Open licensing vs Exceptions/Limitations

[Werner Westermann]

Dear all, regards from Santiago.

Working around a (open) licensing policy for my institution, the Library of National Congress of Chile, I am being confronted to the following issue:  why should I have a open licensing policy of my content if we have a pool of exceptions and limitations in our IP law?  Indeed, the last reform to IP law in Chile recognized a pretty wide range of exceptions and limitations (http://www.leychile.cl/Navegar?idNorma=28933).

My answer has been:

• its better to have an instrument that explicits the possible uses, instead of interpreting what can or cannot be understood as a limitations to copyright
• the limitations is sort of a catalogue of specific situations, so they might be situations not considered in that catalogue, and specially in a future perspective, we cannot see yet unpredicted or unexpected situations that cannot apply to that catalogue

Surely you have more and better arguments to strengthen the need for a open licensing policy.  Suggestions or comments?  Thanks for your time,

Werner Westermann

[Kathleen DeLaurenti]

Hi Werner -

I agree with you about communicating permissions to users. Being explicit is very important. I've been doing some research on how undergraduates understand copyright and those that have stumbled across open licenses have such a feeling of relief at not worrying if what they want to do is "ok" or not!

I would say that the growing adoption of open licenses is going to start signalling that those who chose not to have open licenses want the full limitations of copyright imposed on their work.

Two other important things:

1) Open licenses can be interpreted across country borders, so in countries where the laws are not as open as Chile, open licensed work is greatly beneficial

2) Putting machine-readable notices on digital openly licensed content makes them more discoverable to those looking specifically for openly-licensed material

I hope this helps!

Best,

Kathleen DeLaurenti

Arts Librarian

College of William & Mary

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "SPARC Libraries & OER Forum" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sparc-liboer...@arl.org.
To post to this group, send email to sparc-...@arl.org.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/a/arl.org/group/sparc-liboer/.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/arl.org/d/msgid/sparc-liboer/CACrn%2BjpdgD0-onkfGrFVZ5SKBnE880KkDPLZs%3DsONQkcxzCMdQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[William Cross]

I think Kathleen's point is correct: open licenses remove concerns about differing exceptions across nations and tap into the power of the online community and the tools it enables.  Creators also have more power to be granular about how they would like to see use made: commercial vs. non-commercial, use vs. remix, etc.

I'd also add that in many countries, including the U.S., exceptions like fair use are flexible but may be grounded in equitable judgments rather than bright line rules.  As such, an open license gives users an unambiguous "yes" where relying on exceptions is closer to a "probably" that requires some risk assessment that many institutions may be uncomfortable with.

It's also worth noting that international treaties like the TPP may cast doubt on the long-term viability of even popular and capacious exceptions.  An open license removes doubt and guarantees the ability to use in the middle- and long-term, regardless of how the political winds are blowing.

Best,

   -Will

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/arl.org/d/msgid/sparc-liboer/CAGHef5u8aRX65%3DEh1nuVvvKEku9TaCZ9fRWy1U6j19_pruBO4w%40mail.gmail.com.

--

William M. Cross, J.D., M.S.L.S.
Director, Copyright & Digital Scholarship Center
NCSU Libraries, Campus Box 7111
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7111
www.lib.ncsu.edu/cdsc

[Werner Westermann]

Thank you all for your wonderful and generous insights!!  I cannot even think of failing with these arguments!!!  I commit to do a shared round-up of all your comments.  Most appreciated,

Werner

2015-05-07 8:19 GMT-03:00 Stephen Downes <ste...@downes.ca>:

Hiya all,

 

My take is this:

 

First, agree that it is better to have a wide range of exceptions and limitations to copyright enshrined in law, particularly for the non-commercial use of materials. Law that supports the default of sharing, raher than ownership, is the objective of open access advocates.

 

Second, and having said that, emphasize that a licensing system like Creative Commons is an imperfect but necessary patch for a legal system that worldwide does not support that objective, because:

 

- the exceptions and limitations in law, like fair use, are often vague and subject to challenge in the courts, which often results in institutions not asserting their rights under these laws; the licenses create certainty and reduce risk for institutions

 

- laws change, and the use of Creative Commons protects people in their use of these materials even after the laws change, and so are necessary until sharing is entrenched as a general principle under law

 

- laws are much less open internationally, and some countries (the United States springs to mind) have both regressive legislation and agreesive pursuit of legal action, so the use of Creative Commons protects the use of these materials on a global, not just local, basis.

