Internasjonale nyheter

Dňa 1. mája 2013 Public Library of Science spustila nový program ASAP. Do programu sa môžu prihlásiť osoby, ktoré pri svojej vedeckej práci využili alebo stále využívajú vedecké výskumy s otvoreným prístupom s cieľom inovovať niektorú oblasť vedy, medicíny alebo techniky. Prihlásenie je možné do 15.6.2013 a pre troch najlepších čaká po 30 000 dolárov. Hlavnými sponzormi programu [...]

‘Trenzas ad Honorem’ es el  primer álbum solista de Diego Lorenzini, músico y dibujante chileno, quien además es  miembro de VariosArtistas. Se trata de nueve canciones “compuestas y ejecutadas entre Talca y Santiago”,  editadas por el sello Uva Robot y licenciadas con CC. Descárgalo gratis y legalmente acá.

Larry Lessig at #ccsummit2011 / David Kindler
CC BY

This week we have two exciting announcements about our Global Summit, the bi-annual gathering of our community which will be held in Buenos Aires in August 2013.

First – we are pleased to confirm that Professor Lawrence Lessig, Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, and one of Creative Commons’ founders and current Board members, will be presenting a keynote at this year’s Summit. Anyone familiar with Creative Commons is likely to be familiar with Professor Lessig, who for the last decade has been one of the leading advocates for a more open copyright system worldwide and a popular public face of CC. If you are one of the few people who are unfamiliar with Professor Lessig’s work, you can see an example of his inspirational speaking style in his TED talk from 2007, Laws that choke creativity (he also spoke on reform of US political funding in 2013). Details of the time and subject of Professor Lessig’s talk will be distributed closer to the event.

Second – registration for the Global Summit is officially open. You can find the registration form here. The event is free, but places are limited, so early registration is essential if you want to ensure your place at this meeting of CC commmunity, board, staff, and key stakeholders interested in the present and future of the commons.

Finally, while we have you, we’d also like to remind you that the call for papers for the Summit closes this week. Have you papers in by 24 May if you want to be on the main program (lightning talks and unconference sessions can be submitted later).

See you all in Buenos Aires in August!

Seal Of The Executive Office Of The President / Public Domain Yesterday President Barack Obama issued an Executive Order requiring federal government information to be open and machine-readable by default. This Order is the latest in a series of actions going back to 2009 in support of increasing access to and transparency of government information. In addition to the Executive Order, the White House released a Memorandum (PDF) explaining how federal government agencies will comply with the new open data policy. This Memorandum requires agencies to collect or create information in a way that supports downstream information processing and dissemination activities. This includes using machine­ readable and open formats, data standards, and common core and extensible metadata for all new information creation and collection efforts. It also includes agencies ensuring information stewardship through the use of open licenses and review of information for privacy, confidentiality, security, or other restrictions to release. It provides a forward-thinking set of guidelines for open data to be released by U.S. federal agencies: Open data: For the purposes of this Memorandum, the term “open data” refers to publicly available data structured in a way that enables the data to be fully discoverable and usable by end users. In general, open data will be consistent with the following principles: Public. Consistent with OMB’s Open Government Directive, agencies must adopt a presumption in favor of openness to the extent permitted by law and subject to privacy, confidentiality, security, or other valid restrictions. Accessible. Open data are made available in convenient, modifiable, and open formats that can be retrieved, downloaded, indexed, and searched. Formats should be machine-readable (i.e., data are reasonably structured to allow automated processing). Open data structures do not discriminate against any person or group of persons and should be made available to the widest range of users for the widest range of purposes, often by providing the data in multiple formats for consumption. To the extent permitted by law, these formats should be non-proprietary, publicly available, and no restrictions should be placed upon their use. Described. Open data are described fully so that consumers of the data have sufficient information to understand their strengths, weaknesses, analytical limitations, security requirements, as well as how to process them. This involves the use of robust, granular metadata (i.e., fields or elements that describe data), thorough documentation of data elements, data dictionaries, and, if applicable, additional descriptions of the purpose of the collection, the population of interest, the characteristics of the sample, and the method of data collection. Reusable. Open data are made available under an open license that places no restrictions on their use. Complete. Open data are published in primary forms (i.e., as collected at the source), with the finest possible level of granularity that is practicable and permitted by law and other requirements. Derived or aggregate open data should also be published but must reference the primary data. Timely. Open data are made available as quickly as necessary to preserve the value of the data. Frequency of release should account for key audiences and downstream needs. Managed Post-Release. A point of contact must be designated to assist with data use and to respond to complaints about adherence to these open data requirements. The Memorandum provides some more information about how U.S. government information will be made reusable: Ensure information stewardship through the use of open licenses – Agencies must apply open licenses, in consultation with the best practices found in Project Open Data, to information as it is collected or created so that if data are made public there are no restrictions on copying, publishing, distributing, transmitting, adapting, or otherwise using the information for non-commercial or for commercial purposes. Depending on the exact implementation details, this could be a fantastic move that would remove any legal confusion about using federal government data. By leveraging open licenses, the U.S. federal government would be doing a great service to reusers by communicating those rights available in advance. And, if the U.S. truly wishes to make federal government information available without restriction, it could consider using a tool such as the CC0 Public Domain Dedication. CC0 is used by many data providers to place open data directly in the public domain. We’ve already suggested this (PDF) as an option for sharing federally funded research data. The White House should be commended for taking another positive step forward to ensure that U.S. government data is made legally and technically accessible and useable.

