Hi policy folks,
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tl;dr: Please check out and participate in the new copyright strategy on
Meta <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Copyright_strategy>, and attend the
accompanying IRC office hour
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours#Upcoming_office_hours> on
September 15.
-----
As you may have already seen on other mailing lists or through messages
on-wiki, we on the WMF legal team have been putting together a new strategy
for identifying, prioritizing, and addressing copyright issues that affect
Wikimedia <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Copyright_strategy>. The goal of
the strategy is to improve how Wikimedia does its copyright-related work by
providing a centralized place for everyone—staff and non-staff alike—to
organize and collaborate on that work. There’s more information on Meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Copyright_strategy
The strategy is designed to work with all sorts of issues, including things
like MediaWiki feature design, Creative Commons license compliance and
project copyright policies. I’m hoping the copyright strategy pages will
also become a place to track and discuss copyright-related public policy
opportunities and developments. If a copyright lawsuit is filed, copyright
legislation is proposed, or an opportunity arises to share Wikimedia’s
perspective on copyright with policymakers, it can be added to the
strategy’s list of issues
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Copyright_strategy/Issues>. We can then
all talk about it and propose responses or activism.
The goal of the strategy is not to replace this mailing list, the public
policy portal <http://policy.wikimedia.org>, or anywhere else where policy
discussions are already thriving, but to supplement existing forums. By
documenting discussions and keeping them active on-wiki, we can help make
sure we don’t lose track of anything.
If you have questions about all of this, I encourage you to leave a comment
on the copyright strategy talk page
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Copyright_strategy>. The legal team
will also be holding an office hour on IRC
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours#Upcoming_office_hours>to
discuss the strategy on September 15 at 14:00 UTC.
I hope you’ll participate!
Best,
Charles M. Roslof
Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
croslof(a)wikimedia.org
(415) 839-6885
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>.
FYI
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Pieter-Jan Pauwels <pieterjanpauwels(a)gmail.com>
Date: 2016-09-28 15:00 GMT+02:00
Subject: [CC-be] We're looking for a new talent at Open Knowledge Belgium
To: CC BE <cc-be(a)creativecommons.domainepublic.net>
Dear CC-BE List,
We’re looking for a new project coordinator at Open Knowledge Belgium!
You can find the job opening here: http://www.openknowledge.be/jobs/
Meanwhile I’m leaving the organisation, more on that here: http://www.
openknowledge.be/2016/09/28/a-new-challenge-for-me-is-a-new-
opportunity-for-open-knowledge-belgium/
And oh! We’re hosting a final goodbye drink in Ghent on 25 November 2016,
so register here: https://www.eventbrite.nl/e/open-knowledge-open-
after-work-drink-registration-28145750698
Thanks to everyone who has ever helped along or contributed to Creative
Commons and Open Knowledge Belgium projects and tools in the last few
years, it was great working with you.
Kind regards,
Pieter-Jan
Community Coordinator
Open Knowledge Belgium
m: +32 476 66 27 77 a: Sint-Salvatorstraat 18/101, 9000 Gent
s: www.openknowledge.be e: pieterjan(a)openknowledge.be
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
www.creativecommons.domainepublic.nethttps://listes.domainepublic.net/listinfo/cc-be
unsubscribe: cc-be-unsubscribe(a)creativecommons.domainepublic.net
I am pleased to announce that, thanks to Google Summer of Code student
Priyanka Mandikal, the project for the Accuracy Review of Wikipedias
project has delivered a working demonstration of open source code and
data available here:
https://github.com/priyankamandikal/arowf/
Please try it out at:
http://tools.wmflabs.org/arowf/
We need your help to test it and try it out and send us comments. You
can read more about the project here:
https://priyankamandikal.github.io/posts/gsoc-2016-project-overview/
The formal project report, still in progress (Google docs comments
from anyone are most welcome) is at:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_AiOyVn9Qf5ne1qCHIygUU3OTJcbpkb14N3rIty…
This allows experiments to measure, for example, how long it would
take to complete proofreading of the wikipedias with and without
paying editors to work alongside volunteers. I am sure everyone agrees
that is an interesting question which bears directly on budget
expectations. I hope multiple organizations use the published methods
and their Python implementations to make such measurements. I would
also like to suggest a proposal related to the questions in both of
the following reviews:
http://unotes.hartford.edu/announcements/images/2014_03_04_Cerasoli_and_Nic…http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1748-8583.12080/abstract
The most recent solicitation of community input for the Foundation's
Public Policy team I've seen said that they would like suggestions for
specific issues as long as the suggestions did not involve
endorsements of or opposition to any specific candidates. My support
for adjusting copyright royalties on a sliding scale to transfer
wealth from larger to smaller artists has been made clear, and I do
not believe there are any concerns that I have not addressed
concerning alignment to mission or effectiveness. I would also like to
propose a related endorsement.
