 4.0 (formato ODF)
• Licenza BY-NC 4.0 (formato PDF)
• Licenza BY-ND 4.0 (GoogleDoc)
• Licenza BY-ND 4.0 (formato ODF)
• Licenza BY-ND 4.0 (formato PDF)
• Licenza BY-SA 4.0 (GoogleDoc)
• Licenza BY-SA 4.0 (formato ODF)
• Licenza BY-SA 4.0 (formato PDF)
• Licenza BY-NC-ND 4.0 (GoogleDoc)
• Licenza BY-NC-ND 4.0 (formato ODF)
• Licenza BY-NC-ND 4.0 (formato PDF)
• Licenza BY-NC-SA 4.0 (GoogleDoc)
• Licenza BY-NC-SA 4.0 (formato ODF)
• Licenza BY-NC-SA 4.0 (formato PDF)

Per inviare un commento in forma pubblica, siete pregati di mandare un messaggio alla mailing list cc-it@lists.ibiblio.org. Vi preghiamo di notare che gli archivi di tale mailing list sono pubblici e leggibili da chiunque.
Per inviare un commento in forma privata, siete pregati di mandare un messaggio agli indirizzi seguenti: Federico Morando (federico [dot] morando [at] polito [dot] it - sostituire [at] con @ e [dot] con .) e Claudio Artusio (claudio [dot] artusio [at] polito [dot] it - sostituire [at] con @ e [dot] con .).
Vi preghiamo inoltre di notare che i membri del gruppo di lavoro di Creative Commons Italia potrebbero non essere in grado di rispondere rapidamente a tutti i messaggi (particolarmente nel mese di agosto); questi ultimi verranno in ogni caso letti e tenuti in considerazione.

leggi tutto

2014-07-01，来自温医大仁济洞头实践队的报道

6月30日下午，在响亮而齐整的口号声中，温州医科大学仁济学院洞头暑期社会实践服务团于鹿西义校校门的夏令营招新活动开始啦。招生宣传主要分定点 和流动两种形式，一部分队员在校门口进行定点宣传，登记前来报名的小朋友。另一部分队员环岛高喊我们的口号，吸引了许多岛民关注。

这次的兴趣班按照一二年级、三四年级、五六七年级分别招生。针对三个不同年级段制定舞蹈、科技、绘画、写作、外语、医学、运动等方面的趣味课程，培养孩子们对艺术课程方面的兴趣。

傍晚时分，招生活动顺利结束。明天是一个新的起点，我们会将精心准备的课程用心教给每一位前来报名参加兴趣班的学生，为他们带去一个难忘而又丰富的趣味暑期。

Miło nam poinformować, że od dziś tworzenie linków wspiera Klaudia Grabowska, która koordynuje działania Creative Commons Polska w zakresie otwartej nauki.

Otwarta edukacja i kultura

1. Fundacja Wolnego i Otwartego Oprogramowania zaprasza na Warszawskie Wakacje z WiOO, cykl warsztatów dla uczniów i uczennic gimanzjów i liceów na temat wolnego oprogramowania, programowania, kompetencji medialnych i działania internetu. Gorąco polecamy!

2. Co mają otwarte dane do otwartej edukacji? Na to dość techniczne pytanie odpowiadają Marieke Guy i Otavio Ritter z Open Knowlegde Foundation.

3. 19-21 listopada w Waszyngtonie (USA) odbędzie się kolejna edycja największe konferencji o otwartej edukacji Open Education Conference.

4. Digital Public Library of America wygrała grant od Knight Foundation wysokości 300 000 dolarów na rozwój łatwego systemu informowania o prawach autorskich do obiektów cyfrowych. Gratulujemy i czekamy na wyniki prac!

