So I'm pretty sure my opinions on CC0 are clear, and I've already done a pretty good wrap up of CC+ before. But I was talking to Jamison Young on Skype about it. Here's some of what we discussed (reproduced with permission):
Jamison Young 10:15 AM
what are your thoughts on the CC+ license?elliott bledsoe 10:16 AM
conceptually i think they are an interesting move. i like the idea of facilitating commercial use with cc non-commercial use ie magnatune
Jamison Young 10:16 AM
yeah i agree, i would like to see charity organizations take the idea on
elliott bledsoe 10:16 AM
provide as many licensing options as possible to cater to the widest number of uses possible i say. makes for a more versatile service/website/whatever. but i think it is important that cc doesn't get too caught up in the commercial end of things
Jamison Young 10:17 AM
i agree
elliott bledsoe 10:17 AM
we don't exist to create commercial licences
Jamison Young 10:17 AM
i think CC's focus needs to be the home creator
elliott bledsoe 10:18 AM
the problem is that commercial licences (often) need to be far too specific to a set of circumstances which i don't think is the aim of an international standardised licensing model. the obligation should be on the company. especially as they have the most to gain from it.
elliott bledsoe 10:19 AM
what i think it important, and what CC+ has done, is to create an environment where it is easy to provide dual/multiple licensing options that include one or more cc licences as well as a range of other licensing options
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ACIA: Furthering the Commons in Asia
0 thoughts Published by elliott bledsoe on Friday, 25 January 2008 at 3:10 PM
Jessica Coates has been in Taiwan just recently to attend the International Workshop on Asia and Commons in the Information Age held by CC Taiwan. She hasn't gotten back to the office yet because she's speaking at conferences in New Zealand and Melbourne, but I am sure we'll get a full update when she's back. Keep your eye on the CCau website.
I should have blogged about the workshop earlier, but the CCau office is as busy as always. But I should also take this time to mention a project we undertook as part of the Workshop. As a part of our CC mapping exercise to showcase the use of Creative Commons in Australia and around the world, we produced the Asia and the Commons booklet (published by the Centre of Excellence and CCau). Prepared and edited by Rachel Cobcroft and designed by me, the booklet explores some of the individuals and organisations engaged in the commons in the Asia-Pacific region.
The booklet's blurb reads:
"You hold in your hand a copy of the Asia and the Commons case studies booklet. It represents an effort to uncover exemplary individuals and organisations engaged in the commons in the Asia-Pacific region. From Australia and New Zealand to Malaysia and India—in text and film and music and image—this booklet is a snapshot of the Asian commons."
Thumb your way through the democracy documentary project, Following Alexis West, Sony's user-generated site Sony eyeVio and contribute to the National Library of Australia's Click & Flick Project. And when you're done, get your grove on with Taiwanese musicians Pig Head Skin and Moshang.
Oh, and of course this is only Asia and the Commons Version 1.0. If you are individual using CC or are involved in a project using it, and you're in the Asia Pacific region, please email info@creativecommons.org.au if you'd like to get an addition to the booklet.
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EngageMedia on Facebook
0 thoughts Published by elliott bledsoe on Wednesday, 23 January 2008 at 2:27 PM
Australian-based video distribution platform and network EngageMedia have further expanded the potential reach of videos published on the site by allowing Facebook users to embed a feed of the latest videos right into their profiles.
EngageMedia uses the Attribution-Noncommerical-NoDerivative Works 3.0 unported licence as the default copyright management for content on the site. And they allow filmmakers to choose any other Creative Commons licence or the GNU Free Documentation licence (or any other type of licence specified by the user) to help facilitate the distribution of their content. This type of licensing facilitates legal syndication of the content, including syndication via the Facebook application.
The application, EngageMedia.org Latest Videos (+ to profile) is designed to develop a direct link between the ever-expanding network on Facebook and the content on EngageMedia, hopefully drawing viewers from the Facebook community into the EngageMedia one.
A few thoughts (for what it is worth):
- It would be great to see a future version of the widget that has embedded videos or thumbnails for the videos;
- The widget should allow a range of aggregation options (eg films from a certain region, genre or category you want to be displayed in your feed;
- The widget could even be aggregated by a search for user-defined keywords (similar to the Newsreel widget in Blogger that let's users add a widget that queries Google News for items related to defined search expressions); and
- (Perhaps a little lamer) but customisable colour schemes (does this widget go with my profile? lol).
