Creative Commons affiliate Andrés Guadamuz attended the 9th session of the Committee on IP and Development at WIPO to present CC’s comment on the Agenda Item CDIP/9/INF/2: Scenarios and Possible Options Concerning Recommendations 1c, 1f and 2a of the Scoping Study on Copyright and Related Rights and the Public Domain. The Study by Prof Dussolier can be located here for reference. The recommendations that we are talking about are:

“1(c) 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, to the extent permitted by national laws (possibly excluding any abandonment of moral rights) and upon the condition of a formally expressed, informed and free consent of the author. Further research could certainly be carried out on that point. [...]

1(f) 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.  Such tools can be data collections on works, databases of public domain works, or public domain calculators. International cross-operation and cross-referencing of such tools is of particular importance. [...]

2(a) The availability of the public domain should be enhanced, notably through cooperation with cultural heritage institutions and UNESCO (through its work on the preservation of intangible cultural heritage).”

Creative Commons statement to the CDIP on the Public Domain

Thank you Mr Chairman, we would like to congratulate you on your election to preside this Committee.

In his keynote presentation to the Global INET Conference here in Geneva just a couple of weeks ago, Dr Francis Gurry described intellectual property as a balancing mechanism for all of the often competing rights and equities that occur in and around the creation of innovation. Creative Commons strongly believes in this balance of rights, and strives to offer technical and legal tools to make that balance possible. We also believe that an integral part of that balance has to be the protection and promotion of the Public Domain. The public domain enriches the global cultural and intellectual environment; it allows the reproduction and reuse of countless classics that are often modernized and reintroduced to new audiences and new generations. One could almost say that they are remixed.

It is with that in mind that we welcome the Secretariat’s inclusion on this session of the Scenarios and Possible Options Concerning Recommendations 1c, 1f and 2a of The Scoping Study on Copyright and Related Rights and The Public Domain, and commend the author of The Scoping Study, Prof. Severine Dusollier.  We encourage the adoption of all three recommendations, but we would like to complement the information contained in the document with regards to recommendations 1c and 1f.

With regards to Recommendation 1c, and as the document CDIP/9/INF/2 accurately describes, Creative Commons offers CC0, a universal tool that allows users to voluntarily relinquish all copyright, database and related rights to the fullest extent allowed by law. CC0 is a tool that was conceived and created out of both necessity and demand. Dedicating works to the public domain is difficult if not impossible for those wanting to contribute, voluntarily and of their own free will, their works for public use before applicable copyright or database protection terms expire. Few if any jurisdictions have a process for doing so easily and reliably. Laws vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction as to what rights are automatically granted and how and when they expire or may be voluntarily relinquished. We understand the inherent difficulties with dealing with this issue in a comprehensive manner given the different approaches to copyright seen from Common and Civil legal traditions.  Moreover, our conversations with copyright holders over CC’s 10 years in existence revealed that for some rights holders, there is a desire to signal clearly and unequivocally that their work may be used without reference to restrictions that the holder no longer wishes to retain for any number of reasons.  This demand, coupled with the complex and lack of harmonized copyright frameworks, resulted in the creation of CC0.  CC0 has been leveraged by numerous important rights holders, including the Dutch Government, the British Library, and the Personal Genome Project, and is part of the legal framework for important projects such as Europeana. For these reasons, we second the Secretariat’s recommendation to conduct a study on copyright relinquishment, and we also encourage this Committee to continue this important avenue.

With regards to Recommendation 1f, we once again welcome the Secretariat’s specific mention of the practices and tools available through Creative Commons. The possibility of marking copyright works with license metadata can tell search engines what is available for reuse, and under which conditions. We applaud all of the national and regional practices cited in the Secretariat’s document, and agree that these efforts must continue. Specifically, we encourage member states and regional bodies to continue to attempt to make public registry data more widely available. We would like to see a more proactive role by WIPO in the international arena. Among other promising avenues, WIPO could host some tools to facilitate the sharing of public registry information on their website, such as an aggregated database of existing registries

Concluding, Creative Commons thoroughly supports efforts that will enhance the ability of rightsholders to voluntarily relinquish copyright thereby enriching the public domain, and of the public to access and use the public domain as copyright law full intends.

Thank you.

The Journal of Public Interest IP is the first publication of its kind that solely focuses on the range of legal rights within the umbrella of IP and the complex ways it impacts human capabilities and endeavors. The human development and capabilities approach will provide a broad and useful framework for analyzing the social impact of IPRs because the approach defines the purpose of development as enlarging the choices and capabilities that people have to lead a life they value. This framework focuses on a wide range of actual and potential human consequences that are of concern to diverse peoples in the world.

The next edition will focus on “Food, Climate Change and Intellectual Property: Defining the Issue.” PIIPA is now accepting online submissions for this edition and encourages intellectual property professionals around the world to contribute to this body of knowledge. Online Submission guidelines can be found in the ‘About’ section of the website. The deadline submission is 30-June-2012.

The project received approval from ethics reviewers on 23 April; as soon as May, anyone will be able to sign the consent and begin contributing their own data to the database.  PLC is headed by iCommons Board member John Wilbanks.

See announcement in Nature.

According to the PLoS announcement:

Cameron is well known in the scientific community, recognized for his professionalism, experience, vision and influence in scholarly publishing, communication, and research. His attendance at the Budapest Open Access Initiative meeting, advisory role for the Scholarly Communication in Africa Program, and leadership of the Open Society Foundation funded Beyond Impact project are recent examples of his focus on web technology to enhance research communication….

