MAY 12 Creative Commons Policy Roundup

3 views
Skip to first unread message

Timothy Vollmer

unread,
May 12, 2017, 5:49:05 PM5/12/17
to CC Staff, CC Affiliates, Open Policy Network, iol-n...@googlegroups.com
1. The Communia Association has been running its #RIGHTCOPYRIGHT campaign, which calls for sensible reforms that make the use of copyrighted material for education easier. Copyright should empower--not thwart--teaching and learning. Sign it before it closes!


2. Goodbye open.whitehouse.gov. The Trump administration has deleted it. It used to be the portal for White House data, visitor logs, and open data commitments. Now it redirects to a disclosures page containing almost zero information. 


3. Here's a long read about the decade-long saga with Google Books. Worth checking out. 


4. The farm equipment manufacturer John Deere has been at the center of controversy around the "right to repair" movement. John Deere has been telling the U.S. Copyright Office that since the tractors they sell contain software, and since that software is licensed, not sold, the purchaser of that tractor doesn't really own it. They claim that the person is only a licensee, and required to use the tractor according to the license terms. Due to provisions of the DMCA, this could forbid farmers circumventing DRM placed on this software in order to understand the operation of the tractor, and fix it themselves. 


5. Australia's government-run copyright collection agency has been using funds meant to go to authors instead for fighting against progressive copyright reform there. Australia is currently in the midst of a review of copyright, and the Productivity Commission has recommended broad changes, including the adoption of fair use. 


6. The U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 1695. The bill would give the President—not the Librarian of Congress—the power to appoint the Register of Copyrights. The position would be subject to Senate confirmation and would last for a term of 10 years (with the possibility of renewal). CC and other civil society organisations have argued that moving this reporting structure outside of the public-interest structure of the Library would be negative for users and access to information, as it would only give more influence to Hollywood and other large rightsholder organisations over copyright policymaking set by the Register. The bill would need to pass the Senate and be signed by the President to become law. 


7. The Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative is making an investment in preprint service bioRxiv. "If we're going to cure all disease in our children's lifetime, we need to speed up science. One thing that slows us down today is that it can take a year or longer to publish research in a scientific journal."


8. Louisiana State University is suing Elsevier for breach of contract when it refused to allow LSU’s veterinarian school faculty and students to access Elsevier content already licensed by LSU’s Libraries.


9. Sean Flynn has some updates from the latest meeting of WIPO's Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights. On the agenda has been discussion around how to support limitations and exceptions to copyright for libraries and education. 


10. Libraries are cancelling "Big Deal" journal subscriptions. Here's an interesting look (with data) into the current state of play. 
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages