Hi all,
As we have stated in our annual plan [1], “currently, community members
must search many pages and places to stay informed about Foundation
activities and resources.” We have worked in the past two quarters to
create a single point of entry. We call it the Wikimedia Resource Center,
and its alpha version is now live on Meta Wikimedia:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Resource_Center
As the movement expands to include more affiliates and more programmatic
activities every year, newer Wikimedians are faced with lack of experience
in the movement and its various channels for requesting support. In order
to expand Wikimedia communities’ efforts, we want to provide easy access to
resources that support their very important work. The [[m:Wikimedia
Resource Center]] is a hub designed in response to this issue: it is
intended to evolve into a single point of entry for Wikimedians all over
the world to the variety of resources and types of staff support they may
need to develop new initiatives or also expand existing ones.
This version of the Resource Center is only the beginning. For phase two of
the project, we will enable volunteer Wikimedians to add resources
developed by other individuals or organizations to the Wikimedia Resource
Center, and in phase three, the Wikimedia Resource Center will include
features to better connect Wikimedians to other Wikimedians that can
support them.
We want to hear what you think about this prototype and our plans for it!
If you have comments about the Wikimedia Resource Center, you can submit
your feedback publicly, on the Talk Page, or privately, via a survey hosted
by a third party, that shouldn’t take you more than 4 minutes to complete.
A feedback button is on the top right corner on every page of the hub.
Looking forward to more collaborations!
Best,
María
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2016-2017/…
--
María Cruz
Communications and Outreach Project Manager, Community Engagement
Hi policy folks,
-----
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>.
Hi folks,
Earlier this week, the Wikimedia Foundation filed a submission
<https://policy.wikimedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wikimedia-foundatio…>
in response to the US Copyright Office in response to their request for
additional comments
<https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-11-08/pdf/2016-26904.pdf> on section
512 of the DMCA
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Copyright_Infringement_Liability_Limit…>.
That's the provision of law that protects online platforms like us from
liability for copyright infringement in user-uploaded content (creating
"safe harbors"). It also creates the notice-and-takedown system that
copyright owners can use to request that we remove material from the
projects.
This is the second round of comments on section 512; we also participated
in the first round with written comments
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/04/06/save-safe-harbors-open-web/>
and in-person
discussions <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/06/16/copyright-law/>. In the
first round, we focused on talking about how the section 512 safe harbors
have worked well to allow the growth of the Wikimedia projects (and online
platforms generally), and how it would be bad to require online platforms,
and Wikimedia in particular, to implement technology that would detect
copyright infringement and automatically remove material. Rightsholders
have been advocating for such a requirement in the form of
"notice-and-staydown"—in our comments, we call it "mandatory filtering".
In these second round comments, in addition to reiterating some of our
points from the first round, we encouraged the Copyright Office to take
into account the interests of the general public and individual creators
who rely on online platforms to distribute their works, and to base any
recommendations they make about changes to the law on reliable research:
https://policy.wikimedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wikimedia-foundatio…
I'm planning to post about our comments in more detail on the Wikimedia blog
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/> soon. In the meantime, you may want to check
out the blogposts and comments from these other organizations:
- Internet Archive
<https://blog.archive.org/2017/02/23/the-internet-archive-pushes-back-on-not…>
- Techdirt/Copia
<https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170222/11214836767/why-dmcas-notice-tak…>
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/02/eff-copyright-office-safe-harbors-work>
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>.
Note: Apologies for cross-posting and sending in English. Message is available for translation on Meta-Wiki.[1]
The Wikimedia movement is beginning a movement-wide strategy discussion, a process which will run throughout 2017. For 15 years, Wikimedians have worked together to build the largest free knowledge resource in human history. During this time, we've grown from a small group of editors to a diverse network of editors, developers, affiliates, readers, donors, and partners. Today, we are more than a group of websites. We are a movement rooted in values and a powerful vision: all knowledge for all people. As a movement, we have an opportunity to decide where we go from here.
