Dear all,
I'd like to introduce myself to all of you in my new role Legal and Policy
Advisor at Wikimedia Deutschland, reporting to Christian Rickerts. Some of
you know me already from previous engagements, but to be responsible
laterally for everything around law and politics at WMDE is surely the most
daunting task I had to date.
By training I'm a lawyer and have practiced for several years in the field
of open and free as in freedom as co-founder of the Berlin-based lawfirm
iRights.Law. Since almost ten years I support Creative Commons as volunteer
Legal Project Lead for CC Germany. From 2013 until the new WMDE job started
I was also one of two CC Regional Coordinators for Europe, a paid
contractor position. With CC's newly adopted 2016 - 2020 strategy, advocacy
and policy work in general have been added quite prominently to what CC
does as an org, and I had the honour to help get this new focus going.
There's much more to come in that respect, especially from the worldwide
network of CC Teams, who are right in the middle of deliberating about how
to structure everything in the future. So keep an eye out in that direction.
>From my CC work and also, because WMDE is an institution most central to
net politics in Germany, I'm no stranger to Wikimedia. In the past WMDE
inter alia helped to launch the brochure on CC NC licenses. I've also
already worked with people at the Wikimedia Foundation, with the Wikimedian
in Brussels, Dimitar Dimitrov, on freedom of panorama legislation, as well
as with local communities, for example on OER. In my new role as policy
advisor I will try to shape the debates that concern the legal framework
and political baselines of free knowledge on a local, regional and
international level.
Stay tuned for added policy work from Berlin, I'm very moch looking forward
to working with this great bunch of people.
Kind regards
--
John H. Weitzmann
Referent für Politik und Recht
Legal and Policy Advisor
Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Tel. +49 (0)30 219 158 26-0
http://wikimedia.de
Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge allen
Wissens frei teilhaben kann. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
http://spenden.wikimedia.de/
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.
Hi all
Today WIPO celebrates World Intellectual Property Day
<http://www.wipo.int/ip-outreach/en/ipday/> and I just wanted to bring to
your attention a campaign by Communia, Kennisland, and Centrum Cyfrowe: the
three organizations have been looking into the copyright status of Anne
Frank's diary in Europe. It turns out that the original Dutch version is in
the public domain in Poland -- but not in the Netherlands.
Find more info about the #readannediary campaign that calls for shorter,
harmonized copyright terms here
<http://www.communia-association.org/2016/04/25/anne-frank-term-copyright-pr…>
.
Best,
Jan
==
Jan Gerlach
Public Policy Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
jgerlach(a)wikimedia.org
Hello, everybody!
The Senate in Paris just agreed to pass a new exception into French
copyright law. They agreed on the importance of Freedom of Panorama, but
only for non-commercial purposes. The text reads "œuvres en permanence sur
la voie publique réalisées par des particuliers à des fins non lucratives".
A large part of the discussion was revolving around the question whether
"voie publique" and "particuliers" and "non lucrative" are terms that
provide sufficient legal security.
As in Brussels, in Paris it was the visual artists (ADAGP) and Wikimedia
that ran the campaign. The three French architects associations remained
surprinsingly quiet. One major change is the official position of the
French government. Initially they were against any new copyright exception.
Now Minister Lemaire confirmed that the French government had changed its
position and regards the FoP exception favourably in its NC version.
Well, it is not the ultimate win, but we managed to establish an new
copyright exception in France, which is huge. Thanks to Myriam, Nathalie,
Samuel and everyone else at Wikimédia France for running such an efficient
and well coordinated campaign.
The game in Brussels has greatly changed with this, as the main opposing
force was indeed the French government. A possible European solution could
now be to stablish a harmonised minimum FoP while allowing Member States to
go further. An interesting question for us would be if this FoP baseline
could get rid of the antiquity laws.
Cheers,
Dimi
Hi everyone,
I've been invited to represent Wikimedia at a round-table of interested
parties with the UK Government on Wednesday, to offer thoughts on the
current EU consultations on Freedom of Panorama, and on a proposed new
EU "neighbouring right" for publishers (similar to the EU broadcasters'
right).
Dimi has already put up some good thoughts on the FoP consultation
questions,
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/FoP_Consultation
but it would be useful to pull together talking points on the proposed
Publishers' Right.
As Dimi flagged up in his report recently, the publishers' pitch for
this can be found at
http://www.publishersright.eu/
while the questions in the EU consultation can be found at:
https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/Consultation_Copyright?surveylanguage=…
& click on the button "The role of publishers in the copyright value chain"
There is a clear attempted grab buried in the consultation, under
question 4:
proposing that publishers should have the ability "to receive
compensation for uses made under an exception"
which can be contrasted with the exceptions under 5(3) of the InfoSoc
directive which do *not* require compensation.
But apart from this, it would be useful to discuss WM's take on the
issues that the Publishers' Right is being canvassed for to supposedly
address, from the standpoint of WMF as a publisher, that reserves its
recourse to copyright to defend the terms on which our material is made
available.
Questions:
* Is this something (going after some entity for copyright infringement)
that we have in fact ever done ?
(Either for text or images)
* Would WMF have standing to initiate such a suit, or (if WMF only has a
nonexclusive license to the material on WP pages) would such a suit have
to be initiated by the content creator ?
* When eg the GPL has been defended in Europe, is that typically only
possible because there has been a copyright transfer agreement required
to the project from contributors ?
* Is there therefore at least some case for what the publishers are
asking for ?
Counter-issues:
* Do such neighbouring rights threaten to upset copyleft ecosystems, by
locking up PD content and/or copyleft content as part of a publication
protected as a whole ?
* What sort of damages would publishers be able to seek? What 'value'
would these be computed on, outwith the value of the copyrights?
* Implications for text & data mining, summarisation, etc. "Right to
read is the right to mine".
More thoughts ?
-- James.
Sorry, I have been up to my ears in FoP, so I haven't been able to analyze
recently passed General Data Protection Regulation closely. Is there any
estimation on the final version, to which extent might it influence the
flow of request to Wikipedia about erasing personal data?
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/20160407IPR21776/Data-prote…
I mean, we are definitely in the business of gathering and sharing people's
personal data in biographical articles (incl. exporting it to non-EU
countries via Wikipedia), so - any new legal risks? Most comments only
mention companies but I'm sure it also concerns NCOs as collateral damage
(as usual).
I recall at least one case a couple of years ago when someone had contacted
Estonian Data Protection Agency which sent WMEE a rather unofficial letter
suggesting to comply. I pulled a half-Godwin on them (stating and
demonstrating they're incompetent, though not publicly; probably should
have, for educational value). Nothing followed. But I suspect this
directive would acquire the same influence on such cases as full moon has
in Arkham Asylum.
Raul
TLDR:
What: IRC chat with members of Wikimedia Foundation legal
Topic: Freedom of panorama
When: Tuesday, April 19 at 11:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time / 18:00 UTC
Reminder: We can’t do legal advice.
Hi all,
We'd like to remind you of the return of Legal Team IRC office hours,
starting today, April 19 at 11:00 AM PDT / 18:00 UTC! We’re planning to
host these once every 3 months or so going forward.
IRC office hours provide an opportunity for members of the Wikimedia
communities to chat directly with members of the Wikimedia Foundation legal
team on topics of interest including public policy, legal issues facing the
Wikimedia movement, and what you can do to get involved. Please keep in
mind that under California law we can’t give out legal advice, so rather
than giving out legal advice, we will talk about the Wikimedia Foundation’s
stance on issues.
For this format, we’ll begin at 11:00 by doing a brief introduction and
then start taking questions from everyone that’s present. We’ll aim to have
a few people on at the same time to be able to respond faster and to
discuss different aspects of the issues.
For our first office hour, we’re planning to discuss the freedom of
panorama (FoP). With the recent decision in Sweden
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/04/04/strike-against-freedom-panorama/>,
holding that Wikimedia Sweden's website/database was in violation of
Swedish copyright law for making available on the internet photographs of
artwork permanently situated in public areas, FoP has become more pressing
than ever. We believe that the ability for members of the public to
photograph public monuments and landscapes is a fundamental part of free
expression. We plan to raise this issue to the European Commission this
summer, and need your help to let them know that it’s important. This first
one of a series of IRC office hours will be a great opportunity to exchange
thoughts about it.
If you have questions that you would like to discuss during the office hour,
you can add them on Meta Wiki here
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_Team_IRC_Office_Hours>.
TLDR:
What: IRC chat with members of Wikimedia Foundation legal
Topic: Freedom of panorama
When: Tuesday, April 19 at 11:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time / 18:00 UTC
Reminder: We can’t do legal advice.
Hi all,
We’re happy to announce the return of Legal Team IRC office hours, starting
tomorrow, April 19 at 11:00 AM PDT / 18:00 UTC! We’re planning to host
these once every 3 months or so going forward.
IRC office hours provide an opportunity for members of the Wikimedia
communities to chat directly with members of the Wikimedia Foundation legal
team on topics of interest including public policy, legal issues facing the
Wikimedia movement, and what you can do to get involved. Please keep in
mind that under California law we can’t give out legal advice, so rather
than giving out legal advice, we will talk about the Wikimedia Foundation’s
stance on issues.
