[Publicpolicy] Re: Support Wikimedia South Africa & Copyright Reform!

Hi, Ziski et al.: Two thoughts on this: 1. LAWRENCE LESSIG:[a] Might anyone know anyone who might be able to get Lawrence Lessig at Harvard to lend his support to this? His book on "Free Culture"[b] is a seminal contribution to documenting problems with copyright law.[c] He is now quite busy with other issues and not likely to collaborate with a stranger on this, but he might help someone he knows. 2. ECONOMICS OF COPYRIGHT LAW: I've asked Dean Baker, a co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research,[d] about his level of interest in collaborating with me on something like this. He and I both have publications dealing with the economics of copyright law,[e] though not to my knowledge directly commenting on "fair use" nor "freedom of panorama". If someone else would like to help with this, we might get a better response with less effort. Comments? Thanks, Spencer Graves [a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig [b] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Culture_(book) [c] His Free Culture book was a valuable contribution to the "Free-culture movement". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-culture_movement [d] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Baker [e] My Wikiversity article on "Do copyrights and paywalls on academic journals violate the US Constitution?" was recently accepted without revision and is scheduled to "appear mid-March in the next issue of Real-World Economics Review." Their editor, Edward Fullbrook, wrote, "I think your paper is much-needed and extremely well done, and hopefully it will attract attention." https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Do_copyrights_and_paywalls_on_academic_jour… I know of three other works by Dean Baker that mention problems with copyright law: Dean Baker (2020) Fixing capitalism: stopping inequality at its source, Real-World Economics Review, issue 92 (http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue92/Baker92.pdf) Dean Baker (2016) Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer (Center for Economic and Policy Research; https://deanbaker.net/books/rigged.htm) Dean Baker (2005-07-05) The Reform of Intellectual Property, Post-Autistic Economics Review, issue 32 (http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue32/Baker32.htm) On 2/20/23 10:50 AM, fputz(a)wikimedia.org wrote: the coming weeks and advocate for copyright reform. 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. Africa [3], an allied organization. This will be particularly helpful if you do so on the days of the hearings (dates below). 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. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_South_Africa/Copyright_Amendment_…