This ability to plug content from one social network community directly into another is an example of where widgets are taking us. The early Web 2.0 world was all about functionality inside your created virtual community space. Each environment has different infrastructure (often used to 'poach' users from other social network websites). But increasingly we are seeing little bits of code begin to build networks across networks. Perhaps this is the start of a deeper, more integrated Web 2.0 environment?
Regardless, for EngageMedia, this widget furthers its aim to show you films you might never have seen on a distribution platform that is free from “the control of big media conglomerates.”
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CC0 is being pitched to promote and protect the public domain through two different methods. Either through the assertion that content is in the public domain or though the waiving of rights in the content to essentially place it in the public domain. Both these things were part of the now obsolete CC Public Domain Dedication. Before I look at how it is different from the CC PD Dedication, some context:
Where is this coming from?
This whole CC0 thing is coming out of the Science Commons Protocol for Implementing Open Access Data which preferences the waiving of rights rather than the licensing of "some rights" which CC's standard suite is founded on. Mission drift? Maybe. But Science Commons is separate to CC. Science Commons rationale is that a licensing process becomes complicated and unwieldy for managers of databases. Things such as:
- attribution stacking;
- the ability to not tell what content is copyrighted and what is not ("user tends to assume that all is under copyright or none is under copyright"); and
- the "licensing" of facts (which are of course not copyrightable: Feist v Rural Telecommunications 506 US 984, but the compilation of which might be).
This "lack of simplicity restricts usage and as such restricts the open access flow of data," thus undermining the entire mission of Science Commons. The Protocol proposes a twofold resolution:
- a reconstruction of the public domain; and
- the use of scientific norms to express the wishes of the data provider.
Section 4 of the Dedication focuses on the legal tools to create this environment. It proposes a waiver of all rights (including database rights, statutory rights and intellectual property rights) to reduce legalities and create interoperability.
More than Science Commons
CC0 takes this idea that Science Commons has depicted and greatly expands its scope. Rather than being limited to data/databases, CC0 allows for the waiving of rights or the assertion that no rights exist in any copyrighted material. The licensing process declares:
"CC0 enables you to indicate that a work is free of copyright and any related or neighboring rights such as moral rights, publicity or privacy rights, rights protecting against unfair competition and any rights protecting the extraction, dissemination and reuse of data."
That's a fairly broad extension of the ideas laid out by Science Commons.
How does it work?
Like the standard CC licences and the CC Sampling licences, CC0 begins with a online tool (see screenshot).
Currently the tool for CC0 is being housed in the CC Labs section.
The user chooses to waiver rights in the content to be placed under CC0, or they assert that no rights exist in the content. These are two different options with very different legal effects.
CC0 Waiver
CC0 Waiver requires the owner of the work which will have all rights waived to state their name, their website, the title of the work and the URL of the work. They also click a check box which states:
"I hereby waive all rights to this work. To the extent possible under law, I waive all copyright, moral rights, database rights, and any other rights that might be asserted over the work."
(I have some issues with this wording, but I will address those in 'Waiving rights' below.)
Once you have filled in the details and pressed 'Continue' you are asked to confirm that you are willing to waiver the rights in that work. If you press 'No, I don't waive' the process is aborted. If you press 'Yes, I do waive' you are taken to a page where you can elect a notification badge and you are provided with the metadata for your declaration. CC0 has both the large notification button and the thin notification badge:
The standard written notice in the metadata reads:
"To the extent possible under law, [NAME] has waived all copyright, moral rights, database rights, and any other rights that might be asserted over [TITLE OF WORK]
Where:
- [NAME] is that of the person asserting that no rights attach to the work;
- [NAME] links to their website provided;
- [TITLE OF WORK] is the title of the work about which the assertion is being made; and
- [TITLE OF WORK] links to the work's URL;
CC0 Assert
The process to assert that no rights are attached to a work is similar. Again you state your name, your website, the title of the work that (allegedly) has no rights attached and the URL of the work. Additionally, you have to identify the grounds on which you assert that right. Under the US system, your options are:
- The work was created by the US government;
- The work was created in the US before 1923; and
- Other.