5. Narzędzi technicznych wspierających nauczycieli/ki w wykorzystywaniu otwartych zasobów edukacyjnych nigdy dość. Tym razem ucieszą się użytkownicy/czki przeglądarek Chrome i Chromium, The Net Texts to wtyczka pozwalające na łatwe przeszukiwanie i łączenie w proste moduły otwartych zasobów dostępnych w sieci.

6. Jeszcze się wgryzamy w tę infografikę, ale wydaje się, że uczestnicy warsztatu na OER Annotation Summit dość ciekawie zarysowali “ekosystem” otwartych zasobów edukacyjnych.

Otwarta nauka

7. W 13 numerze Tytułu Ujednoliconego o tym dlaczego warto otworzyć się na zmiany i otwartość w nauce pisze Kuba Danecki.

8. Wydawnictwo naukowe DeGruyter w swoim serwisie Open Science (bardzo polecamy!) pisze o sposobach promocji książek Open Access, od pisania abstraktów po rozważania na temat marki wydawnictwa.

9. Inicjatywa Otwieracz, studencka grupa badająca i promująca Open Access na UW zaprezentowała raport „Nowe technologie i prawo autorskie w ISNS UW”. Raport podsumowuje prezentacja, oraz materiał wideo z debaty. Pełen tekst raportu i dane z badań pojawią się niebawem.

10. 4 lata po wprowadzeniu otwartego mandatu Chalmers University of Technology przeprowadził badania cytowań materiałów umieszczonych w repozytorium uczelnianym. Z danych wynika, że wskaźnik cytowań artykułów, których pełny tekst znalazł się repozytorium uniwersyteckim jest o 22% wyższy niż artykułów dla których w repozytorium podano tylko informację bibliograficzną.

11. Grupa amerykańskich ekonomistów opublikowała w PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) dane dotyczące wysokości opłat subskrypcyjnych i szczegółów umów je regulujących, które zazwyczaj są przedmiotem zamkniętych negocjacji. “Przejrzystość cen (dostępu do czasopism nauowych) to pierwszy krok, który powinien zostać podjęty jeśli mamy mieć szanse na jakiekolwiek rewolucyjne zmiany [...] Rzeczywisty problem jest jednak taki: wszyscy płacimy za dużo” komentuje Tim Gowers..

Otwarte zasoby

12. W sieci (w Internet Archive oraz jako torrent) dostępny jest już film o tragicznie zmarłym Aaronie Schwartzu pt. The Internet’s Own Boy.

13. Crowdfunding świetnie się łączy z otwartymi zasobami. Jeśli zbierasz pieniądze społecznościowo na swój projekt to pierwszą opcją by im to wynagrodzić jest udostępnić tworzone zasoby na wolnej licencji. Tak też robią twórcy gry towarzyskiej Monikers, którzy z sukcesem zebrali pieniądze na produkcję.

Prawo

14. Mike Linksvayer pisze na blogu o tym dlaczego Open Policies (polityki otwartości) są najlepszą aktualnie propozycją dla reformy prawa autorskiego i monopoli intelektualnych.

15. Blog IPKat opublikował przeciek wewnętrznego projektu białej księgi Komisji Europejskiej w sprawie reformy polityki praw autorskich. Jeśli wierzyć przeciekowi, Komisja zachowała się bardzo konserwatywnie i poza dążeniem do rozjaśniania prawa w kilku miejscach nie będzie podejmować próby jego reformy w najtrudniejszych miejscach. Więcej w komentarzu Paula Kellera na blogu projektu Communia.