Two weeks ago we wrote about the U.S. Executive Order and announcement of Project Open Data, an open source project (managed on Github) that lays out the implementation details behind behind the President’s Executive Order and memo. The project offers more information on open licenses, and gives examples of acceptable licenses for U.S. federal data. Some of this information is clear, while other pieces require more clarification. Below we’ve provided some commentary and notes on the licensing parts of Project Open Data.

Open Licenses

The Open Licenses page on Project Open Data says that a license will be considered “open” if the following conditions are met:

Reuse. The license must allow for reproductions, modifications and derivative works and permit their distribution under the terms of the original work.

Users can copy and make adaptations of the data. The government may use a copyleft license, thus requiring that adapted works be shared under the same license as the original. In our view, the reference to the government using a license is confusing. Works created by federal government employees in the in the public domain, and a license is not appropriate–at least as a matter of U.S. copyright law. More on this below.

The rights attached to the work must not depend on the work being part of a particular package. If the work is extracted from that package and used or distributed within the terms of the work’s license, all parties to whom the work is redistributed should have the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the original package.

Everyone is offered the work under the same public license.

Redistribution. The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the work either on its own or as part of a package made from works from many different sources.

Third parties can sell the data verbatim or produce adaptations of the data and sell those.

The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale or distribution.

Users don’t have to pay to use the licensed data.

The license may require as a condition for the work being distributed in modified form that the resulting work carry a different name or version number from the original work.

When the data gets remixed the licensor can require that the remixer note that their remixed version is different from the original.

The rights attached to the work must apply to all to whom it is redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license by those parties.

Public licenses must be used, which means that everyone gets offered the data under the same terms, without the need to negotiation individual licenses.

The license must not place restrictions on other works that are distributed along with the licensed work. For example, the license must not insist that all other works distributed on the same medium are open.

The license doesn’t infect other data or content that is distributed alongside the openly licensed data. It’s important that the open data is marked as such; the same goes for marking of the the non-open data.

If adaptations of the work are made publicly available, these must be under the same license terms as the original work.

This is a confusing statement, because it seems to require that all data be licensed under a copyleft license. This does not align with the licensing options listed in the Open License Examples page.

No Discrimination against Persons, Groups, or Fields of Endeavor. The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons. The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the work in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the work from being used in a business, or from being used for research.

Anyone may use the licensed data for any reason.

Open License Examples

The Open License Examples page offers a helpful guide as to which open licenses will be accepted for government data released by federal agencies. As we noted in our earlier post, there is some confusion in that the Open Data Policy Memo says, “open data are made available under an open license that places no restrictions on their use.” Saying that data should be placed under a license with no restrictions doesn’t make sense, since even the most “open” license (such as CC BY) makes attribution to the author a condition on using the license. If the United States truly wishes to make federal government data available without restriction, it could consider mandating only those tools that accomplish this, for example the CC0 Public Domain Dedication or the Open Data Commons Public Domain Dedication and License.