For this format, we’ll begin at 11:00 by doing a brief introduction and
then start taking questions from everyone that’s present. We’ll aim to have
a few people on at the same time to be able to respond faster and to
discuss different aspects of the issues.
For our first office hour, we’re planning to discuss the freedom of
panorama (FoP). With the recent decision in Sweden
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/04/04/strike-against-freedom-panorama/>,
holding that Wikimedia Sweden's website/database was in violation of
Swedish copyright law for making available on the internet photographs of
artwork permanently situated in public areas, FoP has become more pressing
than ever. We believe that the ability for members of the public to
photograph public monuments and landscapes is a fundamental part of free
expression. We plan to raise this issue to the European Commission this
summer, and need your help to let them know that it’s important. This first
one of a series of IRC office hours will be a great opportunity to exchange
thoughts about it.
If you have questions that you would like to discuss during the office
hour, you can add them on Meta Wiki here
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Legal_Team_IRC_Office_Hours>.
--
Jacob Rogers
Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
NOTICE: This message might have confidential or legally privileged
information in it. If you have received this message by accident, please
delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the
Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice
to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff
members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see
our legal disclaimer
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer>.
Public policy colleagues: A proposal instructing U.S. federal government
agencies to release some source code as open-source has been issued for
public comment. The core bit is to aim to release 20% of the custom code
they develop, for a three-year pilot period.
The proposal and invitation for public comment is here:
https://sourcecode.cio.gov/
The proposal is 15 pages if viewed as a PDF. It comes from the White
House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) which can coordinate/instruct
the other agencies.
Comments are invited in a github-issues format:
https://github.com/whitehouse/source-code-policy/issues
This, helpfully, means one can review how other people see the issues of
interest.
Today is the last day for comments. I will be commenting favorably. The
proposal has simmered and struggled for a long time; the main hope is to
move forward with something. Anything. (I used to think it was better for
agencies to decide for themselves, but this didn't work. I have watched
for ten years in horror. So now it may be commanded centrally. So be it.)
I think the key thing to comment is that for the government staff to
officially join in with existing projects like Wikimedia ones is not
difficult and potentially very productive. Whereas, to release own big
unique custom projects is (a) administratively hard, and (b) not broadly
useful, since they aren't part of a previously established open-source
ecology with a known demand for them.
I will be very interested to see the views of others on the comments list
or by email.
-- peter meyer / user:econterms / Wikimedia DC
Great news John! Looking forward working with you.
Best,
John Andersson
Wikimedia Sverige
Den 7 apr 2016 19:45 skrev <publicpolicy-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org>:
> Send Publicpolicy mailing list submissions to
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: Intro, I'm the new Legal and Policy Advisor at WMDE
> (Alice Wiegand)
> 2. Please remove me from the mailing list. Thank you. (Lauren Saine)
> 3. Re: Intro, I'm the new Legal and Policy Advisor at WMDE
> (Charles M. Roslof)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2016 19:28:57 +0200
> From: Alice Wiegand <awiegand(a)wikimedia.org>
> To: Publicpolicy Group for Wikimedia
> <publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Publicpolicy] Intro, I'm the new Legal and Policy
> Advisor at WMDE
> Message-ID:
> <
> CAJO1yKAur8AHxeyNm4NcVy_SFPhK9h3qwHYMdmzrbr-PpPMsRg(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Great news! welcome, John!
>
> Alice.
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 7:26 PM, Owen Blacker <owen(a)openrightsgroup.org>
> wrote:
>
> > Congratulations and welcome ☺
> >
> > Owen
> > Board director, Open Rights Group (UK)
> > [[User:OwenBlacker]]
> >
> > On Thu, 7 Apr 2016, 18:19 Jacob Rogers, <jrogers(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> >
> >> Congratulations, John! I look forward to working with you.
> >>
> >> Best,
> >> Jacob
> >>
> >> Sent from my iPhone
> >>
> >> On Apr 7, 2016, at 9:49 AM, Luis Villa <luis(a)lu.is> wrote:
> >>
> >> Welcome, John!
> >>
> >> On Thu, Apr 7, 2016, 8:49 AM Timothy Vollmer <tvol(a)creativecommons.org>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Most excellent, John. I'm glad you're in this role and happy to be able
> >>> to continue working with you.