16. Jeśli chcecie dowiedzieć się więcej o prawie do wizerunku polecamy świetny wpis Jarka Góry na IPblog (kancelarii Ślązak, Zapiór i Wspólnicy)

各位关心支持CC的朋友们大家好，

还记得2013年夏天，一群来自温州医科大学仁济学院的青年学子，带着热血青春的梦想，奔赴温州洞头县鹿西岛，为鹿西义校的小朋友们开展的暑期夏令营活动吗？那些采用CC协议发布的丰富多彩的文化课，尤其是果壳达人“德一”同学隔空传送的“植物标本制作”网络课，为鹿西岛孩子们漫长而单调的暑期生活带来了 许多难忘的回忆。美好的回忆不仅让人想起仁济学子和孩子们互动的点滴，空气中跳动的CC音符，也让我们思考着如何将“知识共享”理念通过CC协议搭建的桥 梁，一年年地传递下去。

今天，我们非常高兴地向大家宣布，2014年CC鹿西岛OER支教活动再次起航！基于2013年的承办经验，CC中国大陆项目、温州医科大学仁济学院和果 壳网MOOC学院再度携手，为鹿西岛小朋友打造“带着MOOC去海岛”第二季。本次夏令营课程设置，除了采用MOOC学院已有的CC网络课程，还包括仁济 学院学生自己扮演教师角色，为孩子们精心准备的MOOC有意思——小蜜蜂养成计划、“MOOC小蜜蜂”起航计划、MOOC社区服务站、爱在鹿西MOOC等 主题在内的相关课程，所有课程均采用CC协议发布。

我们相信，鹿西岛与你、我的距离不是1809公里，而是网络搭建的一堂课；鹿西岛与温州市区的距离也不是59公里+1小时轮渡，而是仁济学子的一颗心。 2014年暑期,温州医科大学仁济洞头暑期社会实践服务团，“带着MOOC去海岛”第二季已于2014年6月30日上午9时顺利起航。谨此代表CC中国大 陆项目全体成员，祝福这些还在轮渡上颠簸的学子们——2014′CC鹿西岛OER支教活动完满成功。

CC0 now has an official translation into French. This is the second translation of CC0, and also only the second official translation of any CC legal tool (following CC0 in Dutch, published earlier this year).

There are many people who deserve congratulations on this accomplishment. This is often the case for translation projects, but it is especially true with French! According to the translation policy for our legal tools, we will be publishing only one official translation per language—for all of its speakers worldwide. This isn’t so difficult for some languages, which are primarily spoken in only one country. But with French-speaking countries around the world, many teams had to take part in this project so that the final text works for everyone, even across regional variations in language.

CC France did the tremendous task of leading the effort, coordinating their own team as well as others from Algeria, Belgium, Cameroon, Canada, Luxembourg, Morocco, Senegal, Switzerland, Tunisia, and collaborators from Framasoft.org and VeniVidiLibre.org.

The CC0 translations, as well as the upcoming translations of 4.0, are as close as possible to the original English, keeping the same legal meaning. Under our new translation policy, these will all be considered equivalent: anyone linking to the legal code may use any language. We think everyone should be able to understand the legal tools they’re using, and toward that end, we put a lot of thought into simplifying the language in 4.0. But it should be true in a language everyone can read–and thanks to the translation efforts of our affiliates, we are coming closer to this goal.

There are many more translation projects of CC0 and of 4.0 in progress; expect to see more announcements in the coming months! (You can take a look at the list of projects in progress.) To get involved with an existing translation project or begin a new one, please see the translation policy for information on getting started.

Imagen CC por (aymanshamma) NC

Yahoo ha anunciado la publicación de un set de datos con links a 99.3 millones de imágenes y 0.7 millones de videos, todos extraídos de Flickr y licenciados bajo Creative Commons.

Además del link al respectivo video o fotografía, el set de datos incluye metadata como el título, descripción, tipo de cámara y tags, además del  photo_id. La información no disponible en el set de datos, como comentarios, favoritos e información de redes sociales, se puede pedir a través de Flickr API. Además, 49 millones de las imágenes están geoetiquetadas.

El set de datos se encuentra alojado en la plataforma de servicios de Amazon, por lo que para acceder a ella es necesario contar con un acceso, que puede pedirse de forma gratuita.

El set de datos ya se encuentra disponible y Yahoo espera que pueda ser una herramienta de gran utilidad para científicos e investigadores en todo el mundo.

