Study of Obama administration transparency launched
July 30, 2010
Open Source for America has announced a study to measure openness at a number of U.S. federal government agencies. This survey is being carried out in close cooperation with all the major federal agencies.
In 2009, President Obama established the Open Government Directive which directed executive departments and agencies to take specific actions to implement principles of transparency, participation and collaboration.
The study, scheduled to be released in Q3FY2010, will gauge openness and transparency across federal agencies and will culminate in a report card assigning a grade to each federal agency based on its public transparency, participation and collaboration.
Chinese government report on Internet policy
July 14, 2010
The Chinese government has just released a white paper on its Internet policy. The report, produced by the State Council Information Office, presents user statistics and asserts guarantees of free speech and a commitment to citizen use of the Internet.
Full text of white paper: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-06/08/c_13339232.htm
Story: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-06/08/c_13339058.htm
WIPO Study on Public Domain Released
July 6, 2010
WIPO has released the Scoping Study on Copyright and Related Rights and the Public Domain Commissioned under the WIPO Development Agenda, and authored by Prof. Séverine Dusollier, University of Namur, the study assesses the role, history, and justification of the public domain in copyright, identifies its main components and the obstacles that might interfere with the access and use of the copyright-related public domain.
The following recommendations were made for future WIPO action:
- the voluntary relinquishment of copyright in works and dedication to the public domain should be recognised as a legitimate exercise of authorship and copyright exclusivity and be recognised in countries other than the country of origin of the work.
- international endeavours should be devoted to developing technical or informational tools to identify the contents of the public domain, particularly as far as the duration of copyright is concerned.
- the role of cultural heritage institutions, and mainly libraries, in the labelling, cataloguing, preserving and making available of public domain works, and the role of the legal deposit should be recognised and supported, particularly in the digital environment.
- any extension of the scope or duration of copyright and related rights, both at international and national level, should take into account the empirical effects on the sustainability of the public domain.
- legal means should be found to prevent the recapture of exclusivity in works that have fallen into the public domain, whether through another intellectual property right (trademark or right in databases), property rights, other legal entitlements or technical protection, if such exclusivity is similar in scope or effect to that of copyright or is detrimental to non-rivalrous or concurrent uses of the public domain work.
- the 1996 WIPO Treaties should be amended to prohibit a technical impediment to reproduce, publicly communicate or making available a work that has fallen into the public domain.
Communia conference on “University & Cyberspace” – 28-29 June
June 18, 2010
Communia has announced the initial lineup of speakers and reference material for its upcoming conference in Torino, Italy entitled University in Cyberspace: Reshaping Knowledge Institutions for the Networked Age. The program looks at the changing role of universities in the digital age, including libraries.
The event is free and open to both COMMUNIA members and the public at large. Space is limited, though, so be sure to register soon, and sign up for the announcement list to be kept updated about further developments and details.
Australia Parliament ports website to CC license
The Australian Parliament officially announced that it will be porting its central http://www.aph.gov.au website across to a Creative Commons v3.0 BY-NC-ND licence. This is the website which houses all the most important documents of Australian Fedreal Government – including all bills, committee reports and, most importantly, the Hansard transcript of Parliamentary Sittings – so this is a major move for Australian government.
From the Australian Parliament announcement:
The Parliament of Australia is committed to open access to the resources it publishes to support a vibrant democracy. Recognising the important of ensuring access to its resources published on the website the parliament has approved publication under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/) instead of copyright protection. Full implementation will occur when the new web site is released in late 2010. Until then a notice appears on the copyright page advising of this change.