The first two make sense. Works by the Federal government in America does not attract domestic copyright. The second is because all works published before 1923 are in the public domain (§303, US Copyright Act).
The third category produces a text field which (presumably) you type your reason for believing the work is in the public domain (although it does not explain this very clearly). This might, for example, be because it is more than 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the creator of the work passed away.
Once you have filled these details in and clicked 'Continue' you are asked to confirm your assertion. If you click 'No, I do not assert' the transaction is cancelled. If you click 'I so assert' you are taken to a page where you can elect a notification badge and you are provided with the metadata for your assertion. Again, CC0 provides both the large and thin style of CC notification badges (see above).
The standard written notice in the metadata reads:
"[NAME] asserts that [TITLE OF WORK] is free of any copyrights; [REASON]."Where:
- [NAME] is that of the person asserting that no rights attach to the work;
- [NAME] links to their website provided;
- [TITLE OF WORK] is the title of the work about which the assertion is being made;
- [TITLE OF WORK] links to the work's URL;
- 'free of any copyrights' links to the Commons Deed of the CC0 Assertion; and
- [REASON] reflects either of the three options outlined above.
Where the option chosen from the three was 'Other' the metadata quotes the reason for the assertion from the text field.
The notification badge links to the CC0 Assertion Commons Deed which has a link to the full assertion (Legal Code).
The notification badge links to the CC0 Assertion Commons Deed which has a link to the full assertion (Legal Code).
The key difference between the two is that CC0 Waiver is designed for works that are still in copyright whereas CCo Assert is a mechanism through which any individual with sufficient grounds to believe that a work is in the public domain may assert to others (ie the world using the CC0 Assert tool) that the work is such and therefore has no rights attached to it.
At current CC0 is available for the United States only and BETA Commons Deeds for both CC0 Waiver (US) and CC0 Assert (US) exist. The idea is that the model will be ported into other CC jurisdictions (see 'Making it global' below).
Waiving rights
I have some questions about CC0 Waiver.
This approach may work in America, but what about other countries? I don't want to talk too much here about this because I want to address it in a separate post, but for example, in the Australian legal system, you can't waiver moral rights. You can consent to specific instances of infringement of your moral rights, but you cannot waiver them. s195AW(1) of the Copyright Act 1968 states that it is not an infringement of moral rights if the infringement is within the scope of written consent given by the author. But more on issues and implementation in Australia in 'Making it global' below.
Jordan Hatcher (writing on Opencontentlawyer.com) also argues that the wording in the check box declaration could be too broad. He is concerned with other IP laws. I agree, but what I am really concerned about is the existence of third party rights in the work to be waived.
What about instances where the copyright (and some related rights) is yours, but additional rights, such as rights to personality, are not? This of course what the case in the Virgin Mobile case. You can't waiver anyone else's competing interests in a work. Perhaps the check box declaration should state that the owner waives the rights that they hold over the work? But again, this comes back to the kinds of uncertainty problems that were common in the discussion around the Virgin Mobile case and around use of the CC PD Declaration.
Asserting no rights exist
I also have some questions about CC0 Assertion?
What happens where the work is knowingly falsely asserted to be "no rights reserved"? And what if someone uses that work on the mistaken belief that they did not need permission to do so?
Making it global
CC made it clear from the release yesterday that CC0 is designed to be global. But already there are issues. As Hatcher notes in his dissection of CC0, the CC0 wording is based on American law. There is no Unported versions of each because, unlike was the case for the development of the Unported standard CC licensing suite, international treaties do not concern themselves with waiving rights. The idea is that the international CC offices will take the US version as a model and port it into their own law.
In a new post I will discuss what this might mean for Australia.
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Conroy's internet pardox
0 thoughts Published by elliott bledsoe on Tuesday, 15 January 2008 at 4:36 PM
Originally from NetAlarmed.