This movement strategy discussion will focus on the future of our movement: where we want to go together, and what we want to achieve. We hope to design an inclusive process that makes space for everyone: editors, community leaders, affiliates, developers, readers, donors, technology platforms, institutional partners, and people we have yet to reach. There will be multiple ways to participate including on-wiki, in private spaces, and in-person meetings. You are warmly invited to join and make your voice heard.
The immediate goal is to have a strategic direction by Wikimania 2017 to help frame a discussion on how we work together toward that strategic direction.
Regular updates are being sent to the Wikimedia-l mailing list,[2] and posted on Meta-Wiki.[3] Beginning with this message, monthly reviews of these updates will be sent to this list as well.
Here is a review of the updates that have been sent so far:
Update 1 on Wikimedia movement strategy process (15 December 2016)
- https://meta.wikimedia.org/?curid=10153348
- Introduction to process and information about budget spending resolution to support it
Update 2 on Wikimedia movement strategy process (23 December 2016)
- https://meta.wikimedia.org/?curid=10157430
- Start of search for Lead Architect for movement strategy process
Update 3 on Wikimedia movement strategy process (8 January 2017)
- https://meta.wikimedia.org/?curid=10167420
- Plans for strategy sessions at upcoming Wikimedia Conference 2017
Update 4 on Wikimedia movement strategy process (11 January 2017)
- https://meta.wikimedia.org/?curid=10169064
- Introduction of williamsworks
Update 5 on Wikimedia movement strategy process (2 February 2017)
- https://meta.wikimedia.org/?curid=10184130
- The core movement strategy team, team tracks being developed, introduction of the Community Process Steering Committee, discussions at WikiIndaba conference 2017 and the Wikimedia movement affiliates executive directors gathering in Switzerland
Update 6 on Wikimedia movement strategy process (10 February 2017)
- https://meta.wikimedia.org/?curid=10190631
- Tracks A & B process prototypes and providing feedback, updates on development of all four Tracks
Sign up to receive future announcements and monthly highlights of strategy updates on your user talk page: https://meta.wikimedia.org/?curid=10153505
More information about the movement strategy is available on the Meta-Wiki 2017 Wikimedia movement strategy portal.[3]
A version of this message is available for translation on Meta-Wiki.[1]
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Updates/In…
[2] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017
List moderators may request that their mailing list not receive future updates by contacting Gregory Varnum (gvarnum(a)wikimedia.org).
Hello everyone,
We are excited to send you the third issue of our newsletter. Here is what
has happened in public policy in January and February 2017 (so far):
Policy Issue Highlights
Knowledge knows no borders
Last week, the U.S. administration issued an executive order that restricts
travel and immigration from certain nations, and limits admission for many
refugees. Since the Wikimedia Foundation is headquartered in the U.S. and
its operations can be impacted by the order and potential expansions of the
order, our Executive Director Katherine Maher made a statement urging this
policy to be withdrawn.
On February 6, we joined more than 120 organizations in an amicus brief
filed in Washington State v. Trump, a case that challenges the executive
order. The amicus brief underscores how the executive order does not meet
basic constitutional and statutory requirements and reflects our belief in
the open exchange of ideas, information, community, and culture as an
essential part of our vision.
Read the Katherine Maher’s statement:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/30/knowledge-knows-no-boundaries/
Read the blogpost about the amicus brief:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/02/06/amicus-brief-immigration-travel-restr…
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13769
Amicus Brief in Cross v. Facebook
We joined Electronic Frontier Foundation, Engine, GitHub, Snap, Yelp, and
others in an amicus brief in the case Cross v. Facebook, which is before
the Court of Appeal for the State of California, First Appellate District.
The case concerns the provision in the United States’ Communications
Decency Act, Section 230, that protects online intermediaries from liability
<https://policy.wikimedia.org/policy-landing/liability/> related to
user-generated content. We joined the brief because the lower court’s
reasoning was inconsistent with well-established rules to protect online
speech. Section 230 immunity is an important cornerstone of the internet,
and it's an important part of the legal background that allows the
Wikimedia projects to be a platform for sharing knowledge. The brief urges
the court to uphold the immunity granted to intermediaries that enables
robust freedom of expression and has become a fundamental pillar in the
architecture of the internet.