Puedes revisar el set de datos y encontrar más información acá.

 

Imagen CC por (ragesoss)- SA

Ya se puede preordenar “The Internet’s Own Boy” aclamado documental de Brian Knappenberger sobre Aaron Swartz, reconocido activista de Internet que se suicidó mientras era perseguido judicialmente por descargar documentos académicos, reseñas y publicaciones protegidas por copyright.

El documental está disponible con una licencia Creative Commons (CC-BY-NC-SA) y se puede ver en streaming por US $7 y por US $10 descargarlo en Vimeo como un archivo compartible y remezclable.

A continuación el tráiler de la película:

Μία λανθασμένη αναφορά παραβίασης πνευματικών δικαιωμάτων στάθηκε αφορμή για τη συγγραφή του πολύ ενδιαφέροντος άρθρου Houston, we have a Public Domain Problem από τον Parker Higgins.

Ο Parker Higgins είναι ακτιβιστής στο Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) και ασχολείται κυρίως με την ελευθερία του λόγου, τα πνευματικά δικαιώματα και τη σχετική νομοθεσία. Στις 23 Ιουνίου ο κ. Higgins έλαβε ειδοποίηση ότι ένα ηχητικό απόσπασμα που είχε ανεβάσει στο SoundCloud επρόκειτο να κατέβει λόγω προβλημάτων πνευματικής ιδιοκτησίας. Το εν λόγω ηχητικό απόσπασμα δεν είναι άλλο από το γνωστό «Houston, we have a problem» από την αποστολή Apollo 13 της NASA.

Στο άρθρο του ο κ. Higgins αναφέρεται στο συνεχώς αυξανόμενο περιορισμό της κοινοκτημοσύνης των πνευματικών αγαθών (public domain) με την αμέριστη βοήθεια πολλών υπηρεσιών διαδικτύου, οι οποίες έχουν αποδεχθεί αβίαστα τη διαστρεβλωμένη αντίληψη ότι «μη εξουσιοδοτημένη» χρήση σημαίνει αυτομάτως και «μη αποδεκτή». Ενδεικτικά αναφέρουμε ότι τα έργα που παράγει η κυβέρνηση των Η.Π.Α. δεν υπόκεινται στη νομοθεσία για την πνευματική νομοθεσία, οπότε εξ αρχής δεν υπήρχε πρόβλημα με την ανάρτηση του κ. Higgins.

Οι διαδικτυακές πλατφόρμες, αναμφισβήτητα, έχουν συντελέσει στην επικοινωνία και στην, απο κοινού, συνεισφορά στον πολιτισμό. Η ρητορική της ανεξέλεκτης επιβολής περιοριστικών μέτρων μετατρέπει σταδιακά τις διαδικτυακές πλατφόρμες σε αστυνομοκρατούμενες ζώνες με δυσοίωνες συνέπειες για την κοινοκτημοσύνη των πνευματικών αγαθών. Το άρθρο του κ. Higgins αποτελεί, ίσως, μια πολύ καλή ευκαιρία για την έναρξη ενός ευρύτερου διαλόγου σχετικά με την ορθή χρήση των πνευματικών αγαθών και την κοινοκτημοσύνη.

Πηγή: Peter Higgins
Πηγή εικόνας: Gray Lensman QX!, με άδεια χρήσης CC 2.0 (BY-NC-SA)

Earlier this week the IPKat leaked what appears to be an internal draft of the European Commission’s white paper on copyright policy reform (“A copyright policy for Creativity and Innovation in the European Union”). Once finalized this white paper is supposed to sum up the current Commission’s position on making European copyright policy fit for the digital environment. As such the white paper will build on work that has been undertaken during the last couple of years, which included the Licenses for Europe stakeholder dialogue, a number of studies commissioned by the commission and a public consultation on a review of the European copyright rules that generated more than 11 thousand responses.