The infamous Mark Pesce has published an article on the ABC's Unleashed (a "politics, society, belief and behaviour" blog) about the late 2007 proposed net censorship program of the new Rudd government. Newly appointed Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Seantor Stephen Conroy (why not add him to MySpace?) stands strong behind this proposal as another government attempts to grab the (alleged) "greased pig" in an attempt to censor the internet.
This mandatory monitoring by ISPs will see websites on the 'black list' (to be maintained by the Australian Communications and Media Authority) not be able to be viewed in Australia. Now I don't want to get into the fray of pros and cons here (why do I need to? so many others already have: see Peter Black's wrap up of the media coverage) but what I find interesting about the plan is that:
- it will not make a safe internet;
- it will slow down already dismal internet speeds.
Filtering only makes good percolator coffee
There is evidence that proves that filtering doesn't work. Internet Industry Association head Peter Coroneos says a net censorship plan "...could never be completely successful in blocking access to all pornographic sites, just the ones on the blacklist." He continues by saying "If new sites were launched that were not included on the blacklist the clean feed would not restrict access to them.
Even China–known for its attempts to prevent certain material being viewed–has acknowledged there are flaws in such an initiative. As Pesce noted, Wang Guoqing, Vice Minister of the State Council of Information says "...information blocking is like walking into a dead end." Perhaps denying access to content is out? (In fact, quicker access to information, not restricted access, seems to be on the cards).
Loading...Please wait...wait...wait...keep waiting...
Interestingly, back when the proposal was initially flagged by the then Beazley Opposition, the then Minister for Communications, Information Technology and The Arts, Helen Coonan issued a press release that stated NetAlert tests into forced filtering of internet content by ISPs was futile. The press release said:
"...filter the Internet will only result in slowing down the Internet for every Australian without effectively protecting children from inappropriate and offensive content..."
Unfortunately the change of government seems to have little regard for digital preservation, and the press release is no longer online (Electronic Frontiers Australia do however include the quote on their wrap up of Labor's proposed scheme). But Coonann did state the same thing in parliament on 27 March 2006.
So why would you be proposing two initiatives that would ultimately undermine each other? (Especially when one of them has been proven to have limited effectiveness?). I think Senator Andrew Bartlet pinned the tail on the donkey:
"...[C]omments like Conroy’s make it much harder to be confident that the government is doing anything other than populist pandering, putting up a feel-good measure which will have no practical impact but create the illusion of doing something effective."
So with your new "metro-comparable" broadband any where in the country you can surf just the boring crap the government wants you to see. (Unless of course you out yourself as a deviant ^_^)
I guess what I want to know is, if the internet is as scary a place as the media/government makes it out to be, should we be banning Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and the likes? After all, isn't that how now famous Melbourne party boy Corey Delaney got upward of 500 people to his party?
SIDE NOTE: Sorry Mark, but I have to say that I don't agree with your statement that the internet has eluded government attempts to regulate it. If you want to know why, read here. END SIDE NOTE
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Annual fundraising campaign a huge success!
0 thoughts Published by elliott bledsoe on Wednesday, 2 January 2008 at 2:41 PM
Three months down and the global CC fundraising campaign drew to a close on 31 of December and the final figures are in. Internationally $601 976 were raised! That's a whooping $101 976 more than the goal!!
Just look at the distribution on the thank you image above. There is a good density of pins in Australia, around Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. Also great to see a few pins stuck into one of the newest CC jurisdictions, New Zealand! Go NZ!
But it is a reminder of the limitations CCau is under in its current funding situation. Certainly have funding to do the two projects we currently run as part of the Centre for Creative Industries and Innovation is a good thing. For us it is a relatively unique opportunity to have government granted money to research Creative Commons domestically and abroad. And particularly now that we can deliver training as part of our work with the Centre too, our scope is much broader.
But we still can't do all the thing we would like to do. We can't run competitions, we can't advocate for CC, we can't support licence users. Unless of course those things can be related back to CC. Like for example Open Channel's Video Slam project and their decision to release internal documentation under CC.
If we had an Australian CC organisation incorporated and autonomous to QUT, we could fundraise to run the kinds of additional projects we'd like to run; like Remix my lit.
If we had an Australian CC organisation incorporated and autonomous to QUT, we could fundraise to run the kinds of additional projects we'd like to run; like Remix my lit.
see the cc campaign page
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