Dear Public Policy wikifolk,
As some of you may be aware, I've been working with Jessica Coates (cc'd) -
of the Australian Digital Alliance(ADA) - formerly from Creative Commons
international - on a Wikimedia advocacy campaign in Australia with regards
to the possibility that Fair Use legislation could be introduced into the
Australian Copyright Act. This has been recommended many times before by
various government enquiries, and the Library and Education sectors of
Australia have long hoped for its introduction. Our current system - known
as Fair Dealing - is extremely limiting and prescriptive, which is why it
was illegal, for example, to use a personal VCR recorder in Australia until
2006, just to take one example...
Having sought and received confirmation from WMF-Legal that the proposal is
technically and legally allowable, and also received confirmation from the
ADA that their staff/communications/documentation resources would be
available to do the 'heavy lifting' in terms of public communications, I
have been running this straw poll/consultation with the Australian,
english-Wikipedia community:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Australian_Wikipedians%27_notice_bo…
You can see there the details of the proposed advocacy campaign on-wiki,
and also the background details of why this legal issue is relevant right
now in the Australian political landscape.
In short - I'm proposing to run banners on en.wp to logged out users in the
Australian-IP range who are viewing WP articles which include a Fair Use
image (e.g. corporate logo, album cover, film title card...), which will
point them to a landing page [probably on meta] explaining what Fair Use in
Australia would mean in practice, and why it's not nearly as scary as the
Copyright Lobby would have them believe. It can then point people to
further resources on the ADA website, ask them to contact their local
politician on the matter etc. [I do NOT intend for wikimedians to be
collecting a petition]. In this regard it is rather similar to the FoP
advocacy campaign run in Europe.
here's some local political context:
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/productivity-commission-to-say-fair-use-could…
and here's a video that ADA produced a couple of years ago for their
previous lobbying campaign in this topic (which was pitched to an audience
of online-creative industry in general)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3ACreationistas_-_Aust…
And here's the actual government enquiry report which is currently sitting
in front of the politicans waiting for a formal reply:
http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/intellectual-property/report
As you can see at the Straw Poll/Consultation page the comments so far are
heavily (though not unanimously) in favour of running this advocacy
campaign on-wiki. It has been advertised through watchlist notifications in
the Australian IP range, emails to the Australian-chapter mailing list, as
well as talkpage notices to the 1700 people in the category:Australian
Wikipedians.
So, as people involved in wikimedia/open-access advocacy in general, you're
welcome to comment on that page yourselves (though - do please indicate if
you're actually going to be affected by this proposal, since it's only
going to be visible in Australia). Equally - I'd love your feedback and
help in designing the banner and landing page (on meta?) IF the
consultation is eventually closed as demonstrating confirmed
relevant-community consensus to support. Obviously there's a Communications
side of this as well.
Sincerely,
Liam / Wittylama
wittylama.com
Peace, love & metadata
Dear all
At this year’s Wikimania conference
<https://wikimania2017.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania> next month in
Montréal, we’re again hosting a public policy meetup for folks interested
in advocacy for laws that promote free knowledge and the Wikimedia
projects. The gathering will take place on Saturday, August 12, from 12.30
to 2.00pm in a room on the 7th floor of the event hotel. We will announce
the room number once it is available.
We’d like to invite you to join us for a conversation and exchange about
ongoing and upcoming policy challenges and campaigns. The goal for this
meetup is to learn about regulatory trends and developments directly from
other Wikimedians from different countries. We’re also inviting people from
other organizations who are participating in Wikimania and would love to
use the meetup to connect them with you.
Some topics that we can discuss include:
-
Copyright reform in the EU, South Africa, and Australia;
-
Access to knowledge and enforcement of national laws across borders;
-
Public domain status for publicly funded works.
The meetup will take place over lunch, so feel free to grab food and bring
it with you to the room.
If you’re interested in participating, please send us an email off-list. We
look forward to seeing you!
Best,
Dimi (Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU)
Jan (Wikimedia Foundation)
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
Dear all,
Several years ago we asked the EU IPO to not only commission studies on the
value of intellectual property but to also look into the value of the
public domain and freely licensed works.
After some delibareations they decided to focus on the film industry, as
the IMDB provided a rather complete set of data to work with.
This is the result:
https://euipo.europa.eu/ohimportal/en/web/observatory/news/-/action/view/36…
While not a great study or one that comes as a bombastic headline, we are
already discussing with the EU IPO what a second study on the public domain
might look like.
Cheers,
Dimi
Dear WMBE, dear Public Policy list,
According to a Belgian architect bureau I have been in touch with (and
the Atomium
itself <http://atomium.be/AuthorsRights.aspx>), FoP in Belgium is valid
only for non-commercial purposes, because of the Berne 3-Step-Test. See
attachment.
I find this explanation very unconvincing, because the so-called
3-Step-Test is valid in all EU Member States and thus would mean that FoP
for commercial purposes is questionable everywhere in the EU.Furthermore, I
would argue that the "normal exploitation of a work" in the case of
architecture isn't printing it on a T-shirt and selling it.
Anyhow, this is the thesis currently circulating in Belgium among some
groups. It would be good to have our own legal expertise on this (checking
with WMF legal).
