News

Event planned for Saturday 6/12/08.
[30nov08]

"Open Everything" events are spreading throughout the world. After the success of Open Everything London a few weeks ago, a follow-up is scheduled in Berlin on Saturday 6th December 2008.

It will be a great opportunity to meet people interested in open knowledge, open source software, and so on. The event will take place at newthinking store, (Tucholskystr. 48, Berlin-Mitte). Attendance is free (sign-up on mixxt network) and the full program is here.

The event will start with a handover from Open Everything Hong Kong and finish with a handover to ,a href="http://openeverything.wik.is/Madison%2C_WI">Open Everything Madison, WI, USA - both of which will also take place on 6 December.

In addition to talks, presentations and discussions, the event will feature the launch of Ivo Gormley’s Us Now, a Creative Commons licensed documentary about new forms of collaboration produced in association with the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).

Click here for more information.

Here are some good and quick answers....[25nov08]

In its "Help File" section, the International Herald Tribune website, owned by The New York Times Company, publishes a reader question: "What does it mean when a Web site says a picture or document is in the 'public domain'? Does that mean I can use it for my own purposes?"

Along with few useful links, the answer is quite clear and informative:

The public domain is a category of works made up of text, images and documents that are not protected by an active legal copyright. On the Internet, material in the public domain can be freely downloaded, copied and reused.

Creative material usually ends up in the public domain in one of two ways. Some creators relinquish their copyright and donate their work to the public domain.

Works can also fall into the public domain if their copyright has expired. In general, books published before 1923 in the United States are considered in the public domain.

Read the full column here.

Wide collection of educational resources in the public domain. [21nov08]

Incredibleart.org, a website serving teachers, students and parents since 1994, provides a large and eclectic list of art, books, images, and other resources available in the public domain (well beyond the USA).

Here are some of the links included: Clipart ETC: An online service of Florida's Educational Technology Clearinghouse. They claim to have at least 25,000 of free clipart; Geek Philosopher, Barbara Hocking: Public Domain Photographs. Food, nature, people, animals and more; Teacher Files Clip Art: free educational clip art; Pixelatestudio.com: Photographs from Holland and Belgium. Landscapes, animals, nature and more.

Run by two art educators in the Princeton, New Jersey area, the site covers mostly artistic and education fields, providing also useful links for further information on copyright issues, stating that "Copyright issues are becoming an important aspect of students' and educators' work on the internet."

A truly incredible (and useful) resource!

EFF urges quick change in fair use and IP laws.[12nov08]

In a three-part series outlining a possible "Innovation Agenda for the New Administration", EFF advocacy strategy coordinator Tim Jones also focuses on fair use and intellectual property.

Aiming at bringing back some balance to current copyright-related laws, Tim Jones writes: "Powerful companies interested in maximizing their investments in intellectual property have run roughshod over the people's fair use rights. This has been especially problematic given the explosion of user generated content sites like YouTube, which celebrate creativity and innovation and actively encourage a remix culture."

The various suggestions include eliminating the ability of copyright holders to get statutory damages for noncommercial violations of copyright laws (as specified in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) and urging the Congress to pass both the FAIR USE Act and the Orphan Works Act.

Read the full post here.

Europeana.eu will go live on the 20th of November 2008.[27oct08]

The newly designed site will bring users digitised books, films, paintings, newspapers, sounds and archives from Europe’s greatest collections.

The digital content (for a total of two million items) will be selected from that which is already digitised and available in Europe’s museums, libraries, archives and audio-visual collections. The prototype aims to have representative content from all four of these cultural heritage domains, and also to have a broad range of content from across Europe.

The interface will be multilingual. Initially, this may mean that it is available in French, English and German, but the intention is to develop the number of languages available following the launch. The final intention is that by 2010 the Europeana portal will give everybody direct access to well over 6 million digital sounds, pictures, books, archival records and films.

Europeana is a Thematic Network funded by the European Commission under the eContentplus programme, as part of the i2010 policy. Originally known as the European digital library network – EDLnet – it is a partnership of 90 representatives of heritage and knowledge organisations and IT experts from throughout Europe. They contribute to the Work Packages that are solving the technical and usability issues and developing the specifications for the prototype.

For more information: http://europeana.eu/

Creative Commons explores the non-commercial uses of overall content. [21oct08]

The non-profit organization Creative Commons has launched a research study that will explore differences between commercial and noncommercial uses of content, as those uses are understood among various communities and in connection with a wide variety of content. Generous support for the study has been provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Creative Commons provides free copyright licenses to creators who want to give the public certain permissions to use their works, in advance and without the need for one-to-one contact between the user and the creator. “Noncommercial” or “NC” is one of four different license terms that creators may choose to apply to their Creative Commons-licensed content.

Works distributed under a Creative Commons license including the NC term may be used by anyone for any purpose that is not “primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation,” provided the use also complies with the other terms of the license. Works distributed under a Creative Commons license without the NC term may additionally be used for commercial purposes, an option that promotes creative reuse in a broader range of contexts.

Research is expected to be completed early in 2009. The study will investigate understanding of noncommercial use and the Creative Commons NC license term through a random sample survey of online content creators in the U.S., a poll of the global Creative Commons community, and qualitative data gathered from interviews with thought leaders and focus groups with participants from around the world who create and use a wide variety of content and media.

More information on theCreative Commons website.

Public domain and open access at Internet Governance Forum Italia. [18oct08]

The preparatory process leading to the third Internet Governance Forum (IGF) - Hyderabad, India, 3-6 December 2008 - is currently under way. IGF Italia will held a meeting in Cagliari, 22-24 October, organized in collaboration with Internet Society Italia and aimed at defining a common platform for the national Internet community on the issues to be dealt with at the next international IGF. That is, freedom of expression diversity, security, but also the development of public domain, how to broaden open access and foster fair use in todays' cultural environments.

The Forum program includes twelve workshops on the major and most current issues. The discussion will also address current and future developments of the Internet Bill of Rights, in a subsequent event dubbed Dialogue Forum on Internet Rights 2 - as a follow-up the the first meeting hold in Rome in September 2007.

Both events are free and open to the public, with plenty of time for public debate and interaction.

Link for more information.