January 22 Creative Commons Policy Roundup
3 views
Skip to first unread message
Timothy Vollmer
Jan 22, 2018, 1:35:23 PM1/22/18
to CC Staff, CC Affiliates, copyrigh...@creativecommons.email, iol-n...@googlegroups.com, Open Policy Network, pol...@wikimedia.de
Copyright Week 2018
Creative Commons and several other organisations participated in the annual Copyright Week (https://www.eff.org/copyrightweek-2018), a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy. Here's a few of our posts:
Australia- Copyright Law Reform Update- a lot to celebrate and a lot to look forward to
Delia Browne reports on Australia copyright reform, including changes to the law affecting education, libraries and archives, TPMs, safe harbours, and collecting societies. It also appears that Australia has finally rid itself of the rule that essentially meant that unpublished materials could technically remain in copyright in perpetuity.
Educators ask for a better copyright
COMMUNIA sent a joint letter to all MEPs working on copyright reform. The letter is an urgent request to improve the education exception in the proposal for a Directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market. It is supported by 47 organisations representing schools, libraries, universities and non-formal education, and also individual educators and information specialists. The future of education determines the future of society. In the letter we explain the changes needed to facilitate the use of copyrighted works in support of education.
MEPs from across the political spectrum resist the plan to make “censorship machines” mandatory in the EU
MEP Reda produced a video explaining the problems with Article 13 (upload filters) of the EU copyright reform, and gets several other MEPs to voice their concern too.
Wikimedia: EU copyright reform inhibits the free dissemination of knowledge
translated from German—
Wikimedia criticizes Article 13—the upload filters associated with the EU copyright amendment as a disproportionate interference with freedom of expression. Consumer advocates complain about the loss of liability privileges.
EU Ratifies Marrakesh Treaty
After years of delays, the EU has finally ratified the treaty that will improve access to copyright works for the blind and otherwise visually impaired. In a short speech, MEP Julia Reda said, "Access to books is not a privilege, it's a human right."
Funders should mandate open citations
Making reference lists from articles free to view is insufficient for these purposes; to be useful, open references must be stored in a machine-readable format in a centralized repository. Crossref, the DOI-registration agency used by most academic publications, has provided such a repository since 2000, but its references are freely available only if publishers explicitly specify that they be made open. Funders and the scientific community must push harder for this.
The scholarly commons must be developed on public standards
Without a concerted effort now, we are paving the way for a world in which access to these insights, often funded by taxes and foundation grants, will become ever more dependent on one’s (or one’s institution’s) financial means. And given that the latter tends to be shaped by race, class, and gender inequalities, our continued apathy will perpetuate – indeed, exacerbate – gross social injustice around the world. The embargoing of scholarship behind paywalls, alongside extortionate publication and open access fees are the academic world’s micro to the undoing of net neutrality’s macro.
Is This Science Hacker a Heroine or a Villain?
Sci-Hub is not backing down, and in fact, is getting increasingly popular—in 2016, the web site claimed to services over 200,000 requests per day. The site hosts more than 64.5 million scientific journal articles. In October, biodata scientist Daniel Himmelstein at the University of Pennsylvania studied Sci-Hub’s repository and found that its collection housed 85.2 percent of all journal articles stored behind all paywalls everywhere; 97.3 percent of Elsevier’s catalog—the largest publisher of biomedical journals—is available for free on Sci-Hub.
This is not new, but I finally got around to reading it. Some big shot economists offer advice about how publicly funded IP should be shared.
One of the key pathologies of the innovation system in the advanced industrialised countries is the continued privatisation of the knowledge commons. Institutions such as private universities have been encouraged to patent their work and to make licensing fees even when the public in the form of research grants has partially or wholly funded such work. This is most easily observed in the case of NIH grants facilitating medical breakthroughs that are then licensed or sold on to private pharmaceutical companies. Developing countries still have very large public sector involvement in funding research, much more so, typically than in the US or similar countries.
Developing countries should strive to keep the fruits of publicly funded research in the public domain. Thus, national innovation laws could consider some of the following possibilities. First, the government should retain the right to use any invention arising from its funding, even partially, and to grant that right to others. This is particularly important for medical breakthroughs or sensitive technologies such as genetic testing platforms. Second, if publicly funded research is going to be subject to licensing, the government should weigh in favour of a non-exclusive licensing scheme so that a genuine commons may be maintained. Third, if these licensing agreements are seen to prevent or limit public interest objectives, the government should reserve the right to override and cancel such licenses. Fourth, while the creation of a market for a product generated by public funds should be encouraged, the government should retain the right to insist that consumer access is available in a reasonable manner. Again, in the case of medical breakthroughs, this is a critical clause. Finally, government can create funds for prize mechanisms that solve the problem of rst copy costs and ensure that the product deriving from the prize is publicly available at a marginal cost.
"Dramatis Principiis" in The Monitor
Canadian lawyer and CC affiliate Cynthia Khoo writes in the journal of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. She writes, “Copyright enforcement in the internet context appears prone to overreaching, undermining civil rights and democratic values to protect powerful private interests rather than marginalized individuals or the public interest.” (p. 31)
Acting U.S. Register of Copyrights Sounds Alarm Over Legal Group's 'Pseudo-Version of the Copyright Act'
The Acting U.S. Register of Copyrights sent a letter to the American Law Institute expressing concern over a project to "restate" copyright law that is causing concern among lawyers in the media business ... The American Law Institute is a century-old independent organization that produces and publishes scholarly books, including "Restatements of the Law," which are intended to guide judges by summarizing and clarifying court decisions in different states. Although the Institute has no formal legal authority, its Restatements are so often used by lawyers and so frequently cited by judges that they play a significant role in shaping court decisions around the U.S.
Year Ahead: US Music Sector Calls For Major Legislative Changes To Copyright In 2018
It's not clear any of these minor reforms will be actively pursued considering the mess Congress is in--not to mention the upcoming elections--but you've got to admit the music industry associations are well organized and willing to push this agenda.
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages