Dear all,
I'm writing to ask for your help to support Wikimedia South Africa in the coming weeks and advocate for copyright reform.
*WHAT*
Douglas Scott, from Wikimedia South Africa, will be speaking at four provincial hearings starting tomorrow, Feb. 21, to advocate for the Copyright Amendment Bill in South Africa [1]. Efforts to reform copyright laws in South Africa can have a positive ripple-effect across the continent and the free knowledge movement at large. We can support him as part of that same movement.
*HOW*
1) Amplify tweets from Wikimedia South Africa [2] and ReCreate South Africa [3], an allied organization. This will be particularly helpful if you do so on the days of the hearings (dates below).
2) Write to the media in South Africa. You can submit an opinion article to South African newspapers and new agencies like Business Day, Daily Maverick, IOL, and GroundUp, where you explain why it is important to have freedom of panorama in the law [4]. If you come from a country that has fair use [5] like the US, Singapore, or Israel, you can focus on how helpful that legal doctrine has been in helping your country promote innovation and free knowledge. Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL), a nonprofit that works with libraries to enable access to knowledge in developing countries, provides an example of how to help through media support [5]. EIFL explains how they delivered comments on South Africa's CAB and the significance of the process.
*WHEN*
- 21 February 2023: (17:00-19:00) Stellenbosch Town Hall, Stellenbosch
- 1 March 2023: (17:00-19:00) Darling Town Hall, Darling
- 6 March 2023: (17:00-19:00) Overstrand Municipal Hall, Hermarnus
- 7 March 2023: (17:00-19:00) Provincial Legislature building, Cape Town
In solidarity,
Ziski & the WMF Global Advocacy Team
________
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_South_Africa/Copyright_Amendment_…
[2] https://twitter.com/Wikimedia_ZA
[3] https://twitter.com/SaRecreate
[4] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Panorama_ZA
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
[6] https://www.eifl.net/news/eifl-delivers-comments-sas-copyright-bill
Hi everyone,
Today, the United States’ Supreme Court denied our petition to review the
U.S. National Security Agency’s mass surveillance of internet
communications and activities, marking the end of our case Wikimedia
Foundation v. NSA
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_v._NSA>. While this
decision is a blow to privacy and freedom of expression online, we don’t
plan to let it hinder our advocacy efforts. We invite you to read our Diff
post
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/02/21/u-s-supreme-court-declines-to-hear-wi…>
about this decision and our plans to continue to push to protect free
knowledge on Wikimedia projects and beyond.
If you wish to share the news, you can use this social media toolkit
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fuKz3Q9BKTrQygp4ef-sDYCkmYmNBuq93qdqMIL…>
.
Best,
Jim
--
James Buatti (he/him)
Legal Director
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
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. For legal reasons, I may only
serve as an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation. This means I may not
give legal advice to or serve as a lawyer for community members,
volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity.
The Journal of Copyright In Education and Librarianship
https://www.jcel-pub.org/announcement/view/119
<https://www.jcel-pub.org/announcement/view/119>
an OA publication from the US library/copyright community, just put out a
call for articles for a special issue related to " Copyright in Systems of
Open Knowledge". Perhaps of interest to people here! Here's the
announcement:
"Copyright and systems of open knowledge are deeply intertwined. From
foundational issues in ownership and authors’ rights to nuanced questions
about respecting traditional knowledge or compliance with the forthcoming
OSTP Memo, open practices are grounded in copyright law. As librarians,
researchers, and educators work to build more open, inclusive, and
sustainable systems of scholarly communication they need to understand the
law as it is and articulate a vision for what the law should be. This
special issue will introduce the state of the art in this emerging area and
chart a course for closer alignment of copyright and open practices in
education and librarianship."
cheers,
Phoebe
--
* I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers <at>
gmail.com *
Hello, everyone! The new year in Brussels is off to a rolling start, with
about a dozen digital files continuing their legislative path. We are
expecting the Commission to release a couple of new proposals in the first
half of the year - most notably the so-called “Right to Repair” and
“Gigabit Plan” initiatives. After that the focus will shift towards
finalising whatever possible and preparing for the European Parliament
elections next year.
=== Digital Services Act ===
The EU’s new content moderation rules, the Digital Services Act (DSA),
officially entered into force on 17 November 2022 and regulators and
providers are now grappling with implementing them in the foreseen terms.