Read the amicus brief:
https://www.eff.org/files/2017/01/10/eff_et_al_amicus_brief_-_cross_v_faceb…
See our blogpost:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/10/cross-v-facebook/
Further reading:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160606/00343634630/another-bad-ruling-c…http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2016/06/wtf-is-going-on-with-section-2…
Amicus in IMDb.com, Inc. v. Harris
A new law in California, AB 1687, would require websites that offer
employment services to remove information about an actor's age or birthday
upon request. One such service, IMDB.com, is now protesting the law's
restriction on freedom of expression, arguing that it limits their ability
to share truthful information.
While this law would not apply to a website like Wikipedia directly since
we do not provide employment services, we are still concerned with the
breadth of the law and important principles of freedom of expression that
underlie this case. Restricting websites' ability to write and host factual
information about notable people will make it harder for Wikipedians to do
research and write articles.
We joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation in an amicus brief that
explains these issues around freedom of expression. This case is still in a
lower court, so it will likely continue and we will keep you informed about
new developments.
Read the amicus brief:
https://www.eff.org/files/2017/01/13/026-1_amicus_curiae_brief_of_eff_fac_m…
Further reading:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/01/eff-dont-gag-imdbhttp://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/california-enacts-law-requiring-imdb-…https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/nov/11/imdb-sues-california-to-overtu…
<https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/nov/11/imdb-sues-california-to-overtu…>
The Value of the Public Domain
We contributed a blogpost about the value of the public domain to Copyright
Week. In the post, we highlight the importance of a healthy public domain
by explaining that freely licensed content and content that is not or no
longer protected by copyright can be added to Wikipedia. The post discusses
how material enters the public domain in three different ways: 1) copyright
on works expires after a certain term; 2) works produced by the US
government (like edicts of government at all levels) automatically enter
the public domain by law; 3) authors choose to dedicate their works to the
public domain using licenses such as CC0 or let others reuse them under an
“attribution share-alike” license.
We are concerned about current and upcoming copyright reforms that threaten
the public domain. In the proposed changes
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/09/13/european-commission-copyright-leaks/>
to the Copyright Directive currently in the European Parliament, we want to
have strong safeguards for the public domain and not add new rights that
lock away public works. In future copyright reforms, we want to make sure
the public domain is not threatened by extensions of copyright terms that
make culture inaccessible for decades.
See the blogpost here:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/16/public-domain-copyright-week/
Further reading:
https://www.eff.org/copyrightweek
Inspire campaign on gender gap
Part of the Foundation’s work on access to knowledge includes efforts to
improve gender diversity in the Wikimedia movement. About two years ago,
the Community Engagement team launched an Inspire Campaign that asked for
ideas to improve the representation of women within Wikimedia projects,
both in its content and as contributors. This month, they presented the
final report about 11 funded projects. It finds that over 12,000 articles
were created or improved, including 126 new biographies on women. The
project successfully engaged women as project leaders, volunteers,
experienced editors, and new editors while also addressing gender-related
biases within Wikipedia articles.
The report finds that the majority of participants in funded projects were
women. They joined trainings, came together to improve content, and built
mentorship programs. The report highlights the importance of privacy
protections for many of the project participants. We want to congratulate
the project leaders for their efforts to improve gender diversity and make
Wikipedia a better place to participate in knowledge for everybody.
Read the blogpost:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/12/inspire-campaign-final-report/
The full report:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Evaluation/Inspire_Campaigns/Gender_…
Events
Free Open Shared: a conversation about privacy in Asia with Malavika Jayaram
On Feb. 2, Malavika Jayaram visited our office to give a talk about privacy
in Asia. Malavika is the inaugural Executive Director of the Digital Asia
Hub <https://www.digitalasiahub.org/> in Hong Kong, and spoke about
different concepts of privacy and identity in Indian and larger Asian
contexts.
A practising lawyer and then academic, her most recent research interests
cover biometrics, identity and data ethics, and emerging questions around
AI. Her work also links privacy and anonymity online with questions around
freedom of expression, assembly, and autonomy. Malavika has previously been
a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center and is on the Advisory Board of the
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).
