The workshop - co-organized by the Institute for Information Law (IViR) at the University of Amsterdam, Knowledgeland and Waag Society, under the perfect supervision of Lucie Guibault, Paul Keller and Peter Troxler - gathered about 70 participants from throughout Europe.

The event started with a fascinating discussion between two worldwide leading thinkers of the public domain: Professor James Boyle (Faculty Co-director of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School, USA) and Professor Bernt Hugenholtz (Director of the Institute for Information Law at the University of Amsterdam). Their conversation focused on the history of copyright and "droit d’auteur", defining differences and common points between the philosophies framing both concepts, toward more than one definition of the public domain.[24oct08]

The First COMMUNIA workshop of 2009 will take place Friday January 23 at the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) building in Geneva, Switzerland.

Co-organized by the EBU and the Research Center for Information Law at the University of St. Gallen (FIR-HSG), the event seeks to explore both the promise and challenges associated with alternative licensing schemes in the public broadcasting sector.[18oct08]

The 3rd COMMUNIA Workshop (Marking the public domain: relinquishment & certification) is planned in Amsterdam for 20-21 October 2008. The workshop will address the legal, economical and technical issues related to certifying public domain works and relinquishing intellectual property rights in Europe. [17oct08]

The first international Open Access Day will be held on 14 October 2008. The founding partners are SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), Students for FreeCulture, and the Public Library of Science.

The aim of the celebration is to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access, including recent mandates and emerging policies, within the international higher education community and the general public. Open Access Day will invite researchers, educators, librarians, students, and the public to participate in live, worldwide broadcasts of events.

There is a webpage dedicated to that event with all the information.

If you plan to organize any event at your institution you can use that site to spread information about it.
[09/24/08]

Under the banner of “A New Cultural Economy – The Limits of Intellectual Property” the 2008 festival aims to co-author the preamble to a new open knowledge-based society. [09/06/08]

Prof. Bernt Hugenholtz, Director of the Institute for Information Law at the University of Amsterdam (IViR), wrote an open letter about the European Commission’s “Intellectual Property Package”. Addressing two major studies on the impact of EU copyright law and policies produced in 2006 and 2007 by the IViR, Prof. Hugenholtz states his "complete surprise" in discovering that such studies "have been almost entirely ignored in the so-called 'forward looking package' on IP", recently released by the EC. [08/28/08]

Held at the University of Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium, under the perfect organization of a local team coordinated by Tom Dedeurwaerdere (Louvain University) and María José Iglesias (Namur University), the First COMMUNIA Conference attracted almost 100 attendees from all over Europe and even someone from the United States and Brazil. Here is a detailed report of the two-day event. [08/01/2008]

The 2008 iSummit brings together activists, change agents and new world social entrepreneurs to chart and reflect on a positive path for a more fair, more just, more creative world in the Information Age. The event will cover such topics as Open Education Policy and Practice, Open Business, Global Commons and Open Publishing, and the First Interdisciplinary Research Workshop on Free Culture.

The list of keynote speakers include COMMUNIA active members Rishab Ghosh and Paul Keller, along with other renowned experts and activists.

BEUC, the European Consumers’ Organisation, addressed the recent EU proposal to extend copyright protection from 50 to 95 years not only for music performers but also to record producers: "long terms of protection are counter-productive and a burden to innovation".

Science Commons, SPARC, the Center for the Study of the Public Domain, and the Institut d'Estudis Catalans are organizing a satellite event on the policies and technologies necessary to make good on the promise of scientific research in the networked era.