The new version of the Creative Commons licences are launched today!

Diane Peters writes:

We had ambitious goals in mind when we embarked on the versioning process coming out of the 2011 CC Global Summit in Warsaw. The new licenses achieve all of these goals, and more. The 4.0 licenses are extremely well-suited for use by governments and publishers of public sector information and other data, especially for those in the European Union. This is due to the expansion in license scope, which now covers sui generis database rights that exist there and in a handful of other countries.

Among other exciting new features are improved readability and organization, common-sense attribution, and a new mechanism that allows those who violate the license inadvertently to regain their rights automatically if the violation is corrected in a timely manner.

You can find highlights of the most significant improvements on our website, track the course of the public discussion and evolution of the license drafts on the 4.0 wiki page, and view a recap of the central policy decisions made over the course of the versioning process.

The 4.0 versioning process has been a truly collaborative effort between the brilliant and dedicated network of legal and public licensing experts and the active, vocal open community. The 4.0 licenses, the public license development undertaking, and the Creative Commons organization are stronger because of the steadfast commitment of all participants.

With the 4.0 licenses published, we will be turning our attention to official translations of the legal code in partnership with our affiliate network and larger community. Translations of our new deeds are also underway, with a significant number already completed.

Thank you and congratulations to everyone who participated in making 4.0 a reality!

Update on the 4.0 version of the Creative Commons Licences by Diane:

http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/39390 

If you are interested in what got discussed at the CC Summit last week in Buenos Aires, the presentations are now online.

… just posted by CC:

http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/38371

From the Communia-Association’s blog:

More information about the book can be found on the Communia Association’s website.

On Monday, June 18, MEP Amelia Andersdotter, along with her colleague MEP Ioannis Tsoukalas, is inviting you to attend the launch of the book ”The Digital Public Domain: Foundations for an Open Culture”, edited by Melanie Dulong de Rosnay and Juan Carlos De Martin as an output of the Communia Thematic Network.

The book is under a CC Attribution license and the PDF can be downloaded here.

”The Digital Public Domain: Foundations for an Open Culture”

18 June 2012

18:30 – 20:00

European Parliament, Brussels, ASP Main Hall

(Ground Floor, in front of the Newspapers Quiosque)

18:30 Welcome: MEP Amelia Andersdotter

18:35 Introduction: MEP Prof. Ioannis Tsoukalas

18:45 The Digital Public Domain – presentation by editors: Melanie Dulong & Juan Carlos De Martin

19:00 Q&A and Discussion / Cocktails

19:45 Closing remarks: MEP Amelia Andersdotter

If would like to attend the event and require access to the Parliament, please register with amelia.andersdotter-office@europarl.europa.eu before June 14, indicating your full name, date of birth and ID number.

Link to the invitation on Amelia Andersdotter’s blog.

A video interview of Anne-Catherine Lorrain, Juan Carlos De Martin and Melanie Dulong de Rosnay during the book launch event is available on YouTube. Thanks to Amelia Andersdotter’s team members Julia Reda, Edvinas Pauza and Tess Lindholm.

Timothy Vollmer writes on the CC Blog:

In the UK, the House of Commons has asked for feedback on their Open Access Policy. One provision of that policy requires that articles funded through the Research Councils UK (RCUK) must be released under a CC BY license. Last year, CC submitted a short comment in support.

And just last month, the House of Lords completed a consultation period which has generated some misinformationabout how the CC BY license operates. So, in order to clarify some of these misconceptions, Creative Commons and Creative Commons UK submitted a joint response to the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee to set the record straight.

We’ve pulled together some clarifications to some of the uncertainty lobbed at the CC BY license provision in the Open Access Policy. Some of the reasons given that CC BY should not be retained include:

• it would promote “misuse of research or would cause authors to “lose control of their work”
• third party rights negotiations for content that authors wish to include within an openly licensed article would prove too difficult
• open licensing provides less protection against plagiarism
• CC BY is not widely used in OA publishing
• authors should choose licensing conditions, not funders

These claims are confusing, misguided, or not backed up by evidence. We offer our responses and support here.