The talk was streamed and recorded.
Video-stream:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrZmcvwY_GU
More info about the series:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Free_Open_Shared_events
Misc.
Wikimedia Resource Center
To make it easier for volunteers to find information concerning their work,
including contact information and documentation of Wikimedia Foundation
policies, a single hub for resources and support materials has been set up.
The Wikimedia Resource Center also contains information around issues such
as the Wikimedia trademarks, copyright policies, etc. The team behind the
Wikimedia Resource Center is currently asking for feedback. Please help
improve the hub by submitting comments.
The Resource Center:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Resource_Center
Blogpost:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/19/new-wikimedia-resource-center/
Grants to work on harassment
Last week it was announced that the Wikimedia Foundation will receive a
total USD 500,000 from Craig Newmark Foundation and craigslist Charitable
Fund to launch a community health initiative. The goal is to develop more
advanced tools for volunteers and staff to reduce harassing behavior on
Wikipedia and block harassers from the site.
This initiative seeks to address the problem of harassment, which can
prevent some people from safely participating in free knowledge and has
been shown to decrease participation in the Wikimedia community.
Blogpost about the grants:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/01/26/community-health-initiative-grant/
Harassment survey:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Harassment_Survey_2015_…
Our previous blogpost about interaction principles:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/09/20/interaction-principles/
Your Input
We would love to hear from you! If you have any feedback or would like us
to include things that you see happening in your country or elsewhere,
please follow up directly with Jan Gerlach at jgerlach(a)wikimedia.org.
All the best,
Stephen and Jan
==
Jan Gerlach
Public Policy Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
jgerlach(a)wikimedia.org
tl;dr
The hot phase of the EU copyright reform is getting closer. We are
currently talking to the decisive MEPs on a number of issues: text and data
mining, Freedom of Panorama, safeguarding the public domain, ancillary
copyright, upload filtering, linking and databases.
NB: Sorry this month's report is so very long :)
https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/monitoringreport
===
Copyright reform - Content
---
Text and data mining: No matter whether we are talking about population or
data or average daily temperatures, we constantly access and re-use data on
our projects and quite often use automated tools to do so. Publishers have
been claiming that mining the open internet "in an uncontrolled way" “risks
leading to low grade results” and disregards “important data protection
issues” [1]. Which is why they have been claiming that automatically
analysing data on documents you have access to is not legal. In parallel
they are trying to sell separate mining licenses. On the other hand,
research organisations and open movements such as Open Knowledge have
maintained that the “right to read is the right to mine” [2]. The European
Commission wanted to solve this unclarity and proposed an exception on
“text and data mining” in the Copyright in the Digital Single Market reform
(Article 3) [3]. However, the envisioned exception is meant to apply only
to research organisations, leaving start-ups, data journalists and
Wikimedia projects behind.
We are working under the auspices of LIBER [4] in a coordinated effort to
fix this by removing the limited circle of beneficiaries of this
exception.
---
Ancillary copyright: The main problem with the so-called “Press Publishers
Right” (Article 11) in the reform proposal is, apart from the fact that it
won’t work, that compared to its German ancestor it has been inflated to a
size way beyond reasonable. The European version comes with a protection
span of 20 years (as opposed to only one year in Germany), covers all press
publications (as opposed to only news publications) and doesn’t have any
limitations whatsoever (no permission to use snippets, for instance). This
will not only lead to a very messy situation once every EU Member States
introduces its national version of this right, but also has the potential
to make the free use links that contain the article’s name or annotated
bibliographies legally questionable.
We are raising these two issues at debates around Brussels, giving specific
examples and otherwise following the lead of partners such as C4C on this
[5].
---
Upload filtering: The European Commission wants sites that host
user-uploaded content to install content recognition technologies that
monitor all uploads for copyright infringements as indicated by
rightsholders, which whom such sites are asked to sign agreements (Article
13). There are no exceptions written into the proposal that would exclude
sites using legal content (i.e. public domain works, uses falling under an
exception or freely licensed content). Blanket monitoring and filtering
technology is practically a censorship infrastructure with a paint job.