 

-- Stephen

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Open Policy Network" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to open-policy-net...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to open-poli...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/open-policy-network.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Open Policy Network" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to open-policy-net...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to open-poli...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/open-policy-network.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Cable Green]

Cameron nailed it.

Cable

On Thu, May 7, 2015 at 8:44 AM, Cameron Neylon <c...@cameronneylon.net> wrote:

The simplest argument is that Open Licensing aims to provide global consistency and maximise the reach of your work. For a user outside of Chile they are likely to be unaware of, or not confident in their understanding of, the specific exceptions and limitation in Chilean Law (I for instance couldn’t give any sensible summary). 

If the object is to ensure that Chilean scholarship is part of a global network of interoperable knowledge and resources then the best way to achieve that, at least as far as permissions are concerned is through making it legally interoperable with the largest existing network of resources that have a common permissions framework. And that is Creative Commons for creative resources and OSI/FSF approved licenses for software.

This argument is obviously one based on global benefits and reach. So whether it works depends on the relative balance of the local politics as to whether the global reach argument or local benefit is seen as most important. Again, I don’t know the state of copyright law across Latin America but I would imagine that there is at least an argument to be made that ensuring compatibility in the region is of value, and rather than seek regional harmonisation of copyright law and exemptions (which is hard), it would be easier for the region to settle on common open licensing strategies (which is relatively easy to implement).

Cheers

Cameron

From: Werner Westermann
Date: Wednesday, 6 May 2015 16:48
To: "open-poli...@googlegroups.com", "sparc-...@arl.org", "internationa...@googlegroups.com", "open-ed...@lists.okfn.org"
Subject: [open-policy-network] Open licensing vs Exceptions/Limitations

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Open Policy Network" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to open-policy-net...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to open-poli...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/open-policy-network.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Open Policy Network" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to open-policy-net...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to open-poli...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/open-policy-network.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

Cable Green, PhD
Director of Global Learning
Creative Commons
@cgreen
http://creativecommons.org/education
reuse, revise, remix, redistribute & retain

State of the Commons Report https://stateof.creativecommons.org/report

[Cable Green]

Well said, Stephen.

Creative Commons also pushes for copyright reform ... including the call for increased limitations (fair use / fair dealing rights) to copyright.

• http://creativecommons.org/about/reform
• http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/39639

Cable

On Thu, May 7, 2015 at 4:19 AM, Stephen Downes <ste...@downes.ca> wrote:

Hiya all,

 

My take is this:

 

First, agree that it is better to have a wide range of exceptions and limitations to copyright enshrined in law, particularly for the non-commercial use of materials. Law that supports the default of sharing, raher than ownership, is the objective of open access advocates.

 

Second, and having said that, emphasize that a licensing system like Creative Commons is an imperfect but necessary patch for a legal system that worldwide does not support that objective, because:

 

- the exceptions and limitations in law, like fair use, are often vague and subject to challenge in the courts, which often results in institutions not asserting their rights under these laws; the licenses create certainty and reduce risk for institutions

 

- laws change, and the use of Creative Commons protects people in their use of these materials even after the laws change, and so are necessary until sharing is entrenched as a general principle under law

 

- laws are much less open internationally, and some countries (the United States springs to mind) have both regressive legislation and agreesive pursuit of legal action, so the use of Creative Commons protects the use of these materials on a global, not just local, basis.

 

-- Stephen

 

 

From: Werner Westermann

Date: Wednesday, 6 May 2015 16:48
To: "open-poli...@googlegroups.com", "sparc-...@arl.org", "internationa...@googlegroups.com", "open-ed...@lists.okfn.org"
Subject: [open-policy-network] Open licensing vs Exceptions/Limitations

 

Dear all, regards from Santiago.

--

[Werner Westermann]

Dear all, regards, just a quick follow-up with round-up of your responses:

1. International Legal compatibility:   legal interoperability of the open resources, specially in a regional and global scale where there is little copyright law.  This common permissions framework maximizes outreach, improves return on the investment, and extends institutional trust in reuse.
   
2. Technical interoperability:  machine-readable markup of licenses helps to discover and retrieve open-licensed resources.
3. Understandability:  understanding rights of use through licenses is much easier and explicit than through exceptions.

These qualities causes increase of use as: 

• a better understanding of possible uses through licenses creates certainty for more and diverse uses like remixing and granularity approach. 
  
• the certainty removes concerns and relieves fears and risks of illegal use, it protects and guarantees ability of use as laws may change in middle and long term. 
  
• resources come to be shareable and reusable as default.
  

Thanks again for your great insights, best wishes,

Werner