First European Opensource Lawyers Meeting

The EOLE meeting on the 24th september in Paris will discuss GPLv3.

It is held during the “The capital of Libre” conference.

EOLE logo

Programm EOLE 2008

9.00 am – 1.00 pm: GPLv3 by features

  • The process of GPL revision, by Philippe Aigrain (FR), Sopinspace — Member of the board of directors of the Software Freedom Law Center
  • The “Internationalization” of the GPLv3 wording, by Ciaran O’Riordan (UK), Freedom Task Force coördinator
  • The copyleft extent of GPLv3 – derivative works / dynamic linking / LGPL, by Javier Gonzalez (SP), Adjunct Professor – University of the Balearic Islands
  • The GPLv3 and ASP – closing the loophole with the AGPL, by Marco Ciurcina (IT), Attorney at law – Studio Legale
  • The Patent clauses of GPLv3, by Mikko Välimäki (FIN), Lecturer in law – Helsinki University of Technology
  • The GPLv3 and compatibility issues, by Philippe Laurent (BE), Researcher at the CRID/University of Namur
  • The GPLv3 and DRMs / Anti-lock down clause, by Séverine Dusollier (BE), Lecturer in Law – University of Namur et/ou Philippe Aigrain (FR), Sopinspace — Member of the board of directors of the Software Freedom Law Center
  • The GPLv3, Warranty and Liability, by Sandrine Rambaud, Cabinet Bird & Bird
  • The GPLv3 and Private Law considerations, by Grégoire Jocquel, Cabinet Gilles Vercken
  • The GPLv3 and Competetition consideration , by Carlo Piana*, Attorney at law – Tamos & Partners

2.00 pm – 6.00 pm : GPLv3 by sectors

  • The GPL from the US lawyer point of view, by Mark Radcliffe* – DLA Piper Partner
  • The GPLv3 from the service & development industry perspective, by Benjamin Jean, Lawyer – Groupe Linagora
  • The GPLv3 from the embedded software/hardware industry perspective, by David Marr (US), Assistant General Counsel Product & Technology Law, Sun
  • The GPL enforcement – GPL and compilation, by Loïc Dachary, Senior Developer, member of GNU Project, APRIL and the FSF France
  • The GPLv3 from the public administration perspective, by Thierry Aimé, French ministry of finance et Pascal VERNIORY, Responsable du service Juridique DCTI – Centre des Technologies de l’Information
  • The (L)GPLv3 from community perspective, by Sophie Gautier, OpenOffice.org

Link

European Commission is misleading EU on copyright extension, says academic

The European Commission “wilfully ignored” studies that it paid for whose conclusions disagreed with its policy and the Commission is misleading the European Union Council, Parliament and citizens over copyright extension, a leading academic has warned. Professor Bernt Hugenholtz is the director of the University of Amsterdam’s Institute

for Information Law (IViR) and has written an open letter (pdf) to Commissioner Jose Manuel Barroso that is starkly critical of its controversial policies on copyright extension.

Via quicklinks.

Others have picked up this story: arstechnica, open rights group, unwatched, out-law.com, …

OCLC copyright evidence registry

OCLC is piloting a new service for libraries that encourages librarians and other interested parties to discover and share information about the copyright status of books.

The WorldCat Copyright Evidence Registry does not provide conclusions or assertions about the copyright status of a book. Instead, it provides the information, tools, and community to help you conduct your copyright status investigation and form your own conclusions. It also lets you and others in the community share your conclusions.

So hop over to the Registry Pilot, create a free WorldCat account and have a look. A quick take:

  • Creative Commons licences are supported as copyright information, yet their integration could be optimised with CC+ and a licence chooser, to make sure that OCLC receives machine readable data. Now, you just type in free-form CC licence descriptions and no proper ccREL can be built from that.
  • No sharing of data. Unfortunately, OCLC harvests the rights of those contributing. The terms of use allow hardly any re-use: no mining, no caching, no distribution. There are also some fancy (cardcatalog?) rules like it’s forbidden to “make more than one (1) copy per screen display;”

This is a pilot which rests on the solid basis of 100 million item WorldCat database and has the potential to be a highly relevant source for copyright information evidence.