[1] The DSA comes with a notices-and-action system that frames how users
can send notices about illegal content service providers. Providers of
online platforms are furthermore required to have an internal complaint
handling system (i.e. for a user to be able to object to a decision). The
next steps on the ladder are an optional out-of-court dispute settlement
mechanism (available in all Member States and languages). At the very end,
disagreements about content moderation can end up in front of a court and
judge. All these dispute handling will function between the platform and
users, not in-between users or groups of users themselves.
---
Additionally, Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs), will need to be more
transparent in the way they work, as well as publish annual risk
assessments, mitigation plans and third-party audits of their content
moderation practices. Every platform with over 45 million monthly users in
the EU will be designated by the Commission as a VLOP. Service providers
have until 17 February this year to communicate their user numbers and the
Commission is expected to publish the initial list in March or April.
---
The European Commission will also charge VLOPs a fee for regulating them.
The fee structure needs to be decided upon in the coming weeks. The
Wikimedia Foundation provided public feedback making the argument that VLOP
services that are run non-commercially, dedicated to enriching the public
good, and owned and operated by a provider that is a recognised as a
charitable organisation should be exempted from said fees. [2]
=== Age-Gating ===
The question of how to handle sensitive or adult content on the internet
isn’t new. We see it regularly pop up in regulatory conversations and
proposals across the globe. Our communities have several times and at
length discussed how to handle explicit content. From a service provider
perspective, we wouldn’t like the Wikimedia Foundation to collect more
information about its users, making potential “age-gating” provisions
difficult to accept.
—
We believe this is an important conversation that we can’t run away from.
This is why Wikimedia Europe has applied to become a member of the
Commission special group on the EU Code of conduct on age-appropriate
design. [3] Members will be tasked to come up with recommendations and best
practices on how to handle such questions.
=== Child Sexual Abuse Material Regulation===
Quick reminder: The Child Sexual Abuse Material Regulation (CSAM) will
oblige platforms to detect and remove known or suspected child abuse
materials, normally following a court order or an order by an independant
authority. While most parts of the proposal seem acceptable, the most
controversial bit is that orders will be able to force messaging services
to scan all direct messages of all their users for suspected abuse
material. This would in practice mean that end-to-end encryption for
messaging services becomes impossible. While Wikimedia doesn’t run a
messaging service, our projects will be covered by the other provisions of
this regulation, which is why the WMF has submitted public feedback. Apart
from criticising the interpersonal communication scanning obligations, the
position also emphasises the issues with hashing & scanning as well as the
effects such practices might have on marginalised communities. [4]
---
In the European Parliament the lead committee is Civil Liberties, Justice
and Home Affairs (LIBE) with MEP Javier Zarzalejos (ES, EPP) holding the
pen. His draft report is scheduled for 14 April, the deadline for amendment
in committee is 19 May.
---
In the meantime, Member States are beginning to position themselves on the
file. France leads a group of countries that really dislike the suggestion
to create a central EU agency. Berlin and Vienna go hard against the
proposed detection orders, especially the blanket scanning of interpersonal
messages, over fears for privacy. Austria refers to the measure as a
“massive encroachment on fundamental rights.” The Netherlands and Lithuania
are joining this group by sharing fears that end-to-end encryption would be
threatened. Beyond that, however, few other countries even mention privacy.
=== Net Neutrality ===
The European Commission and, most notably, French Commissioner Thierry
Breton are pushing the idea that large online platforms should pay a fee to
internet providers for using their networks. Wikimedia engaged in those
discussions a couple of times in the past months [5][6] (Shout-out to
Naphsica from WMFR for all the work). We criticise the debate which is
focused solely on “big tech” and “big telcos” and emphasise that we need to
keep an infrastructure that treats everyone equally.
---
In the meantime a draft “Gigabit Infrastructure Act” has leaked [7] and
includes obligations for new buildings to have fibre wiring installed as
well as provisions easing the permit-granting procedures for telco
infrastructure. It markedly doesn’t have a provision mandating online
platforms to pay telecoms. According to our knowledge there will be public
consultation on these aspects published in February.
=== Political Advertising Regulation ===
The EU is in the process of creating specific legislation for online
political advertising. [8] The idea is to set strong transparency rules,
oblige platforms to clearly mark such ads and limit the use of personal
data.