The white paper has been keenly awaited by anyone engaged in discussions about the future of copyright in the EU. Unfortunately, the document – at least in the form of the leaked internal draft – is a massive disappointment for anyone hoping for a serious review of copyright in the EU. This white paper clearly shows that at the end of one and half years of discussion those in the Commission who do not see a need for reform have managed to maintain their position. The white paper makes almost no mention of a need for legislative reform at the European level and instead presents a disjoined array of measures mainly consisting of recommendations for more harmonization between the member states and some extra guidance from the Commission to the member states.

After having been told by their own studies that a new balance between the rights of creators and the rights of users is both necessary and possible, and after having received literally thousands of responses to the consultation arguing in favor of more user rights, the commission has come full circle back to its initial position: At the core of the white paper lies the notion that copyright is not broken and that most problems created by the current copyright rules can be fixed through the reliance on licensing, minor, negligible changes to existing law, and reiteration of enforcement mechanisms. Coincidentally, this is perfectly in line with the position advocated by traditional publishers and other rights holder representatives throughout the entire process.

[Internet value tree to be inserted]

The authors of the white paper begin from a faulty premise. The entire paper seems to be based on the assumption that the primary function of copyright is to support the production of creative content against predatory business models of technology companies and other non-traditional intermediaries. This understanding is based on the deeply flawed analysis of the internet as a value tree. By now the Commission seems to be at least aware aware of the critique leveled against this analysis as evidenced by the following sentence:

While the distribution of copyright protected content is only one aspect of the wide array of activities taking place through digital networks today, it represents an important part of modern economics and at the same time, a pillar of cultural diversity and freedom of expression.

This passage clearly illustrates that the authors of the white paper do not have any desire to think about effects of copyright rules other than on the ‘production of creative content’. Instead the document further develops this line of thinking though a rather questionable analysis:

From a general economic perspective, policy-making in this area must take into account both static and dynamic effects. In principle lowering the level of copyright protection can, in the short term, have a static, downward effect on the cost of access to existing creative works for consumers and for institutional (e.g educational or cultural establishments) and corporate users (in particular the internet economy). It could lead to lower prices and possibly less costly innovation. However that would reduce creators’ ability to reap the gains from their work – and producers’ and publishers’ capacity to recoup the investment needed to bring works to the market. The economic incentive to create and to invest in new works could weaken, with the dynamic, medium- to longer-term effect being that the production of creative content could be reduced. The faster the rate of obsolescence of creative content, the more dominant the dynamic over the static effect becomes.

This is written to sound very well reasoned and grounded in theory¹ but that thin veneer of complicated words can’t cover up the fact that this is (a) speculation (as evidenced by the frequent use of the word ‘could’) and (b) so generic that it bears little resemblance to reality.

While I have not analyzed all 11 thousand responses to the public consultation I am pretty certain that the vast majority of those in favor of changes to the existing copyright rules do not advocate a general ‘lowering of the level of copyright protection’, but rather advocate specific interventions aimed at making the system function better (such as new or adapted exceptions, registration or a shortening of the term of protection). By lumping all of these proposals together and claiming that they would benefit some stakeholders at the cost of others, the Commission makes it more difficult to asses the impact of specific proposals for change. Any good analysis needs to acknowledge that over the centuries copyright has evolved into a system that cannot be analyzed on the level of a binary opposition between more and less protection.

Weak analytical framework = weak outcomes

In the white paper, a very good illustration of the deficits of this approach is the discussion of an exception benefitting cultural heritage institutions. For some reason this discussion is split into two parts (‘Helping knowledge and heritage institutions to fulfill their public interest missions’ and ‘Solutions for mass digitization’). While the first section ends with a vague suggestion to clarify the preservation exception and to update the consultation exception, it completely sidesteps the demand made by cultural heritage institutions (and COMMUNIA) to grant them the right to make works that are not in commercial circulation available online.