Better access to scientific articles on EU-funded research

 From the RTD Scientific Publication team:

European Commission launches online pilot project

Fast and reliable access to research results, especially via the Internet, can drive innovation, advance scientific discovery and support the development of a strong knowledge-based economy. The European Commission wants to ensure that the results of the research it funds under the EU’s 7th Research Framework Programme (FP7) with more than € 50 billion from 2007 – 2013 are disseminated as widely and effectively as possible to guarantee maximum exploitation and impact in the world of researchers and beyond. The Commission today launched a pilot project that will give unrestricted online access to EU-funded research results, primarily research articles published in peer reviewed journals, after an embargo period of between 6 and 12 months. The pilot will cover around 20% of the FP7 programme budget in areas such as health, energy, environment, social sciences and information and communication technologies.

Information on the open access pilot in FP7:

Questions on the Open Access pilot can be sent to: rtd-open-access@ec.europa.eu

Commission activities in the area of access to scientific information:

http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/scientific_information

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/digital_libraries/

Copyright 2.0 news from Communia

The papers of the first COMMUNIA conference are online now:

June 30-July 1, COMMUNIA conference on Public Domain in the Digital

Age, Louvain-la-Neuve, BE

http://www.communia-project.eu/conf2008/program

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. Hereafter you can find the workshop program, but…please book your hotel as soon as possible!

http://www.communia-project.eu/node/109

Term extension for music recordings

Stef van Gompel wrote this little update on a bad policy proposal:

The intention of the European Commission to extend the term of protection in sound recordings is taking more serious proportions, now that they have formally adopted a proposal to that effect.

See the press release announcing the proposal for a term extension, and also the proposal itself, at:

<<http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/term-protection/term-protection_en.htm>>

The proposal ignores all the empirical evidence that hitherto has been brought forward recommending the Commission not to proceed towards a term extension. These include two independent reports, the one written by the Institute for Information Law for the Commission’s DG Internal Market, the other written by the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law for the UK Gowers Review. For those of you interested in reading these reports, here are the links:

For those of you who have little time, there is also an article on the matter (to which I contributed) which gives a pretty good overview of the different arguments against a term extension. See:

N. Helberger, N. Dufft, S.J. van Gompel & P.B. Hugenholtz, ‘Never Forever: Why Extending the Term of Protection for Sound Recordings is a Bad Idea,’ E.I.P.R., 2008-5, p. 174-181, online available at:

<<http://www.ivir.nl/publications/helberger/EIPR_2008_5.pdf>>

Finally, some campaigns have been launched and statements issued opposing the proposal for a term extension. Amongst others, there are:

Creativity stifled? – Why copyright term extension for sound recordings is a very bad idea:

<<http://www.cippm.org.uk/publications/index.html>>

Campaign against term extension by EFF and Open Rights Group:

<<http://www.soundcopyright.eu/>>

EBLIDA Expert Group on Information Law

<<http://www.eblida.org/index.php?page=position-papers-and-statements-2>>

CANCELLED – Rockhal: Creative Commons

CANCELLED

Date : samedi 31.05.2008 14h-16h

ROCKHAL

5, avenue du Rock’n’Roll

L-4361 Esch/Alzette

A l’heure d’internet, des blogs et des nouveaux médias en ligne, les modèles de diffusion et d’utilisation de la culture et des œuvres (musique, films, textes) se redéfinissent sans cesse. L’œuvre, qu’il s’agisse de musique, de littérature ou d’images, transformée en information numérique devient facilement transportable, échangeable, modifiable et accessible. Le problème de la paternité et de l’utilisation (ill)icite de l’œuvre devient alors une préoccupation centrale de l’auteur/créateur et de toute personne travaillant de près ou de loin dans l’exploitation d’œuvres artistiques (labels, éditeurs…).