The Making Work Pay tax credit (MWPTC) is a negative payroll tax that
expired in 2010. It has all the advantages of an expanded Earned
Income Tax Credit (EITC) but would happen with every paycheck.
Reinstating the Making Work Pay tax credit would serve to reduce
economic inequality.
This proposal is within the scope of the Foundation's mission because
reducing economic inequality should serve to empower people to develop
educational content for the projects because of the increased levels
of support for artistic production among a broader set of potential
editors with additional discretionary free time due to increased
wealth. This proposal is needed because economic inequality produces
more excess avoidable deaths and leads to fewer years of productive
life than global warming. This proposal would provide substantial
benefits to the movement, the community, the Foundation, the US and
the world if it were to be successfully adopted. For the reasons
stated above, this proposal will be seen as positive.
Here is some background and supporting information:
* MWPTC overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_Work_Pay_tax_credit
* MWPTC details: http://tpcprod.urban.org/taxtopics/2011_work.cfm
* Problems with expanding the EITC:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/eitc-expansion-backed-obama-and-ryan-…
* Educational advantages of expanding the EITC:
https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/this-policy-would-help-poor-kids-more-th…
* Financial advantages of expanding the EITC:
http://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/strengthening-the-eitc-for-childle…
* The working class has lost half their wealth over the past two
decades: https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/why-people-are-angry/
* Health effects of addressing economic inequality:
http://talknicer.com/ehlr.pdf
* Economic growth effects of addressing economic inequality:
http://talknicer.com/egma.pdf
* Unemployment and underemployment effects of addressing economic
inequality: http://diposit.ub.edu/dspace/bitstream/2445/33140/1/617293.pdf
For an example of how a campaign on this issue could be conducted
based on the issues identified in the sources above, please see:
http://bit.ly/mwptc
Please share your thoughts on the wikipedias proofreading time
measurement effort and this related public policy proposal.
I expect that some people will say that they do not understand how the
public policy proposal relates to the project to measure the amount of
time it would take to proofread the wikipedias. I am happy to explain
that in detail if and when needed. On a related note, I would like to
point out that the project report Google doc suggests future work
involving a peer learning system for speaking skills using the same
architecture as we derived from the constraints for successfully
performing simultaneous paid and volunteer proofreading. I would like
people to keep that in mind when evaluating the utility of these
proposals.
Sincerely,
Jim Salsman
Can anyone think of any reason why, if the Foundation gets a notice of a
BLP defamation or libel issue before it has been discussed beyond the
subject's article's talk page, that they wouldn't want to send a summary of
the issue by email to ORTS asking a volunteer to raise the issue on WP:BLPN
or the specific project(s) corresponding noticeboards? Would this not in
many cases lead to earlier resolutions, better information for the
Foundation in deciding on a response, and fewer overall BLP issues?
Thank you for your kind consideration of this proposal.
Sorry I don't have any copyright ideas beyond what I proposed in July.
Sincerely,
Jim Salsman
Dear all
Many of you are probably aware of the European Commission's leaked proposal
for copyright reform. TL;DR: It does not look good... The proposal will be
formally presented on Wednesday, September 14.
Chuck Roslof from the WMF legal team and John Weitzmann from WMDE have
written a blogpost
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/09/13/european-commission-copyright-leaks/>
about it that addresses the many ways, in which the proposed rules fail to
promote free knowledge.
Please help us share, retweet
<https://twitter.com/wikimediapolicy/status/775718229180162048>, etc.
Best,
Jan
==
Jan Gerlach
Public Policy Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
jgerlach(a)wikimedia.org
Hi all,
Me an Jan from the WMF have been talking for a while that it could be very
useful to have detailed and structured information on the use of free
licenses by government press services and state archives agencies.
As a first step we have assembled all the national archives and all the
government press services of EU/EEA/CH countries. [1] Now, we might benefit
from your help.
The idea is quite straightforward. We need to gather data on how each of
these organisations currently licenses their works. As a second step, we
will send them a written inquiry on whether they might be open to switching
to open licenses and if not, why. If this fails, we might file freedom of
information requests if we feel like there is data that should be public
but is being withheld.
If think this is an interesting initiative and would like to help us out,
please get in touch here or directly contribute to the Meta-Wiki page.
Cheers and have a great weekend!
Dimi
[1]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Engage/FoI