November 16 Creative Commons Policy Roundup
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Timothy Vollmer
Nov 16, 2017, 4:10:35 PM11/16/17
to CC Staff, CC Affiliates, copyrigh...@creativecommons.email, iol-n...@googlegroups.com, Open Policy Network
Policy Update: DMCA Exemptions and Advocacy
"The Copyright Office announced last week that it is recommending the renewal of all the exemptions granted in the previous rulemaking session of 2015—welcome news for authors, critics, scholars, and all who support fair uses of copyrighted content." Hopefully this practice will continue, as it's something that the Office asked about in a previous request for comments, and could save time and effort from the community in having to provide new evidence each time they wish for an exemption to be renewed. This is especially important for those exemptions to which there is no opposition.
Internet Association Sells Out The Internet: Caves In And Will Now Support Revised SESTA
"It's extremely troublesome that the Internet Association -- the giant lobbying organization representing larger internet companies, has now come out in support of the new SESTA ... The small amendment to the bill "doesn't solve the other giant concern we had about the original bill, which is that this will encourage platforms to stop helping law enforcement and to stop monitoring their platforms for trafficking, because doing so can constitute "knowledge" and make them liable, if they are unable to wave a magic wand and make all such conduct disappear."
Three principles in CDA 230 that make Wikipedia possible
"Imagine an internet without social media, conversations, or the rich stores of free knowledge created by Wikipedia editors. An internet without content created and shared by anyone. That’s the internet we’d have without Section 230 of the U.S. Communications Decency Act, which provides important legal protections for websites that host user-generated content ... The Wikipedia we know today simply would not exist without Section 230."
Wikimedia France and La Quadrature du Net defend the public domain before the Constitutional Council
"They have created a kind of "anti-freedom of panorama" which will forbid many legitimate uses of our patrimony. Copyright-wise, buildings like the Chambord castle or the Louvre do in fact belong in the public domain and their images should, for this reason, be freely usable. Moreover, this new layer of rights created ex nihilo will make it impossible to put photos of these historical monuments under free licenses and contribute them to sites like Wikimedia Commons (the repository of images and multimedia files linked to Wikipedia). Free licenses, by definition, authorise commercial use, and their effectiveness is threatened by the new provisions of French law."
‘Inclusive Access’ Takes Off
"Major education publishers -- including Pearson, Cengage and McGraw-Hill Education -- report that the number of colleges offering "inclusive-access" programs has grown rapidly in recent years. Where previously students might have been assigned textbooks individually, now many institutions are signing up whole classes of students to automatically receive digital course materials at a discounted rate, rather than purchasing individually. The "inclusive" aspect of the model means that every student has the same materials on the first day of class, with the charge included as part of their tuition." Commentary: "inclusive-access" means nothing more than cost shifting, bundling, and long-term vendor lock-in. :(
MPAA Sticks Its Nose Into Australia's Copyright Business: Warns Against Fair Use And Geo-Blocking Relief
"The fair use model Australia is considering is essentially the American model, which has produced a boon of creative and educational output. What the MPAA is suggesting is that fair use should not be implemented because Australian courts haven't produced enough caselaw to make room for it. How the country would ever pile up that caselaw without implementing fair use is an open question the MPAA doesn't seem particularly interested in answering."
Another Court Overreaches With Site-Blocking Order Targeting Sci-Hub
"ACS bypassed both the DMCA and basic copyright law to get a court order directed at Internet intermediaries. It simply filed a proposed injunction labeling search engines, domain registrars, and so on as “entities in privity” with Sci-Hub. A magistrate judge adopted their proposal as-is."
ResearchGate Restricts Access to Nearly 2 Million Articles
"ResearchGate’s decision to remove access to nearly 2 million articles is a “positive step,” Milne now tells Times Higher Education. However, he adds, the network has not gone far enough in preventing the papers being shared with people not closely related to the research itself. “If they were really [serious about our demands] they would identify which papers are under copyright and make sure that those only stay in private sharing networks." Commentary: Yikes. This (and also the ACS v. Sci-Hub case) are all about reminding the academic community that for-profit publishers are in charge of the publicly-financed scientific record.
TPP continues without the worst copyright provisions
"The ministers of the remaining countries negotiating the TPP have “agreed on the core elements” of the deal. Of particular interest are about 20 “suspended provisions” outlined in an annex to the ministerial statement. Most of the provisions in the chapter on intellectual property have been “suspended,” meaning they likely will be excluded from future negotiations. This includes the proposed 20 year increase in copyright term and the introduction of criminal penalties for circumventing technological protection measures."
65 out of the 100 most cited papers are paywalled
"The web was built specifically to share research papers amongst scientists. Despite this being the first goal of the modern web, most research is still published behind a paywall. We have recently highlighted famous math papers that reside behind a paywall as well as ten papers that have achieved a near rockstar status in research and the public. Here we systematically look at the top one hundred cited papers of all time and find that 65\%65% of these papers are not open. Stated another way, the world’s most important research is inaccessible from the majority of the world."
Trade negotiators: follow these rules to protect creativity, access to knowledge, users’ rights
"Over 70 international copyright experts released the Washington Principles on Copyright Balance in Trade Agreements. The document, endorsed by Creative Commons, urges trade negotiators “to support policies like fair use, safe harbor provisions, and other exceptions and limitations that permit and encourage access to knowledge, flourishing creativity, and innovation."
Technology associations write to USTR about copyright concerns in NAFTA
"Finding the right balance in the area of copyright is essential for our companies. Many of our companies’ products and services depend on advancing the interests of both rights holders and innovative content creators, while ensuring the free and open Internet already enshrined in U.S. law. E-commerce platforms, cloud services, cybersecurity testing services, streaming services, text and data mining tools, machine learning, a vibrant entertainment industry, and numerous other current and future innovations are possible in part because the United States has a strong and balanced copyright framework – one that both protects new artistic creation and enables ongoing innovation."
U.S. Pushes Closer To Making Government Data Open By Default
"The Open, Public, Electronic, and Necessary Government Data Act (OPEN Government Data Act) has passed the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill’s text was included as Title II in the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act (H.R. 4174). If ultimately enacted, the bill would require all government data to be made open by default: machine-readable and freely-reusable. Essentially, the legislation would codify the 2013 Executive Order on Making Open and Machine Readable the New Default for Government Information."
WIPO Continues work on limitations and exceptions for libraries, archives, education
"We urge this Committee to fulfil its mandate and address the limitations copyright law places on education, by agreeing on an action plan that is focused on reviewing existing and future international legal provisions that could serve as a model for a minimum harmonization in this field."
BONUS SADNESS: The story that will never die
Monkey Selfie Photographer Says He's Now Going To Sue Wikipedia
"Wikipedia does support making knowledge available to the public, but that's unrelated to the legal question of whether the image is in the public domain -- but the way Chivvis presents it, it's as if Wikipedians just randomly declare images in the public domain because they think everything online should be free. That's wrong. And it's just bad reporting."
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