The same is true for section on ‘solutions’ for mass digitization–basically a summary of existing EU initiatives in this field (the 2011 Memorandum on Out-of-Commerce works and the 2012 Orphan works directive). The white paper – instead of addressing the demands made by cultural heritage institutions – simply proclaims that

Further steps need to be considered to support the digitizing of European cultural heritage, without undermining the interests of rights holders². solutions based on the digitization and dissemination of protected works without the rights holders’ consent would not achieve the desired balance and would be, in all likelihood, be contrary to the EU and Member States’ international obligations.

It is exactly the weakness of the Commission’s analytical framework that allows them to plainly state that solutions to making European cultural heritage available online will undermine rights holders (unspecified) interests. This can only be true if the Commission believes that any (new) exception is automatically contrary to rightholders interests because it ‘lowers the level of copyright protection’. It is hard to argue that a targeted exception – for instance, and exception that would permit cultural heritage institutions to make available works from their collections that are not commercially available anymore – undermines anyone’s interests unless one assumes that rights holders have a legitimate interest in absolute control over all uses of their works even if the rights holder is not exploiting those works anymore. According to all known traditions of copyright, this is not the case (the objective of copyright is a balance between the rights of creators and the rights of others).

Wherever you may stand in the discussions about the correct scope of copyright exceptions, it is rather worrisome that the white paper simply ignores the well reasoned demands by publicly funded cultural heritage institutions (including the European Commission’s own Europeana project) that include arguments why such an exception would be well within the parameters of existing international obligations.

A minimum consensus inspired by what is acceptable to rights holders

While the white paper contains some welcome proposals, such as more harmonization of exceptions and clarification of the fact that browsing and hyperlinking do not require permission from rights holders. However, these changes alone will not bring the European copyright rules anywhere near a system that embraces the opportunities offered by the digital environment.

The current draft reads as if the Commission did not manage to develop an understanding of the issues at hand that goes beyond a short-sighted alignment with the perspective of the self proclaimed representatives of producers of creative content. As such the current Commission appears ill suited to provide an outline for a copyright policy that adequately supports creativity and innovation in a radically changed environment.

In its current form the leaked draft of the white paper does not represent more than a minimum consensus that is inspired by the extent of changes to the system that are likely to acceptable to rights holders. It would be extremely dangerous if the next Commission would set out to implement this minimal consensus as this would most likely mean that the much needed discussion on more substantial reform will be buried once more. The current Commission dug itself into a hole by not addressing copyright reform before the end of its term. Let’s hope that the upcoming Commission (and the European Parliament as its watchdog) doesn’t let itself be fooled by whatever will be published later this summer.

Paul Keller

¹ It is worth noting that the Rufus Pollock paper referenced in the footnotes (Forever minus a day? Some theory and empirics of optimal copyright) makes the claim that current copyright terms much too long mainly because most right holders stop exploiting their works shortly after publication. It is unclear how this is supposed to support the idea that a weakening of copyright will lead to less creative production.

² Note that the EU orphan works directive allows ‘the digitization and dissemination of protected works without the rights holders’ consent‘. It may be defective in terms of scope and the burdens imposed on cultural heritage institutions, but illustrates that in many cases rights holders’ consent cannot be obtained because rights holders cannot be located.

（最新消息以本網站為準）

對於「公眾領域」，你是否仍感到陌生？
想知道目前國際「公眾領域」的現況？
還是想瞭解大家是如何運用這樣豐富的資源？

或是您有一批「公眾領域」的照片，希望找到有效率地方法，提供公眾利用！

為什麼國外有些典藏機構，願意將手上掌握的公眾領域資源釋放出來？
全球到底有哪些公眾領域的資源，要如何找尋？
在台灣，典藏單位的考量以及遇到的困難為何？

如果想瞭解上述提問，千萬別錯過於7月10日下午的「公眾領域實務座談與展示會」！
本活動將以「座談會＋展示會」的方式進行。

閱讀全文