Copyright

GPLv3 Update

The work on version three of the GNU General Public License (Wikipedia) is moving along nicely. A news update on the progress reads:

The second discussion draft of GPLv3 was released eight months ago, in July 2006. We had never planned to let so much time pass between public releases of the license. We felt it was important to fully discuss a few specific issues, including the recent patent deal between Novell and Microsoft, before proceeding with the process. A new discussion draft will be released on March 28 at 10:00 AM US Eastern time; it represents the outcome of those discussions, and the rationale document that will accompany it explains how we arrived at these decisions. However, we remain absolutely committed to hearing input from as much of the free software community as possible before publishing a final version of the license. We are adjusting the drafting process to make sure that everyone interested has an opportunity to make their voice heard.

The third discussion draft will be open for comment for sixty days. Based on the feedback we receive during this window, we may publish new language from time to time for additional review. For example, if someone points out a side effect of some term that we hadn’t considered before, we may publish updated text for that section aimed at addressing the issue. These changes will be announced on the GPLv3 web site and mailing list.

We will continue to take feedback from public comments and discussion committees as before. In addition, if there are common questions about the license, we will address those in blog posts on the GPLv3 web site. Our goal is not to preempt discussion or criticism of the draft, but rather to enhance that discussion by helping the community fully understand the text. We are also considering other ways to solicit input, which we will announce as they are planned.

After this discussion period is over, we will publish a last call draft. That draft will be open for comment for thirty days, and the final license will be published shortly afterwards. We would like to thank everyone for their continued support during this process, and their assistance as we work to make the our licenses the best they can be.

Read more about the GPLv3 and the progression of its development at the GPLv3 site.

Posted on by mklang

Creative Commons v3

A bit late to blog about the obvious but at the same time it feels wrong not to blog about such a central event in the Creative Commons project. Anyway the news is (if you haven’t heard about it already) that CC now has released its latest versions of the license. Welcome to version 3.0.

The latest version of the Creative Commons licenses â?? Version 3.0 â?? are now available. To briefly recap what is different in this version of the licenses:

Separating the â??genericâ?? from the US license

As part of Version 3.0, we have spun off the â??genericâ?? license to be the CC US license and created a new generic license, now known as the â??unportedâ?? license. For more information about this change, see this more detailed explanation.

Harmonizing the treatment of moral rights & collecting society royalties

In Version 3.0, we are ensuring that all CC jurisdiction licenses and the CC unported license have consistent, express treatment of the issues of moral rights and collecting society royalties (subject to national differences). For more information about these changes, see this explanation of the moral rights harmonization and this explanation of the collecting society harmonization.

No Endorsement Language

That a person may not misuse the attribution requirement of a CC license to improperly assert or imply an association or relationship with the licensor or author, has been implicit in our licenses from the start. We have now decided to make this explicit in both the Legal Code and the Commons Deed to ensure that â?? as our licenses continue to grow and attract a large number of more prominent artists and companies â?? there will be no confusion for either the licensor or licensee about this issue. For a more detailed explanation, see here.

BY-SA â?? Compatibility Structure Now Included

The CC BY-SA 3.0 licenses will now include the ability for derivatives to be relicensed under a â??Creative Commons Compatible License,â?? which will be listed here. This structure realizes CCâ??s long-held objective of ensuring that there are no legal barriers to people being able to remix creativity in the way that flexible licenses are intended to enable. More information about this is provided here.

Clarifications Negotiated With Debian & MIT

Finally, Version 3.0 of the licenses include minor clarifications to the language of the licenses to take account of the concerns of Debian (more details here) and MIT (more details here).

As part of discussions with Debian, it was proposed to allow the release of CC-licensed works under DRM by licensees on certain conditions â?? what was known as the â??parallel distribution languageâ?? but this has not been included as part of Version 3.0 of the CC licenses.

Below is a list of CC blog posts about Version 3.0:

Getting to Version 3.0
Version 3.0 â?? Public Discussion Launched
Version 3.0 â?? Revised License Drafts
Version 3.0 â?? Itâ??s Happening & With BY-SA Compatibility Language Too

Posted on by mklang

More free books

Books that are free (as in beer) are simply irresistible and these two seem particularly relevant to my interests thats a big additional bonus! They are available online for free download or the old fashioned dead-tree version. Actually I shouldn’t be like that – I prefer the dead tree versions…

A collection of essays (edited by Joseph Feller and others) called: Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software some of it is familiar but it is nice to have it all collected in one place. It can be downloaded all at once here or chapter by chapter here.

The second one is John Logieâ??s book Peers, Pirates and Persuasion which is about the rhetoric of the peer-to-peer debates. A good analysis of the rhetorics of file sharing has been missing so I am really looking forward to reading this book. Download if here.

(Via Lex Ferenda)

Posted on by mklang

Propaganda, but it's well written

Via Boing Boing I came across to Oscartorrents.com which is a new game from the people at The Pirate Bay. Basically its a search engine for films from this year’s Oscar nominees. But my favourite part is a piece of colorful, but well written propaganda filed under the heading ‘Legal’ Notice

To all intellectual property landlords: we are aware that OscarTorrents might annoy you — but contain your righteous indignation for a while, and think: we’re only linking to torrents that already exist. Face it: your membrane has burst, and it wasn’t us who burst it. Your precious bodily fluids are escaping.

You haven’t beaten us, so why not join us? Think of a new business model that doesn’t involve overpriced pieces of plastic and skanky cinemas hawking cheap carbohydrates while relying on $6/hr projectionists who can’t keep a film in focus — not to mention insulting your audiences by (to pick a few examples) surveilling us with nightvision glasses, searching bags, 30 minutes of commercials and bombarding us with ridiculous anti-piracy propaganda. Take a look at yourselves. Is it really any wonder we’re winning?