> >>> tvol
> >>>
> >>> On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 8:46 AM, Greg Varnum <gvarnum(a)wikimedia.org>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Congratulations, John! Look forward to working with you. :)
> >>>>
> >>>> -greg
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> ---
> >>>> Gregory Varnum
> >>>> Communications Strategist (Contractor)
> >>>> Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>
> >>>> gvarnum(a)wikimedia.org
> >>>>
> >>>> On Apr 7, 2016, at 8:42 AM, Lisette Kalshoven <lk(a)kl.nl> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Good to hear from you from this side as well John!
> >>>>
> >>>> Cheers,
> >>>>
> >>>> Lisette
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Kennisland | www.kennisland.nl | t +31205756720 | m +31613943237 |
> >>>> @lnkalshoven | skype: lisette.kalshoven
> >>>>
> >>>> On 07 Apr 2016, at 17:39, Jan Gerlach <jgerlach(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Hello John
> >>>>
> >>>> Welcome! Very much looking forward to working with you!
> >>>>
> >>>> Jan
> >>>>
> >>>> ==
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Jan Gerlach
> >>>> Public Policy Manager
> >>>> Wikimedia Foundation
> >>>> 149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor
> >>>> San Francisco, CA 94105
> >>>> jgerlach(a)wikimedia.org
> >>>>
> >>>> On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 9:38 AM, John Hendrik Weitzmann <
> >>>> john.weitzmann(a)wikimedia.de> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Dear all,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I'd like to introduce myself to all of you in my new role Legal and
> >>>>> Policy Advisor at Wikimedia Deutschland, reporting to Christian
> Rickerts.
> >>>>> Some of you know me already from previous engagements, but to be
> >>>>> responsible laterally for everything around law and politics at WMDE
> is
> >>>>> surely the most daunting task I had to date.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> By training I'm a lawyer and have practiced for several years in the
> >>>>> field of open and free as in freedom as co-founder of the
> Berlin-based
> >>>>> lawfirm iRights.Law. Since almost ten years I support Creative
> Commons as
> >>>>> volunteer Legal Project Lead for CC Germany. From 2013 until the new
> WMDE
> >>>>> job started I was also one of two CC Regional Coordinators for
> Europe, a
> >>>>> paid contractor position. With CC's newly adopted 2016 - 2020
> strategy,
> >>>>> advocacy and policy work in general have been added quite
> prominently to
> >>>>> what CC does as an org, and I had the honour to help get this new
> focus
> >>>>> going. There's much more to come in that respect, especially from the
> >>>>> worldwide network of CC Teams, who are right in the middle of
> deliberating
> >>>>> about how to structure everything in the future. So keep an eye out
> in that
> >>>>> direction.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> From my CC work and also, because WMDE is an institution most central
> >>>>> to net politics in Germany, I'm no stranger to Wikimedia. In the
> past WMDE
> >>>>> inter alia helped to launch the brochure on CC NC licenses. I've also
> >>>>> already worked with people at the Wikimedia Foundation, with the
> Wikimedian
> >>>>> in Brussels, Dimitar Dimitrov, on freedom of panorama legislation,
> as well
> >>>>> as with local communities, for example on OER. In my new role as
> policy
> >>>>> advisor I will try to shape the debates that concern the legal
> framework
> >>>>> and political baselines of free knowledge on a local, regional and
> >>>>> international level.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Stay tuned for added policy work from Berlin, I'm very moch looking
> >>>>> forward to working with this great bunch of people.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Kind regards
> >>>>>
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> John H. Weitzmann
> >>>>> Referent für Politik und Recht
> >>>>> Legal and Policy Advisor
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
> >>>>> Tel. +49 (0)30 219 158 26-0
> >>>>> http://wikimedia.de
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge
> allen
> >>>>> Wissens frei teilhaben kann. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
> >>>>> http://spenden.wikimedia.de/
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.
> >>>>> V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts
> Berlin-Charlottenburg
> >>>>> unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das
> Finanzamt
> >>>>> für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>> Publicpolicy mailing list
> >>>>> Publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> >>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/publicpolicy
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> Publicpolicy mailing list
> >>>> Publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> >>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/publicpolicy
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> Publicpolicy mailing list
> >>>> Publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> >>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/publicpolicy
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> Publicpolicy mailing list
> >>>> Publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> >>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/publicpolicy
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Invest in an open future. Support Creative Commons today:
> >>> http://bit.ly/19IjSKl
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Publicpolicy mailing list
> >>> Publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> >>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/publicpolicy
> >>>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Publicpolicy mailing list
> >> Publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/publicpolicy
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Publicpolicy mailing list
> >> Publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/publicpolicy
> >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Publicpolicy mailing list
> > Publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/publicpolicy
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Alice Wiegand
> Board of Trustees
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
> Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>