Alas, the music industry is adamant. They want this badly and have been
refusing to step down.
In the meanwhile we have gotten the European Commission (Maria Martin-Prat,
until very recently Head of Unit Copyright) to agree with us publicly that
Wikipedia would fall under the definition of a "site hosting user-uploaded
content", which they were they were denying before. The Commission also
publicly admitted that this should be remedied by the European Parliament.
We are currently sharing our worries with the most relevant decision-makers
at this stage [6] and working, among others, with EDRi [7] to defuse that
part of the text.
---
Safeguard the Public Domain: Talking only about things that are looming
above us is tiresome. This is why we have decided to try even harder and
improve copyright in a way that would allow for more free knowledge to be
shared, especially online. One of our positive goals is to enshrine a
“public domain safeguard” in the European copyright framework. This would
mean that once works are in the public domain, faithful copies thereof get
no new protections. You have heard of the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen case,
right? [8] Wikimedia has the lead on this in Brussels and is currently
talking to relevant decision-makers in the Parliament and stakeholder
allies to find an acceptable wording [9].
---
Freedom of Panorama: Despite the European Commission calling it “relevant”
to the digital world and recommending Member States to introduce it in the
press release that went out with the proposed copyright reform, they must
have forgotten to include it. We are now leading the charge, together with
the EGDF [10] and Yelp! to make sure it finds its way back into the text
[11].
---
Database Rights: Little known fact is that apart from reforming the
Copyright Directive, the European Commission is also proposing changes to
the Database Directive. That is this a somewhat esoteric piece of European
legislation establishing a sui generis right on databases, which requires
Wikidata to be much more stringent in its content licensing requirements.
The European Parliament called for the abolishing of the a little more than
a year ago. The Commission might tackle a reform of the Directive later
this year, however, we are now trying to use the current window of
opportunity and simply “patch” the sui generis right by turning it into a
registration right [12].
---
Safeguarding the link: We are working with Open Media [13] to try to
enshrine in law that linking to published resource on the internet clearly
remains legal. This is necessary due to the amount of partially incoherent
jurisprudence piling up over the years.
===
===
Copyright Reform - Phases
---
Currently we are making everything possible to talk to the most relevant
MEPs - the rapporteur and shadows in the Legal Affairs Committe,
opinion-makers among the MEPs and the rapporteurs of opinions in the
Internal Market, Industry & Trade and Culture committees [3]. The moment is
decisive for the opinions, as they are in midst of writing and partially
even finishing up their first drafts, which are expected to be send to
translation in one to two weeks. The opinions should then be voted in
February. After that the rapporteur Ms. Comodini (MT EPP) will present her
draft report in the beginning of March, taking these opinions into
consideration. We then have until the end of March to see what needs to be
amended to Ms. Comodini's version and formally table such amendments. The
next phase will be all about influencing compromises between the rapporteur
and her shadows. Whatever they do not find a compromise on will be voted in
our out of the text by the Legal Affairs committe, possibly at the end of
June.
===
===
ePrivacy Regulation
---
The European Commission presented its ePrivacy Regulation [14]. This will
replace the so-called “Cookie Monster Directive” [15] that had us in Europe
clicking away cookies banners for years. The EU will try to remedy that
now. First good news is that cookies will be split into two categories -
session cookies (e.g. log-in, language, shopping basket) and third-party
cookies (e.g. advertising trackers).
An interesting aspect in the new logic is that browsers are supposed to
play the role of gatekeepers, meaning that once you install a new browser,
it will have to ask you about your desired privacy settings. They will be
legally required to give you nuanced, real options. For cookies the choices
will be at least: no cookies at all, only session cookies, cookies from
certain sites, all cookies.
The remainder of the Regulation deals with advertising messages (spam not
OK, companies not allowed to pass on email databases) and caller ID
blocking (must be allowed). New is also that the data protection rules
shall apply to almost all electronic communications services, including
messengers like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Viber. Excluded are
application that are not usable without another main service (e.g. in-game
chat windows).
