Wait, wait. The bill has changed significantly
in the last few
days. The new language states that any potentially copyrightable work
“shall be released into the public domain” with certain exceptions, and
even under the exceptions they “shall issue the requesting party a license
to use the record,” though it may be a non-commercial license. Are these
exceptions fine or are they too broad? If they are reasonable, the bill
would actually affirmatively put government works in the public domain,
instead of having to rely on a court decision, which would actually be
something we should support.
FWIW I actually did write a draft for a letter for Wikimedia District
of Columbia to approve and send out (attached), but the changes to the bill
may make it unnecessary, or would require some rewriting if we think the
exceptions should be tightened.
Thanks.
John
*From:* Publicpolicy [mailto:publicpolicy-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] *On
Behalf Of *Stephen LaPorte
*Sent:* Saturday, June 04, 2016 12:51 PM
*To:* Publicpolicy Group for Wikimedia
*Subject:* Re: [Publicpolicy] US/California AB 2880 vs PD-California?
Thanks, Tim! I'll reach out to Ernesto about the letter.
On Sat, Jun 4, 2016 at 9:45 AM, Timothy Vollmer <
tvol(a)creativecommons.org> wrote:
EFF's organizing a letter to the California Senate in opposition to
this. I'm not sure what the mechanism is for WMF to act on this, but if it
is interested in reading it/signing, it should send a note to Ernesto
Falcon at EFF (ernesto(a)eff.org). Several orgs are signing on,
including:
Association of Research Libraries
Creative Commons
Association of College and Research Libraries
Sunlight Foundation
American Library Association
Niskanen Center
Californians Aware
Creative Commons USA
Northern California Association of Law Libraries
Data Coalition
Open Media and Information Companies Initiative
Student Press Law Center
Public Knowledge
Fight for the Future
timothy
On Fri, Jun 3, 2016 at 11:03 PM, John P. Sadowski <
johnpsadowski(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
This bill passed the California Assembly (one of the two houses of
the California State Legislature) yesterday, but it was amended to include
the following language [1]:
*13988.3 (b) (1) When a state entity creates a work that is otherwise
subject to copyright protection, the work shall be released into the public
domain unless the state entity reasonably determines any of the following:*
*(A) The work has commercial value, and the release would jeopardize
the integrity of the work.*
*(B) The release would infringe upon the property interests of a third
party.*
*(C) The release would detrimentally affect the state’s interests in
its trademarks, service marks, patents, or trade secrets.*
*(2) If a state entity reasonably determines that a work meets the
criteria described in paragraph (1), the entity shall catalog those works
and submit the information to the department for the purpose of tracking
intellectual property generated by state employees or with state funding as
provided in Section 13998.2.*
…
*(e) Nothing in this section requires a state entity to own, license,
or formally register intellectual property that it creates or otherwise
acquires.*
*(f) This section shall not apply to the use of expressive works
created by nonstate employees or without state funding.*
*…*
*(c) A public agency that releases a public record that is subject to
copyright protection pursuant to paragraph (1) of subdivision (b) of
Section 13988.3 shall issue the requesting party a license to use the
record in a manner that is consistent with the rights provided under this
chapter and that is considered an act of fair use under the federal
Copyright Act. The license may restrict the holder from using the record
for a commercial use only if such use would result in economic harm to the
public agency or to the public’s interest.*
Are we happy with this? I suppose that letter I was writing may be
moot now…
John
[1]
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=20…