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/BIS_committee_UK_OA_Policy

“Public Knowledge is happy to announce a new whitepaper: “What’s the Deal with Copyright and 3D Printing?” This paper is something of a follow up to our previous 3D printing whitepaper “It Will Be Awesome if They Don’t Screw It Up“. Unlike “It Will Be Awesome”, which focused on the broad connection between intellectual property law and 3D printing, What’s the Deal? takes a deeper dive into the relationship between copyright and 3D printing.”

Continue reading on www.publicknowledge.org/blog/so-what-deal-copyright-and-3d-printing

A new fab lab has been launched in Belval, Luxembourg, with the support of Technoport, the national incubator.

The lab is run by Rodolfo Baïz who is busy buying equipment to get the lab up and running. We are looking forward to the grand opening!

Internet : fablablux.org

Twitter : @fablablux

“Es braucht kein neues Urheberrechtsgesetz.

Urheberrechtspolitik ist auch ohne Reform des Urheberrechts möglich. Freie Lizenzen wie Creative Commons können Interessen versöhnen und Gewinn für alle bringen.“

Ganzer Artikel

Till Kreutzer’s Ideen für eine zukünftige Regulierung kreativer Güter:

“Moderne Technologien machen es den Nutzern möglich, sehr viel mehr urheberrechtlich geschützte Güter zu kopieren und weiterzugeben, als dies noch vor 50 Jahren der Fall war. Das Urheberrecht kann die Rechteinhaber derzeit nicht effektiv schützen. Es müsste gründlich reformiert werden, um Kreativen zu ihrem Recht, das weniger durch Privatnutzer als vielmehr von Verwertern beschnitten wird, zu verhelfen.”

Den ganzen, sehr lesenswerten, Text gibt es im Wirtschaftsdienst vom Oktober 2012.

Timothy Vollmer writes:

“In August we wrote about the European Commission’s request for information on the topic Opening Up Education. The point of the consultation is to gauge the need for EU action to promote the adoption and use of Open Educational Resources (OER) and Information Communication Technologies (ICT) in education. Several Creative Commons affiliates in Europe have submitted a joint response to the survey. The jurisdictions signing onto the response include Luxembourg, Denmark, Greece, Germany, Belgium, United Kingdom, Sweden, Czech Republic, France, Portugal, Serbia, Poland, Netherlands, Finland, Bulgaria, and Ireland.

The joint response urges the Commission to support the recommendations in the 2012 Paris OER Declaration, which was unanimously supported by UNESCO member nations at the World Open Educational Resources Congress on 20-22 June 2012. As described in the consultation document (PDF), “the EU will use the tools at its disposal (policy guidance, EU regulation whenever relevant, funding mechanisms, exchange of good practices and innovative pilots).” By leveraging these various tools in alignment with the suggestions laid out in the Paris Declaration, the Commission can be very effective in promoting the development and use of OER. (…)”

Read full post.

Full response sent to the European Commission.

The goal of the redesign is improved clarity and ease of use.

(Full post from CC blog)

Diane Peters of Creative Commons HQ:

We are pleased to post draft 2 of 4.0 for public discussion. This comes after several months of substantive conversations on a number of policy issues, with input solicited from our global community on the CC license-development list (archive), through affiliate consultations, via comments posted directly on our 4.0 wiki, and submissions to staff.

We fielded comments from an impressive number of jurisdictions — more than 50 by our estimate. The combined input reflects an incredibly diverse set of opinions and an equally diverse group of constituents. Individual creators, educators and educational institutions, governments, policy makers, academics and many others all added their voices to the conversation. We received a great deal of input and revision proposals, and people shared many informed (and sometimes passionate) opinions on a wide range of topics. And while compromise and consensus are not always achievable, we feel the decisions reflected in draft 2 are well grounded and considered. (…)

(More)

“Das Portal unglue.it ist umgedrehtes Crowdfunding: Die Crowd kauft Bücher von Rechteinhabern frei und stellt sie anschließend unter Creative-Commons-Lizenz jedem zur Verfügung. ”

Mehr: “Unglue.it befreit Bücher”, Die Zeit, 09/07/12

Surprising?

In the 2012 “Global Innovation Index”, Luxembourg  is ranked Nr6 fro Wikipedia edits.

More proof of the innovative potential in services based on sharing and remixing, such as Wikipedia, which is based the legal toolkit of Creative Commons licences.  Great to see that there is a beginning recognition that value is created and maintained in the public Commons.

Full report here:  www.globalinnovationindex.org