Pour celles et ceux qui souhaitent partager leur travail librement, la communauté Creative Commons tente ainsi de fournir un ensemble de licences donnant la possibilité à l’auteur/créateur d’autoriser à l’avance certaines utilisations (utilisation libre, utilisation non commerciale uniquement, etc.) de son œuvre. Partant de l’idée que la culture peut être partagée et distribuée librement et de manière légale, les licences CC sont censées faciliter l’accès à la culture et la diffusion de celle-ci sur internet tout en garantissant la protection des droits et de la propriété intellectuelle de l’auteur.

De nombreuses questions se posent alors – S’agit-il d’un nouveau modèle de diffusion de la culture mieux adapté aux exigences d’internet ? Ces licences peuvent-elles s’intégrer à une stratégie commerciale d’un artiste ou d’un label (diffusion promotionnelle gratuite par exemple) ? Les licences CC sont-elles, en pratique, compatibles avec le modèle de gestion et de fonctionnement des sociétés des droits d’auteur comme la Sacem ?

Autant de questions que nous aborderons au cours de la conférence du 31 mai. Les invités sont M. Patrick Peiffer, président de Creative Commons Luxembourg, M. Laurent Kratz de Jamendo, M. Bob Krieps de Sacem Luxembourg ainsi que M.Ralph Zeimet du label Schnurstrax Records. Les personnes souhaitant assister à la conférence sont, comme d’habitude, invitées à participer au débat.

De 14h00 à 16h00

Entrée libre.

go to the rockhal site: info and registration

Call+Response at Mudam Luxembourg 25-28.4.

The Museum of comtemporary art (Mudam) Luxembourg is proud to present Call + Response, a series of events hosted by artist Candice Breitz. Creative innovation has always relied, to some extent, on the logic of call-and-response, a phrase that Breitz borrows from musicologists, who use it to describe the interactive quality that is key to musical experience in various oral cultures.

Mudam warmly invites you to share your ideas with a group of artists and thinkers as they explore the logic of call-and-response and reflect on strategies of artistic appropriation and creative recycling during a three-day line-up of performances, panels and discussions.

Possibly of note for Creative Commons friends: founder Lawrence Lessig will keynote on Sunday 27th april. (See below for programme details)

call_and_response_mudam

Notable invited guests include Cory Arcangel, Martin Arnold, Pierre Bismuth, Claude Closky, Diedrich Diedrichsen, Iain Forsyth + Jane Pollard, Surasi Kusolwong, Matthieu Laurette, Lawrence Lessig, Gabriel Lester, Bjørn Melhus, Momus, Jonathan Monk, Kaz Oshiro, Guillaume Paris, Paul Pfeiffer and James Webb.

http://www.mudam.lu/call+response

PROGRAMME

Friday, 25 April 2008 Evening

OPENING EVENTS

Forsyth + Pollard

London-based artists Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard met and began working collaboratively in 1993. An interdisciplinary approach to art, music, mediation and ?liveness¹ has led to their continued engagement with the soundtrack underpinning contemporary life. Their universal yet highly personal strategies play out ideas of memory, performance and the mediated image in a challenging but highly accessible body of work.

Saturday, 26 April 2008 10am-6pm

Mondo Youtube

This day-long session brings together several artists who have explored the participatory potential of mainstream media such as advertising, the Internet, reality television, video games, MySpace and YouTube. Given the increasingly profit-driven nature of most of these formats, is it possible for a challenging culture of call-and-response to exist within these nascent public spheres, or inevitable that all criticism and innovative thought introduced into these new formats will immediately be instrumentalized towards commercial ends? Invited artists will supplement discussions of their own work with examples of mainstream media that have interested them, influenced them, or into which they have actively intervened.

with:

