Dear all,

I'm forwarding a request from Natalia Mileszyk re participating in Public Domain Day. We hope you can spread the word in your local communities and join the celebrations around the world!

Cheers, Shani. ----------------------------------------

*JOIN COMMUNIA FOR THE PUBLIC DOMAIN WEEK *

On New Year’s Day, as every year, there is the Public Domain Day celebrated – works of many great artists and scientists will come into the public domain and will be available for access, use and re-distribute. You can check the list of them at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_in_public_domain. But 2019 is also a unique year (see below).

Therefore, we want to invite all organizations working for openness and commons to celebrate with us Public Domain Week (January, 21-25). Some of our partners will organize events this week (including Creative Commons in the US, Centrum Cyfrowe in Poland), but we would love also to see other things happening - your imagination is the limit. Maybe you want to organise something? An event, a hackathon, a concert, a contest? Maybe you want to help with internet outreach on the public domain? Publish something on your blogs (Why public domain is important to you? How your readers can contribute from the public domain?), give some love to the topic on social media?

*We are not planning to coordinate this action too much (there won’t be any new website etc., but cross-referencing is more than welcome!) nevertheless please let us know (nmileszyk@centrumcyfrowe.pl nmileszyk@centrumcyfrowe.pl) by January 16th if you’ll participate so we can put you in touch with other contributors to the Public Domain Week.*

*Materials for the Public Domain Week:* - graphics - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1mCHyDQ6MCgmmkW93690hoLwQBpHwox_A?usp... - #publicdomain - relaunching of the webpage with Public Domain Manifesto by January 21st (we’re well aware that it looks really outdated) + all of the 24 translations of the manifesto (that are available at http://publicdomainmanifesto.org/translations.html) will also be published - check if your language is available!

*Why 2019 is so special? * - We’ll celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Public Domain Manifesto ( http://www.publicdomainmanifesto.org/manifesto.html) endorsed by many international organizations; - In the US, ever since the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act, no published works have entered the public domain (well, none due to copyright expiration). But for the first time in 20 years this January, tens of thousands of books, films, visual art, sheet music, and plays published in 1923 will be free of intellectual property restrictions ( https://creativecommons.org/2018/12/05/join-us-for-a-grand-re-opening-of-the... ) - There is a chance that the public domain will be granted legal protection in the new copyright directive, which is debated right now in the EU ( https://www.communia-association.org/2018/12/21/copyright-reform-still-stall... ).

Best, Natalia

Natalia Mileszyk Centrum Cyfrowe | centrumcyfrowe.pl/ public policy expert @nmileszyk (+48) 668440136

ALSO: Creative Commons Polska | creativecommons.pl Communia Association | communia-association. http://communia-association.org/