Wikimedia has no meaningful issues with the proposed Regulation and our job
will be mostly to track its progress through the European Parliament and
the Council while ensuring that no harmful wordings are included and the
best possible privacy standards for users is achieved.
===
===
Data Economy Consultation
---
In 2017 the European Commission intends to review the legal framework for
data in the EU. This will very likely include a revamp of the Database
Directive but might go even further. In its communication on the
data-driven economy the Commission is even talking of an ancillary
copyright for raw data, which would be disastrous for most data projects
[16]. There is a consultation on data economy [17] that the Free Knowledge
Advocacy Group EU will answer [18] in order to hammer across the points
that a new neighbouring right would be a terrible, terrible thing and that
the sui generis database right needs to be neutralised. You can join in
helping out with the answers. Additionally, we are expecting real-life
stakeholder dialogue around or after summer.
===
===
Big Fat Brussels Meeting 4
---
SAVE THE DATE: 22 & 23 April. More details to follow, but you should expect
us to take a deep dive into the Council and come out with a specific
engagement strategy for several Member States!
===
===
[1]
http://epceurope.eu/frequently-asked-questions-about-text-and-data-mining-f…
[2]
http://www.leru.org/index.php/public/news/the-right-to-read-is-the-right-to…
[3]
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/docs_autres_institutions/commission_e…
[4]http://libereurope.eu/text-data-mining/
[5]http://copyright4creativity.eu/about-us/
[6]
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?reference=2016/…
[7]https://edri.org/enditorial-two-copywrongs-make-definitely-not-copyright/
[8]https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/11/23/lawsuit-public-domain-art/
[9]https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Safeguarding_the_PD_AM.pdf
[10]
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-10-20-pok-mon-go-is-just-the-beg…
[11]https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FoP_AM.pdf
[12]https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Database_rights_AM.pdf
[13]https://openmedia.org/
[14]
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/proposal-eprivacy-regulation
[15]http://www.infobo.com/eu-cookie-monster-directive-law/
[16]
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/towards-thriving-data-driven-eco…
[17]
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/public-consultation-buil…
[18]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Data_Economy_Consultation
Hi folks,
As has been mentioned on this list before, the US Librarian of Congress is
soliciting input to help her select the next Register of Copyrights
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_of_Copyrights>[1]. The
deadline to submit
comments <https://www.research.net/r/RegisterOfCopyrights>[2] is January
31. I’m working on preparing comments for the Wikimedia Foundation, and I’m
interested to hear from you about the themes you think are important to
touch on.
The Register of Copyrights is in charge of the Copyright Office
<http://copyright.gov/>[3] in the US. In addition to maintaining (and
hopefully improving) the copyright registration system, the Copyright
Office plays an important role in advising Congress on copyright-related
matters. They gather information about copyright law and the functioning of
the copyright system and they analyze and interpret that information for
Congress. As such, they can have significant influence on the perspectives
and considerations that form the basis of proposed changes to US copyright
law.
I currently plan to emphasize that the Register should understand the full
scope of the copyright landscape and who the stakeholders are and will be.
Discussions of copyright law often involve simplified narratives of legacy
rightsholders like movie studios versus online platforms like YouTube. The
Register must see beyond those narratives. They need to recognize the
creativity and expression that online platforms for individuals and other
small creators. They also need to understand that copyright exists
ultimately to benefit the public—to encourage people to create and share
works in order for the rest of society to benefit from those works
(including by sharing, building on, and remixing them).
What other themes do you think are important to Wikimedia? What should the
Librarian of Congress be thinking about when looking for the next Register
of Copyrights? There are a lot of potential topics to discuss, so we won’t
be able to mention all of them, but your input will help us decide what to
focus on. If you’re interested, I encourage you to submit your own comments
as well.
- Charles
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_of_Copyrights
[2] https://www.research.net/r/RegisterOfCopyrights
[3] http://copyright.gov/
==
Charles M. Roslof
Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
croslof(a)wikimedia.org
(415) 839-6885
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