Cory Arcangel, New York

Matthieu Laurette, Paris

Bjørn Melhus, Berlin

Guillaume Paris, Paris

Gabriel Lester, Amsterdam/Brussels

Sunday, 27 April 2008 10am-6pm

After Images

This day-long session brings together several artists who have engaged in explicit call-and-response relationships with other artists or works of art, addressing the crucial exchange and dialogue that motivates artistic practice. Each artist will talk about their own work in relation to those artists or works of art that they respond to or dialogue with in their work.

with:

Surasi Kusolwong, Bangkok

Jonathan Monk, Berlin

Claude Closky, Paris

Kaz Oshiro, Los Angeles

James Webb, Cape Town

Keynote Speaker :

Lawrence Lessig, San Francisco

Professor Lessig’s talk will be held at Philharmonie (3 mins walk from Mudam). Admission is free. Advanced booking is required. Please send an email to callandresponse@mudam.lu to register.

Monday, 28 April 2008 9am-8pm

Art Goes To The Movies

Martin Arnold has written that, ³The cinema of Hollywood is a cinema of exclusion, reduction and denial, a cinema of repression. There is always something behind that which is being represented, which was not represented. And it is exactly that that is most interesting to consider.² This premise can be seen to inform the work of many contemporary artists who work in video today. This day-long session brings together several artists who have responded to and cannibalized mainstream cinema in their work, addressing the complex call-and-response relationship that exists between commercial cinema and contemporary art. Each artist will have the opportunity to talk about their use of found footage and their relationship to the cinematic images that they recycle in their work.

with:

Paul Pfeiffer, New York

Pierre Bismuth, Brussels

Martin Arnold, Vienna

Candice Breitz, Berlin

Keynote Speaker :

Diedrich Diederichsen, Berlin

Evening

Momus Live

³Ultraconformist, voyager, timelord, tennis and ping pong champion, tender pervert, poison boyfriend, hippopotamus, philosopher, folk singer, star forever.² Nick Currie, more popularly known under the artist name Momus (after the Greek god of mockery), is a songwriter, blogger and a journalist for Wired. Most of his songs are self-referential or postmodern.

– – –

Please register online before 10th April 2008!

Booking is essential due to limited seating.

Mudam can provide assistance with accommodation, food, local transport and other details for students.

Call+Response will take place in the Mudam auditorium and will be open only to registered participants.

All talks will be held in English. Program subject to modification

Mudam Luxembourg

3 Park Dräi Eechelen

L-1499 Luxembourg

Tel. +352 45 37 85-1

Registration : http://www.mudam.lu/call+response

Information : callandresponse@mudam.lu

Press contact: presse@mudam.lu

http://www.mudam.lu

Creative Commons und NGOs

Die Diplomarbeit von Nicole Ebber kann für NGOs einen Beitrag leisten, die Creative Commons Licence (CCL) erfolgreich in ihr Management und den Stakeholderdialog zu integrieren. Ebenso soll sie NGOs dazu anregen, sich mit den Fragen der Rechtegestaltung im digitalen Raum zu beschäftigen. Als Argumentationsgrundlage kann sie darüber hinaus helfen, weniger CC-affine Stakeholder aufzuklären und zu überzeugen.

Ziel: Mit fundierten Wissen über die Creative Commons Lizenzen beitragen zur Optimierung des internen und externen Informationsflusses in NGOs .

Link zum PDF

Erfolgreiches Scheitern – eine Götterdämmerung des Urheberrechts

Das aktuelle Buch von Rainer Kuhlen “Erfolgreiches Scheitern – eine Götterdämmerung des Urheberrechts” kann jetzt auch beim Verlag direkt bestellt werden, (natürlich auch bei amazon) aber auch frei als PDF heruntergeladen werden. Wer möchte, kann dem freien Download auch eine Spende zugunsten des Aktionsbündnisses Urheberrecht für Bildung und Wissenschaft beigeben. (Bizarrerweise steht das PDF unter zwei verschiedenen CC-Lizenzen: CC 3.0 Unported BY und CC 2.0 DE BY-NC-SA)

Ein bildungs- und wissenschaftsfreundliches Urheberrecht — so hatte es die gegenwärtige Bundesregierung in ihrer Koalitionsvereinbarung gewollt. Drastischer ist wohl kaum je ein politisches Ziel verfehlt worden.