---
Last week a second European Parliament committee, Internal Market and
Consumer Protection (IMCO), adopted its amendments. They were largely in
line with what the lead committee, Civil Liberties and Home Affairs (LIBE),
had already passed. The EP wants to go further on restricting the use of
personal data to target online political advertisements. The use of
personal data to target online political advertisements would be limited to
data explicitly provided for this purpose by citizens with their consent,
excluding the use of behavioural and
inferred intelligence. In practice this would mean that in the 60 days
prior to an election or referendum, different political messages may be
spread only on the basis of a voter’s language and the constituency they
live in.
---
Another big sticking point is the definition of political advertisement.
Shall lawmakers strictly include only ads paid to them as such, or also try
to cover more convoluted publicity schemes? Currently the definition is
rather broad and large platforms worry that they would have to mark every
political commentary as political advertising. However, if the definition
is too narrow, too much of what is actually paid for might slip through the
cracks (imagine a paid interview for instance). Either way, the regulation
only targets providers of advertising services, so Wikimedia projects are
out of scope.
---
The parliament at-large is expected to adopt its negotiating position in
February and then hit off the trilogues. The Council position is much more
timid when restriction the use of personal data.
=== Orphan Works Directive ===
The European Commission has published a report on the application of the
Orphan Works Directive. [9] Spoiler: It's not doing great.
---
Instead of me summarising, here are a few quotes:
“It is clear that the Directive has only partially fulfilled the goal of
facilitating the mass digitisation of orphan works by certain institutions.
The Directive’s mechanism has been rarely used in practice and its
relevance as a potential tool for the mass digitisation of cultural
heritage has therefore proven to be limited.”
---
The Commission is now hoping that the out-of-commerce works mechanism,
provided for it the Copyright in the Digital Single Market directive, will
help remedy the situation.
=== Copyright Transpositions ===
Yeah, speaking of the copyright directive, don’t forget that a number of
member states are still in the process of transposing it (looking at you,
Bulgaria, Finland, Poland and Portugal!). In the past few weeks two more
countries have accomplished the task - Sweden and Czechia. Sweden has made
the “public domain safeguard” apply to all types of works, not just visual
art (Kudos to Eric from WMSE!), while the Czech Republic has transposed the
exception for parody, pastiche and caricature as a universal one, instead
of one that just applies to UGC online platforms. For a comparative
analysis of all transpositions, please see Communia’s “Copyright
Eurovision” portal:
eurovision.communia-association.org
=== Italian Troubles ===
The Italian Ministry of Culture published its policy plan for 2023 [10],
which expresses the intent to monetise every use of cultural heritage
(material and immaterial). Italy already does so by applying an
“administrative fee” to uses of cultural heritage material, thereby
circumventing the “public domain safeguard” in the copyright directive
(which covers copyright and related rights).
---
At the moment Wikimedia Italia has a system in place which includes asking
institutions for permission to release images without a fee, including for
commercial purposes. The Ministry of Culture, however, explicitly writes
that there must be very limited cases in which fees are not requested,
which is a cause for worry. Wikimedia Italia has a meeting with them in a
few weeks and would be very appreciative of any studies, arguments,
showcases that demonstrate the limits of such an approach. Please get in
touch if you have anything!
===
[1]
https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/europ…
[2]
https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/1…
[3]
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/group-age-appropriate-des…
[4]
https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/1…
[5]https://wikimedia.brussels/net-neutrality-the-fair-share-debate/
[6]
https://www.wikimedia.fr/neutralite-du-net-et-partage-equitable-des-couts-l…
[7]
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1piqBypWCrlEzOypYazC0_9s9KhOdSwWp/view?usp=…
[8]
https://oeil.secure.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?refere…
[9]
https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/3c880c5c-7065-11ed…
[10]https://www.beniculturali.it/comunicato/dm-08-13012023-
--
Wikimedia Europe ivzw
Dear all,
A very happy New Years. I hope this email finds you settling back in (or ideally, still on vacation).
I'm back in your inbox with an opportunity to join what should be a great event at the end of this month!