In his new position, Cameron will promote advocacy of open access and develop strategies to drive the broader reinvention of research communication, both within the existing PLoS journals and beyond. He will work with other Open Access advocates, funders, publishers and scholarly societies to raise awareness and promote the adoption of research communication systems that support the public’s access and contribution to research….

His knowledge of policy and the scientific community in the EU and Asia/Pacific region will be a great asset to PLoS. He is among the most effective, articulate and balanced advocates of open and collaborative science, and of quality, speed and sustainability in research communication.

Under a CC Attribution license, the PDF can be downloaded here.

The book can be purchased in all formats (hardback, paperback, and digital editions) on the website of OpenBookPublishers.

The book is an output of the Communia European Thematic Network on the Digital Public Domain which took place between 2007 and 2011 and is at the origin of Communia International Association.

The Guardian ran a lead story in Monday’s Guardian.  See Alok Jha, Wellcome Trust joins ‘academic spring’ to open up science, at

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/apr/09/wellcome-trust-academic-spring
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/apr/09/frustrated-blogpost-boycott-scientific-journals

Eddie Mair of BBC Radio 4 also hosted a discussion between Prof. Stephen Curry of Imperial College and Graham Taylor of the UK Publishers Association at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b01ddxcs at 24:19 minutes.

“The Public, West Bromwich – Welcome to The Public Entrance Free” / ell brown / CC BY

Creative Commons has posted for public comment the first discussion draft of version 4.0. This draft moves CC further toward a single global license and is the product of an extended (and unprecedented) requirements gathering period involving input from CC affiliates, community and stakeholders.

The new version

Other terms are still under consideration and public input is welcomed.  There is a special page dedicated to this first 4.0 draft with the full draft of BY-NC-SA and a detailed chart comparing this draft to version 3.0, among other resources. The primary discussion forum continues to be the license-discuss list.   CC looks forward to hearing from you!

More information is available here.

L to R: Victor Henning, Amber Thomas, Cathy Casserly, Patrick McAndrew and Joscelyn Upendran. Photo by David Percy CC-BY-NC

iCommons co-hosted the recent ccSalon London on 29 March featuring a panel of experts in open education and a roomful of equally experienced educators and publishers.

Moderated by Joscelyn Upendran, CC UK public lead, the panel featured Cathy Casserly, the CEO of Creative Commons, as well as Amber Thomas of JISC, Patrick McAndrew of Open University, and Victor Henning of Mendeley.

The panelists discussed the definition of Open Educational Resources (OER) as one that allowed users to do more than simply access the materials but which also carried permission to modify, translate, customize, merge with other material and otherwise make it more useful to the learner.  Asked for a wish list of steps that government could take to support open education, responses ranged from protecting a right to engage in text and data mining to adjusting the merit system for academics and researchers so that sharing of content would receive higher career rewards. Arguments for (wider distribution and more efficient progress of science) and against (data privacy, national security) mandating open licences for government funded projects for OER and open access were also discussed. The audience raised a series of probing questions such as concern about the ability of institutions to financially sustain OER.

See Developing our Creative Commons blog post by Amber Thomas
See more event photos by David Percy

OKF and iCommons support the Hargreaves-proposed exception because 1) data sources and data sets are becoming far too large for individual researchers to efficiently process in manual fashion, 2) the burden on researchers to secure permission across thousands of journals is a significant obstruction to the use of scientific data by the research community.  The comments go further and suggest that even the noncommercial exception is a limit on the progress of science by commercial  pharmaceuticals and others who wish to improve the health and well-being of the population.  Both organizations also argue that only a blanket exception that cannot be overridden by contract will sufficiently overcome these barriers

The comments can be found here.

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is pleased to announce that 49 journals it publishes now support Creative Commons through an annual donation. Based on the 1,113 open access articles published in 2011 in these journals, NPG and its partners are donating $22,260 to Creative Commons (CC).

“Creative Commons licenses are simple, standardized ways to grant copyright permissions to creative works. Publishers who adopt CC licenses get value from not having to create and explain customized terms of use,” said Cathy Casserly, CEO of Creative Commons. “We are thrilled that NPG recognizes this value with its financial contribution helping to support the infrastructure that provides the licenses.”

NPG announced its annual contribution to CC in January 2011, for Scientific Reports and the 22 other journals NPG owns which offer an open access option, including Nature Communications. NPG’s academic and society partners in the US, Europe and Australia have now joined the scheme, adding 26 further titles. The donation is equivalent to $20 per article processing charge (APC) paid for publication on open access articles in these journals. At the beginning of 2011, NPG donated $15,560 to CC for the 778 open access papers published in its owned journals from 2005 to the end of 2010.

“We are delighted that our society partners are joining NPG in support for Creative Commons, as part of our shared commitment to open access,” said Jason Wilde, Business Development Director, NPG. “Open access is at the heart of NPG’s expansion and this record number of open access articles for 2011 is testament to this.”

Of the 1,113 open access papers published in 2011, 205 (18%) were published in the open access, multidisciplinary Scientific Reports, which launched in June 2011. 201 papers (18%) were published in Nature Communications, which offers authors an open access option. NPG’s academic and society titles published 707 articles in open access journals or journals with an open access option.

Authors choosing to make their research paper open access in NPG titles have a choice of two non-commercial CC licenses. In 2011, 39% of authors opted for the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license that permits derivative works; while 61% opted for the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. On titles supporting CC, authors are also eligible for complimentary membership of the CC network, an international online community of people who support open access and open educational resources.

NPG publishes 57 journals that have an open access option, or are entirely open access. 55 of its 59 academic and society publications (93%) have introduced open access options or are open access journals. NPG plans to launch further open access journals in 2012.