license

Seminar: In the Line of Copyright Fire

Uppsala (Sweden) Thursday, September 15th

18.00-20.00 Geijersalen, Engelska Parken: In the Line of Copyright Fire: Culture, Knowledge, and the Information Age

Exacerbated by technological innovation and digitization, the means by which the ownership of informational resources is to be managed in a time of global flows and networks is a question of critical importance to the Information Age. Today, few resources are as valuable as information and knowledge. What are the possible ramifications for civil society, higher education, and cultural institutions in this scenario, where both increased access and increased control struggle for domination? Archives, Libraries, and Museums are organizations that together with their users face a number of challenges in respect to copyright. In what sense do private and public interests collide when it comes to the dissemination of information, knowledge, and culture today? How can we make images and text available in a way that will be conducive rather than detrimental to future research? Is copyright obsolete or still viable?

These and other questions relating to the nexus between culture, knowledge, and property, will be explored in this panel discussion hosted by the Department of Archival Science, Library- and Information Science and Museology (ALM). Confirmed panelists include: Eva Hemmungs Wirtén, Associate Professor, Swedish Research Council Postdoctoral Research Fellow 2002-2006, the Department of ALM, Uppsala University; Mathias Klang, Project Lead for the Swedish Creative Commons license and Graduate Student at the Department of Informatics, Göteborg University; Matthew Rimmer, Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Australian National University and member of the Copyright and Intellectual Property Advisory Group of the Australian Library and Information Association; Jette Sandahl, Director, Museum of World Culture, Göteborg.

All welcome!

For further information, please contact Eva Hemmungs Wirtén, ehw@abm.uu.se

Posted on by mklang

GPL in Europe

“The GPLâ??s major problem is that the right of communication to the public is not provided explicitly amongst the granted rights, and that a clause limits furthermore the granted rights to what is explicitly provided by the license. Moreover, the GPL is known for being the most viral license ever, whereas massive spreading through dynamic linkage is not the aim of the European Commission.”

This is a quote from a Study into Open Source Licensing of software developed by The European Commission entitled “Report on Open Source Licensing of software developed by The European Commission (applied to the CIRCA solution) 16th December, 2004” by Séverine Dusollier, Philippe Laurent & Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz.
http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/document/2623/5585#eupl

Right to communication
The major problem with the GPL is that the right to communication to the public is not explicitly provided in the license?

“The right to communication to the public”? I am unsure which right the authors are referring to. However the GPL is explicit in that once software is licensed under the GPL the source code must be available and the software itself can be used for any purpose.

Most viral
“Moreover, the GPL is known for being the most viral license ever, whereas massive spreading through dynamic linkage is not the aim of the European Commission.” – Once again I am unsure what the authors are concerned about. The point of article 2 (the viral or vaccination effect) is not “massive spreading through dynamic linkage” (which sounds terrifying even if I dont know what it means). The viral effect entails that you cannot take code which has been released under the GPL (made free for all) and use it in part in code which you do not intend to make freely available for all. Simple – but not scary.

Posted on by mklang

Gratz replies Dvorak

Joe Gratz has written a very good reply to the recent article by Dvorak’s “Creative Commons Humbug”.

“John C. Dvorak recently published this column criticizing Creative Commons. Some of his criticisms are valid; others, based on a misunderstanding of the Creative Commons licenses or the role of Creative Commons as an organization; others still, based on dangerous misconceptions about the law.”

joegratz.net – Dvorak on Creative Commons: Humbug!

Posted on by mklang

Ny utkast Creative Commons

Här kommer (före deadline!) den nya licenstexten. Vi har bearbetat mycket och hoppas att ni kommer att läsa och kommentera det ni ser. Utgångspunkten i vårt arbete har varit att tänka om licensen genom att utgå från nordisk rätt.

Detta innebär att vi har kunnat ta bort ganska mycket text.

Vi kommer att fortsätta arbeta. Nu måste vi köra översättning & kommentarer. Vi emotser era kommentarer och synpunkter före 28 juni.

Licensen finns att ladda ner

Posted on by mklang

CC presentation at EuroPython2005 – June 27-29

Abstract
The Creative Commons (CC) project was developed to help creative people share copyrighted material. This was done by creating a licensing scheme that could be applied, understood and communicated by non-lawyers. The project was launched in 2001 and took inspiration from the GNU General Public License. The first stage was the release of a set of copyright licenses free for public use. Following this CC has developed a Web application that helps people dedicate their creative works to the public domain or retain their copyright while licensing them as free for certain uses, under certain conditions.

The success of CC has led to its spread over many different legal jurisdictions and its application in many new areas. The purpose of this talk will be to briefly explain the CC licensing system and the use of meta-data in the licensing. In addition to this the internationalisation of CC will be presented from the viewpoint of the work of CC in Sweden.

http://www.europython.org/

Posted on by mklang

CC Sweden Progress

Yesterday CC Sweden met with CC Norway in Oslo. Since both countries share a fundamental legal tradition we realised that it would be to everyones advantage if we worked closer together.

In addition to this we decided to change the present license which is mainly a translation to a more Scandinavian style license.

Dates:
The new version is to be ready within two weeks.
Translation into English & explanatory notes sent to CC International by the end of June
Porting process & Launch end of August?

We still need more interested people to help with CC Sweden – you do not have to be lawyers or hackers. We need people to help with content production, create CC music lists & work with media contacts.

Posted on by mklang

GPL Win in Michigan

The case involved software written in part by Drew Technologies, Inc., to which others contributed, in reliance upon the GPL. DrewTech, an engineering firm in Michigan, develops custom vehicle communications solutions for the automobile industry. DrewTech released the software at issue on SourceForge, under the GNU General Public License (“GPL”).

GROKLAW

Posted on by mklang