Data and content created by government employees within the scope of their employment are not subject to domestic copyright protection under 17 U.S.C. § 105.

The fact that data and content created by federal government employees is not subject to copyright protection in the United States is a longstanding positive feature of the US code. But as noted here, this copyright-free zone only applies when talking about domestic protection, e.g. inside the United States. Outside its borders, the United States government could assert that, for example, one of its works is protected under French copyright law, and then enforce its copyright in France. It’s unclear how much this legal nuance is leveraged outside of the United States. But it does seem to create a challenge for the U.S. federal agencies in utilizing public domain dedication tools like CC0. This is because CC0 puts content into the worldwide public domain, whereas under Section 105 works created by federal government employees are only in the public domain in the United States. So, while it’s useful that works created by U.S. federal government employees is in the public domain in the United States, it’s a shame that this seems to preclude federal agencies from utilizing public domain tools like CC0, which would help communicate broad reuse rights easily and in machine-readable form. This begs the larger question, if information created by federal government employees is in the public domain in the United States, then is it inappropriate to license this data and content under one of the licenses noted below? And, if that is true, then what content will be licensed under the conformant licenses? Third party content?

When purchasing data or content from third-party vendors, however care must be taken to ensure the information is not hindered by a restrictive, non-open license. In general, such licenses should comply with the open knowledge definition of an open license. Several examples of common open licenses are listed below:

Content Licenses:

• Creative Commons BY, BY-SA, or CC0
• GNU Free Documentation License

Data Licenses

• Open Data Commons Public Domain Dedication and Licence (PDDL)
• Open Data Commons Attribution License
• Open Data Commons Open Database License (ODbL)
• Creative Commons CC0

Notwithstanding the questions above about licensing options for the work produced by federal government employees, the Administration is taking a great step in recommending that licenses should align with the Open Definition. In addition, the Administration might include information about appropriate software licenses, should those come into play when they release data.

Ak ste mali niekedy pocit, že článku, ktorý práve čítate na Wikipédií by sa hodila lepšia úprava alebo ste mali záujem napísať vlastný článok, ale nevedeli ste ako, môžete sa zadarmo prihlásiť na kurz “Writing Wikipedia Articles: The Basics and Beyond” poskytovaný School of Open P2PU. V rámci kurzu sa naučíte technické a spoločenské základy tejto [...]

Ya está abierta la convocatoria a charlas para la Cumbre Mundial de Creative Commons, que se realizará entre el 21 y 24 de Agosto en Buenos Aires, Argentina. La invitación está abierta a “cualquier persona que tenga algo interesante para decir sobre el presente y el futuro de los bienes comunes”. El plazo final para [...]

El objetivo de esta jornada es aprovechar la ocasión del estreno de El Cosmonauta, tras un largo trayecto creativo de cuatro años, para debatir de forma abierta algunas cuestiones que el proyecto ha planteado en relación a los modelos de negocio e innovación en la industria audiovisual en general y el cine en particular. Ahora [...]

The Wealth of the Commons: A world beyond market & state is finally available online in its entirety. I’ll post a review in the fullness of time, but for now I recommend reading the 73 essays in the book (mine is not the essay I’d contribute today, but think it useful anyway) not primarily as [...]

Σας παρουσιάζουμε το Overview, ένα εργαλείο ανοιχτού λογισμικού που βοηθάει τους δημοσιογράφους να βρίσκουν θέματα ανάμεσα σε εκατομμύρια κείμενα, με το να τακτοποιεί τα αποτελέσματα αυτόματα ανάλογα το θέμα. Πλέον, με την συνεχή χρήση του Διαδικτύου, ο όγκος των πληροφοριών και των κειμένων που χρησιμοποιεί ένας δημοσιογράφος είναι υπερβολικός και η οργάνωση και μόνο του [...]

Σας παρουσιάζουμε την Open Course Library, ένα project που χρηματοδοτείται από το Washington State Legislature και από το Ίδρυμα Bill και Melinda Gates. Η Open Course Library είναι μια συλλογή από εκπαιδευτικό υλικό, textbooks, βιβλία, εκπαιδευτικά εγχειρίδια και προγράμματα σπουδών, ασκήσεις και εξετάσεις από 81 διαφορετικά μαθήματα που διατίθεται διαδικτυακά. Το υλικό διατίθεται υποχρεωτικά με [...]