You are warmly invited to register for the free and hybrid conference, "A Right to Research in Africa?" which is hosted by ReCreate from January 23 - 27. Information about the conference is here [1] and you can still register to attend virtually [2]. The conference will cover a week of debates on copyright and access to knowledge, with discussions that range from digitising heritage to accessing African Data on health and the environment. Wikimedians will be hosting some of the sessions, including Douglas Scott from Wikimedia South Africa and Wikimedia Deutschland will also share some of their work around "public money - public good" [3].
Tune in for one or more sessions & please feel free to share with others who you think might be interested.
All the best,
Ziski
______
[1] https://www.re-createza.org/
[2] https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc9O1HKKOt9M9PFklJaXRo9eGyIbIBAcRR…
[3] https://www.wikimedia.de/2019/en/themen/public-money-public-good/
Dear digital rights and open knowledge aficionados,
This is the final email of 2022 that you'll receive via this mailing list from the WMF Global Advocacy team!
We have two special final reads for you: our "Don't Blink" monthly retrospective for November and a reflection on our human rights-related work over the past year. We'll add a few special extra reads at the bottom of this email too, in case you want to indulge over the holiday season.
- - - -
To mark Human Rights Day this year, we have shared what we’ve been doing over the past year to protect hundreds of thousands of Wikimedians and billions of readers from these threats. Personal stories from Wikimedians in Belarus and Ukraine bring the importance of this work to life. Take a look at our blog post [1].
Our November "Don't Blink" is now available [2]. The blog post covers the actions we’ve taken this past month to advance fundamental rights online. Highlights include:
* Five conferences that our team attended, spanning five countries and three community-organized events.
* Participation in UNESCO consultation on the draft of a model regulatory framework for platforms.
* The Foundation filed comments in response to the Privacy Civil Liberties Oversight Board's reexamination of a crucial law on which the US Government bases parts of its surveillance activities.
- - - -
Some of our team's top-selections of writing and action over the past year:
* Meet the Wikimedia Foundation Global Advocacy Team [3]
* WMF Earns Accreditation to the United Nations Economic and Social Affairs Council [4]
* How Wikimedia and partner orgz helped ensure US companies support access to free knowledge for the Russian people [5]
We hope you enjoy the reads!
Ziski & The Global Advocacy Team
______
[1] https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/12/20/celebrating-human-rights-day-2022-wit…
[2] https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/12/16/dont-blink-public-policy-snapshot-for…
[3] https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/10/26/meet-the-wikimedia-foundation-global-…
[4] https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2022/07/22/wikimedia-foundation-earns-…
[5] https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/04/21/how-wikimedia-and-partner-organizatio…
+1 for the congratulations. This is really great to see Article 14 implemented in the best possible way. This will get SE a bonus point in our implementation tracker at eurovision.communia-association.org /Paul
—
Director of Policy, Open Future | openfuture.eu | +31641374687 (Signal)
> On 1 Dec 2022, at 10:55, publicpolicy-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
>
> Send Publicpolicy mailing list submissions to
> publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/publicpolicy.lists.wikimedia.or…
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> publicpolicy-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Publicpolicy digest..."
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Copyright Directive implemented in Swedish law (Eric Luth)
> 2. Re: Copyright Directive implemented in Swedish law
> (Franziska Putz)
> 3. Re: Copyright Directive implemented in Swedish law (Lilli Iliev)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2022 09:14:02 +0100
> From: Eric Luth <eric.luth(a)wikimedia.se>
> Subject: [Publicpolicy] Copyright Directive implemented in Swedish law
> To: Publicpolicy Group for Wikimedia
> <publicpolicy(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CAH3ZCceJWQ2onsxR8eGN_H7WogZHdTv5ourTYYdYNxL6Zt=Skg(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
> boundary="00000000000079adda05eebfceed"
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> The Swedish parliament just voted (a few hours ago) on the final
> implementation of the EU Copyright Directive in Swedish law. The vote
> passed, which of course embeds all the issues with the EU Copyright
> Directive in Swedish law, but also brings the good parts.
>
> I'd especially like to mention one thing that I'm very happy that we
> succeeded with in our advocacy: to broaden the so called Article 14, often
> phrased as the the 'safeguarding of the public domain', in the Swedish
> implementation.
>
> The EU Copyright Directive states that no new copyright or related right
> can be applied on digitizations / digital reproductions of 'works of visual
> art' – a practice which has been fairly common in Sweden. Based on our
> feedback and advocacy towards Swedish government and parliament, it was
> however broadened to 'works of art', which certainly includes everything in
> the grey zone between what could be defined as work of art and work of
> visual art respectively (such as applied arts, handicraft, probably also
> manuscripts etc.).