Greetings,
Dimi
Dear all,
Some of you may have seen that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
in the U.S. has announced its intention
<https://www.fcc.gov/restoring-internet-freedom> to roll back the net
neutrality rules
<https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-releases-open-internet-order> that have
been in place since 2015. In response, a group of digital rights
organizations has mounted a campaign to save those rules. Today, we want to
call your attention to that campaign, which peaks in a day of action on
July 12 <https://www.battleforthenet.com/july12/> (today). Many of our
close allies in the movement for openness online, such as Creative Commons,
EFF, Mozilla, and the ACLU, support the campaign and are asking their
communities to speak out in favor of net neutrality.
We believe that net neutrality and the FCC’s current rules protect access
to knowledge <https://policy.wikimedia.org/policy-landing/access/> for
everyone and prevent the internet from becoming a tiered network where
internet service providers abuse their market power for profit gain, rather
than for the benefit of consumers. If these protections go away, we could
see a new form of digital divide, in which some people only have restricted
access to knowledge despite being online. This is in conflict with the
Wikimedia Foundation’s mission
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mission_statement> to empower people
to participate in finding, creating, and sharing knowledge freely and
without constraint. A roll-back of the FCC’s net neutrality rules would
also negatively affect the Wikimedia projects as some people would no
longer be able to find the information they seek online and collect it on
the sites that we host.
We invite you to also submit your views on net neutrality directly to the
FCC via their electronic comments filing system
<https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/filings?proceedings_name=17-108&sort=date_d…>
before July 17. To learn more about net neutrality, you may consult this
useful article
<https://www.wired.com/story/why-net-neutrality-matters-even-in-the-age-of-o…>
about the issue in Wired. If you are interested in filing your own
comments, we also encourage you to check out this article
<https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/06/saving-net-neutrality-tips-for-…>
in Ars Technica about making a meaningful submission to the FCC.
Sincerely,
Jan
==
Jan Gerlach
Public Policy Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
jgerlach(a)wikimedia.org
Dimi,
this raises a question: Is the Belgian architect bureau legitimate body for legal definitions of adopted laws? Do actually individuals and institutions trust them?
Jan
______________________________________________________________
> Od: Dimi Dimitrov <dimi(a)wikimedia.be>
> Komu: WMBE - Board <board(a)wikimedia.be>, publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Datum: 12.07.2017 10:26
> Předmět: [Publicpolicy] Fwd: Freedom of Panorama
>
Dear WMBE, dear Public Policy list,
According to a Belgian architect bureau I have been in touch with (and the Atomium itself <http://atomium.be/AuthorsRights.aspx>), FoP in Belgium is valid only for non-commercial purposes, because of the Berne 3-Step-Test. See attachment.
I find this explanation very unconvincing, because the so-called 3-Step-Test is valid in all EU Member States and thus would mean that FoP for commercial purposes is questionable everywhere in the EU.Furthermore, I would argue that the "normal exploitation of a work" in the case of architecture isn't printing it on a T-shirt and selling it. Anyhow, this is the thesis currently circulating in Belgium among some groups. It would be good to have our own legal expertise on this (checking with WMF legal).
Greetings,
Dimi
----------
_______________________________________________
Publicpolicy mailing list
Publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/publicpolicy <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/publicpolicy>
Hi all,
The Culture and Education committee (CULT) and the Industry and Research
committee (ITRE) voted today on their opinions on the EU copyright reform.
These are not binding, but will be taken into account by the lead committee
(Legal Affairs - JURI).
*Upload Filters*
Both CULT and ITRE didn't follow the sensible compromise adopted by the
Internal Market committee (IMCO) and kept wording that makes platforms
hosting user-generated content liable for users' copyright violations and
would force them to install upload filters.
The Civil Liberties committee (LIBE) is expected to stick with the wording
already voted by IMCO. Additionally, IMCO is responsible for this
particular article.
*Ancillary Copyright*
The ITRE committee voted to extend the so-called press publishers right to
academic journals (as opposed to just press publications). This means that
linking or sharing short extracts of articles would require a license.
*New Performers' Right*
An unwaivable performers right had been proposed in CULT that caused quite
a stir
<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/another-fine-mess-ustr-has-gotten-us-…>
internationally, as such an unwaivable right is incompatible with free
licenses. A compromise between the performers collecting societies and
their umbrella organisation AEPO-ARTIS and Wikimedia & CreativeCommons on
the other hand was forged by the Greens/EFA group and found a majority. The
compromise foresees such an unwaivable right, except in the cases where a
non-exclusive public license is granted.
*User-Generated Content Exception*
CULT also voted in favour of a non-mandatory user-generated content
exception. A possible first baby-step towards a EU-style fair use system.
*Without FoP and Safeguard PD*
None of these two issues were included in these committee opinions. In ITRE
because rapporteur and most shadows agreed that they were out of scope and
in CULT because the French EPP rapporteur was forced to withdraw his FoP
compromise after massive pressure from his own French delegation after IMCO
passed a full FoP.
*Next steps in the European Parliament*
The committee opinions adopted today do influence the process, but the
final say lies with the Legal Affairs committee (JURI) which is scheduled
to vote on 10 October. Finding majorities there is our top priority.
Greetings,
Dimi