Durch das mit Wirkung Anfang 2008 gültige Gesetz ist für jedermann erkennbar, dass das Urheberrecht zum Handelsrecht wird. Alle Bemühungen der Wissenschaft, diese fatale Entwicklung zu verhindern, sind erst einmal als gescheitert anzusehen.

Letztlich wird es aber doch eher ein erfolgreiches Scheitern sein. Immer mehr Personen in Bildung und Wissenschaft wird bewusst werden, dass sich nicht gegen, aber doch unabhängig vom Urheberrecht neue freie, selbstbestimmte Formen des Umgangs mit Wissen und Information (Open Access) entwickeln müssen. Dabei wäre es auch über das Urheberrecht denkbar einfach. Es genügte ein Satz: Verwertungsrechte im öffentlichen Bereich von Bildung und Wissenschaft können von Urhebern nicht exklusiv zur kommerziellen Verwertung abgetreten werden. Wissen, zumal das mit öffentlichen Mitteln produzierte, kann nicht privates Eigentum sein.

Download: PDF

Scholarly Communications @ Duke – Strangling our cultural past

“In addition to releasing most of their library website content under a Creative Commons license, the Duke University Libraries Scholarly Communications Office has been posting a series of helpful “Copyright Widgets.” These short, information-packed notes provide some extremely useful copyright guidance to educators, researchers and others looking for digestible clarification on some complicated legal issues. Kevin Smith and the team at the Scholarly Communications Office tackle some interesting and timely issues such as copyright in the classroom, authors’ rights, fair use and digital rights management. Fantastic work — a must add to your RSS reader!”

Read their piece on

Strangling our cultural past:

Excerpts:

… “the real purpose behind copyright term extension has never been stronger incentives for future creation, but rather to keep older works out of the public domain, two recent news articles recount cases on exactly that topic.”

… “A Sony spokesman was very frank about not wanting to let others “assume” that these works are in the public domain when they “may” not be. A perfect expression of the “chilling effects” that…

Plenty of good news

CC turns 5!

For a rundown of the overwhelming number of big announcements made at CC’s 5th birthday party in San Francisco, see Lawrence Lessig’s blog. The party itself was a huge success, with over 600 people attending. Watch this space for more detail on the announced projects as they develop.

In Berlin, headquarters of CC International, a small party became a smashing success with 300 people and some great announcements from CC Germany. See a writeup on the Netzpolitik blog.

There were other CC birthday parties around the globe, but from the photos the most impressive of all may have been put on by CC Korea, called CC Hope Day.

Launch of CC+ and CC0

Please read our press release for more information about how they work and who we’re collaborating with. The announcement of CC0 on the Science Commons blog.

New Comic for kids

We are happy to announce the publication of our brand new comic, Sharing Creative Works: An Illustrated Primer. We hope this piece will serve as a friendly and easy-to-understand overview of copyright and CC licensing. This way, the next time someone asks you to explain Creative Commons and you’re not sure where to begin, you can just direct them to our primer.

Its been a while since we’ve updated our previous comics and this one features a completely new visual style designed by Alex Roberts, with some help from Rebecca Rojer. Together with Jon Phillips they also drafted the script. But, we want this to be an asset of and for the community, so the entire project has been released into the public domain. For ease of translation & remixing, the artwork is all available in SVG format and the text is all up on the wiki. Please contribute!

Sharing Creative Works is also part of our efforts to integrate Creative Commons licensing into the OLPC, so we’ve specifically designed it be kid-friendly (though we hope adults will enjoy it too!). This comic will serve as the foundation of the documentation for the Sugar Licensing Activity but will be customized for each country’s distribution, so please let us know if you have suggestions for making this document as culturally accessible as possible.