You got to hand it to them, they sure know how to annoy the people they dislike. They also know how to hit the right buttons.

Posted on by mklang

BSD license question

Brendan Scott of Open Source Law has written and posted an interesting article on Groklaw. The article posits that this is a broad misconception about the freedoms granted by the BSD license. In particular that code licensed under the BSD is not re-licensable (after modifications to the code) under “closed source” licenses as commonly believed (article in pdf).

From the arguments presented four consequences may be drawn

(a) the BSD appears to require that modifications be distributed only under the terms of the BSD, and that this requirement therefore cascades down to subsequent generations of code;

(b) the license does not appear to permit the relicensing of BSD code under the terms of any other license, at least in so far as any restrictions in other licenses would seem not to be binding;

(c) there may be some scope for arguing that the term â??modificationâ?? to the code is restricted or limited in some fashion. However, as the license only permits redistribution of â??modificationsâ?? the BSD does not permit the redistribution of any derivative work which is not a modification;

(d) the BSD does not have a requirement for the distribution of source code. It is not clear whether this means there is a deficiency in the Open Source Definition.

Posted on by mklang

Christmas Reading

So when you have tired of the good company, food and presents here is a hot tip on what to take a look at. Its a pdf entitled “Best Practice Guide” for “Implementing the EU Copyright Directive in the Digital Age” written by Urs Gasser and Silke Ernst released in December 2006. Here is a short extract from the intro:

At a time where the existing EU copyright framework is under review, this best practice guide seeks to provide a set of specific recommendations for accession states and candidate countries that will or may face the challenge of transposing the EUCD in the near future. It is based on a collaborative effort to take stock of national implementations of the EUCD and builds upon prior studies and reports that analyze the different design choices that Member States have made.

I shall be saving it for Boxing day 🙂

Posted on by mklang

Enlightenment or countering the dangers lurking in darkness

My friend and colleague Jonas Ã?berg of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) has just turned the pressure on. The Swedish section of the FSFE has recently launched an ad campaign encouraging people to join the Fellowship of the FSFE. The campaign included a bonus give away of a pin or a lanyard to all those who joined before 31 December.

Today Jonas wrote a blog post where he complained about poor visibility in traffic which places pedestrians and cyclists in danger when it is dark – which is almost always this time of year in Sweden. So in order to do something about this he has just announced that he will buy a reflex vest (out of his own pocket) for anyone in Sweden who joins the Fellowship before the winter solstice (22 December 2006).

All you have to do is join fsfe.org/join then email him your Fellowship user name and length (for the right vest size) and he will send you a reflex vest…

This is such a brilliant idea!

I want to be part of it too. So if you (only in Sweden since this is a Swedish campaign) order your Fellowship (not renew, but become a new member) before the 22 December and you email Jonas your length (for the vest) then I shall send you a copy of John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty” (please let us know if you want it in Swedish or English).

Posted on by mklang

Creative Commons Photo Contest on Flickr

Creative Commons announced the first CC Swag Photo Contest on Flickr. The contest runs through December 18, 2006 (see information and rules).

The CC Swag photo contest challenges people to creatively photograph CC T-shirts, buttons, stickers, and other promotional items (all available at CCâ??s online store). and enter their photos by uploading them to the Flickr group CCSwagcontest06.

Two winners, as chosen by CC staff, will have their photos used on CC’ informational postcards, which will be distributed internationally to promote CC and the winning photographers. Winners will receive 100 copies of the postcard that features their photo. The winners will also be able to choose a CC board member to record a personalized outgoing voicemail announcement. List of Creative Commons board members.

Posted on by mklang

Populism Tomorrow

Tomorrow I shall be trying something new. My university has a popular science event where researchers present an interesting aspect of their research to the public in 15 minutes at a local bookstore.

So tomorrow I shall be presenting the Swedish file sharing situation. This will include (1) what file sharing is (2) why it annoys people (3) the police raid on The Pirate Bay this summer, and (4) recent court cases.

All in 15 minutes with no props!

So if you are not busy during your lunch hour why not drop by Wettergrens bookstore on Västra hamngatan in Göteborg at 12.30.

The title of the talk is â??File-sharing: the battle between pirates and policeâ?? â?? what can I say? I have a broad populist streak.

Posted on by mklang

Copyright and University Libraries

Today has been another travel day. Up to Stockholm for a day discussing copyright in relation to university libraries. As usual I found the librarians active and concerned about copyright issues. This is only natural since they are forced to be pragmatic about the way in which they react to copyright.

Most of the problems discussed today dealt with archiving. The most common forms of documents, which need to be archived (and are troubled by copyright), are student essays, licentiate theses and PhD theses.

Copyright creates problems in a couple of ways. First off can universities force student works to be archived and if so can they be put online? The same questions apply to the output of teachers and researchers (not always the same thing).

The whole question is complicated by the shifting practices among libraries, university departments and faculties. Actually the universities rarely have power in these issues since the decision making power is on the faculty level. For more on the dilemmas of university copyright see here.

As I mentioned the librarians were pretty cool. From totally ignoring the question of copyright and taking the â??just do itâ?? approach â?? to the more careful approach which is more concerned with the consequences. The lawyers on the other hand tend to be pessimistic and uncooperative. They want to risk nothing, do nothing, for fear of losing. Sometimes I wonder what they think they would lose in a battle? Since the slow disintegration of copyright is losing the war.

An interesting thing was that the librarians were very concerned about the potential malicious side effects of DRM use by publishers.

Posted on by mklang