Πόσες φορές έχετε διαβάσει ένα άρθρο στην wikipedia και έχετε σκεφτεί ότι θα μπορούσατε να το είχατε γράψει καλύτερα; Το School of Open σας προσφέρει την ευκαιρία να μάθετε δωρεάν πως να συντάσσετε κείμενα για την wikipedia εύκολα και γρήγορα με το διαδικτυακό μάθημα Writing Wikipedia Articles: The Basics and Beyond Με αυτό το εύκολο [...]

We were thrilled to help support SAHRIS at their Media Launch back in March. The event was held in Mapungubwe to coincide with the Sacred Sites Conference. Sadly, we were stuck in the studio and didn’t get to go to Mapungubwe but we did get to support our great friends at SAHRIS, WikiAfrica and The Heritage Portal. Here are extracts from the show. For a full of videos list go to SAHRIS blog

Have you got a little time to spare to help us convert our legal code into HTML code? We would SO appreciate your help to make the SA Web just a little more robust and legally healthier for its citizens. Our great bearded CC SA tech lead, Paul Scott has been overwhelmed with work and we need a helping crew. Please. Why does this matter? Even though the global, unported Creative Commons license will serve you well in crafting the copyrights that you choose for your digital works across the Web, local is lekker when it comes to more surely enforcing your rights where a South African judge would be presiding. Remember that Creative Commons licenses have a spectrum from public domain, through simple attribution (where people who use your work must credit you), to allowing remix or derivative works (fan-fiction, sampling, building on your video or 3D schematics or even your photos) to the non-commercial license (where you happily exercise financial benefit from your work, but legally stop others from using your work commercially). This all makes the Web more pliable and legally clearer for us to BUILD on each other’s brilliance, and so we evolve faster, and make [...]

Have you ever looked at an article on Wikipedia and thought, “this could really use some work”? With the free online course “Writing Wikipedia Articles: The Basics and Beyond,” offered through the School of Open, you have the opportunity to take the next step. In the course, you will learn about both the technical and [...]

1. Grupa uniwersytetów z 11 europejskich krajów wspólnie uruchamia platformę masowych kursów online (MOOC), z początkowymi 40 kursami i  silną deklaracją by wszystkie treści były dostępne na wolnych licencjach Creative Commons Uznanie Autorstwa lub Uznanie Autorstwa – Na Tych Samych Warunkach. 2. Open Stax, wydawnictwo którego podręczniki oparte są o otwarte zasoby edukacyjne z największego serwisu OZE cnx.org przedstawiło [...] 2013-05-06T06:01:26Z

CC swag IV / Peter Shanks / CC BY Creative Commons is looking for a LRMI Project Manager. This person will play a key role in leading the LRMI project. From the job description: We are looking for a Project Manager to lead the Learning Resource Metadata Initiative (LRMI), a project co-led by Creative Commons [...]

The Learning Resource Metadata Initiative (LRMI) specification (14 properties) has been accepted and published as a part of Schema.org, the collaboration between major search engines Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Yandex (press release). This marks the culmination of a year’s worth of open collaboration with the LRMI Technical Working Group and the wider education publishing community. [...]

Verden er full av verk med ukjent opphavsperson. Dette er såkalte «foreldreløse verk», og opphavsmessig har de befunnet seg i et slags ingenmannsland. Siden man ofte ikke vet når de er skapt vet man ikke om de er beskyttet av opphavsrett eller falt i det fri. Og dersom de er opphavsrettslig beskyttet kan de ikke brukes, fordi man ikke vet hvem man skal henvende seg til for å klarere bruk.read more 2013-05-05T08:28:02Z Gisle Hannemyr

Unlikely I’ll attend Wikimania 2013 in Hong Kong (I did last year in DC). In lieu of marking myself as an interested attendee of proposed sessions, my list of 32 particularly interesting-to-me proposals follows. I chose by opening the proposal page for each of the 331 submissions that looked interesting at first glance (about 50) [...]