>
> In Sweden, the creation of the kinds of art works just mentioned have
> historically been dominated by women – which also means that we have a much
> stronger legal framework for making women's art visible online in Sweden.
>
> This will mean a whole new opportunity for working with the digitization of
> the Swedish cultural heritage.
>
> Happy to reply to any questions on this (or anything else about the Swedish
> implementation, of course).
>
> Best,
> *Eric Luth*
> Projektledare engagemang och påverkan | Project Manager, Involvement and
> Advocacy
> Wikimedia Sverige
> eric.luth(a)wikimedia.se
> +46 (0) 765 55 50 95
>
> Stöd fri kunskap, bli medlem i Wikimedia Sverige.
> Läs mer på blimedlem.wikimedia.se
>
Hi everyone,
The Swedish parliament just voted (a few hours ago) on the final
implementation of the EU Copyright Directive in Swedish law. The vote
passed, which of course embeds all the issues with the EU Copyright
Directive in Swedish law, but also brings the good parts.
I'd especially like to mention one thing that I'm very happy that we
succeeded with in our advocacy: to broaden the so called Article 14, often
phrased as the the 'safeguarding of the public domain', in the Swedish
implementation.
The EU Copyright Directive states that no new copyright or related right
can be applied on digitizations / digital reproductions of 'works of visual
art' – a practice which has been fairly common in Sweden. Based on our
feedback and advocacy towards Swedish government and parliament, it was
however broadened to 'works of art', which certainly includes everything in
the grey zone between what could be defined as work of art and work of
visual art respectively (such as applied arts, handicraft, probably also
manuscripts etc.).
In Sweden, the creation of the kinds of art works just mentioned have
historically been dominated by women – which also means that we have a much
stronger legal framework for making women's art visible online in Sweden.
This will mean a whole new opportunity for working with the digitization of
the Swedish cultural heritage.
Happy to reply to any questions on this (or anything else about the Swedish
implementation, of course).
Best,
*Eric Luth*
Projektledare engagemang och påverkan | Project Manager, Involvement and
Advocacy
Wikimedia Sverige
eric.luth(a)wikimedia.se
+46 (0) 765 55 50 95
Stöd fri kunskap, bli medlem i Wikimedia Sverige.
Läs mer på blimedlem.wikimedia.se
Dear Friends,
[image: image001.jpg]
*To attend the event please r.s.v.p. to marcel.kolaja(a)europarl.europa.eu
<marcel.kolaja(a)europarl.europa.eu> with the following information: family
name, first name, date of birth, nationality,type of ID card, N° ID card*
A Citizens' Struggle: combatting disinformation by self-organised online
communities.
Perspectives from Ukraine and Czech Republic
December 1st at 12:00
at the European Parliament -- room ASP 5E1
Wikipedia is the only top 10 website in the world where content is entirely
maintained by a community. It is also an important source of facts and
knowledge about any major global development. Communities of editors and
contributors put care and effort in ensuring that the information presented
is true, factual and well documented also under rapidly evolving
circumstances. What are the key mechanisms for transparency and good
collective enforcement of rules? How does community governance manage risks
of disinformation?
Anton Protsiuk and Mykola Kozlenko from Wikimedia Ukraine and Klára Joklová
from Wikimedia Czech Republic will present cases and stories illustrating
these efforts around articles, imagery and conversations between
editors.Rebecca MacKinnon, the Wikimedia Foundation’s VP for Global
Advocacy, will give a broader overview of how the foundation supports
volunteers in fighting disinformation as well as insights on how
policymakers can best support the Wikimedia movement and other free
knowledge communities in countering disinformation.
--
Anna Mazgal
Senior EU Policy Advisor
Wikimedia
http://wikimedia.brussels
@a2na
mobile: +32 487 222 945
12 Rue Belliard
BE-1040 Brussels
--
Wikimedia Belgium vzw
BE 0563.775.480
- RPR Brussel
Antwerpselaan 40
Boulevard d’Anvers 1000 Brussel/Bruxelles
www.wikimedia.be
<https://www.wikimedia.be/>
info(a)wikimedia.be <mailto:info@wikimedia.be>