On 13 October 2010 21:02, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:

Ziko van Dijk, 13/10/2010 21:35:

...

While reading the FAQ of Creative Commons about the new Public Domain Mark, I wondered what are the consequences for our projects. Will I use PDM in future anyhow on Commons, for example?

We should use CC0 instead of PD-Self.

We should not be encouraging attempts to rebrand the public domain.

I for one am very keen to see us use this system, if for no other reason than it leverages the existing visibility of the Creative Commons machine-readable licensing structure. The CC-Public Domain Mark is not actually doing anything new/different to the concept of the public domain and doesn't pretend to force PD from one jurisdiction to another. In fact, AFAICT, it is the first time Creative Commons have a "product" that isn't a copyright license. Public Domain, by definition, is an absence of copyright which is why they're calling it the PD Mark and not a license. As such, this is not an attempt to rebrand the public domain but an attempt to make overt expressions of it consistent, recognisable and machine-readable.

From what I hear (I'm here at the Europeana conference now where they are

officially launching the PDM tomorrow - as per the press release http://creativecommons.org/press-releases/entry/23755 ) CC were debating whether to use a logo that was "C-with-a-line-through-it" or the letters "PD". The concern about the former was that it could potentially look like an "anti-copyright" logo which is not the message that CC wants to send out. But, they ended up choosing it largely because Wikimedia has already made the image recognisable through templates like "PD-old" http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-old-75 So, we were involved in the creation of this Mark even though we didn't know it :-)

Not being a techie I'm not sure what would be required, if anything at all, but how difficult would it be for us to implement the machine-readable information provided by the PDM into commons so that our PD content is made findable by this schema?

-Liam

wittylama.com/blog Peace, love & metadata

On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 2:43 PM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:

I for one am very keen to see us use this system, if for no other reason than it leverages the existing visibility of the Creative Commons machine-readable licensing structure. The CC-Public Domain Mark is not actually doing anything new/different to the concept of the public domain and doesn't pretend to force PD from one jurisdiction to another. In fact, AFAICT, it is the first time Creative Commons have a "product" that isn't a copyright license.

One could argue about CC's old "Public Domain Dedication & Certification" and current CC0, but the Public Domain Mark is indeed the first CC "product" that is 100% separated from the use case for a copyright license.

Public Domain, by definition, is an absence of copyright which is why they're calling it the PD Mark and not a license. As such, this is not an attempt to rebrand the public domain but an attempt to make overt expressions of it consistent, recognisable and machine-readable.

Right, it's just a label. We (I work for CC) attempted to avoid rebranding the public domain by removing any "CC" from the buttons we suggest using with the mark -- http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png and http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/80x15.png -- and moving the prominent CC branding one finds atop a CC license deed -- eg http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ -- to a "powered by cc" in the footer of http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

Incidentally, the name CC0 came about in part because we were sensitive to the inappropriateness of branding the public domain -- CC0 is a specific tool for putting works into the public domain -- as in no restrictions -- as possible, but not the narrowly defined public domain of works that are not or cannot fall under copyright restrictions. We've gotten various feedback in both directions since -- that it was the right decision, or that we shouldn't have made up yet another name -- so we've shifted a bit, and though the tool is called CC0 still, we've also removed "CC" and added "public domain" to buttons suggested for CC0k -- http://i.creativecommons.org/p/zero/1.0/88x31.png and http://i.creativecommons.org/p/zero/1.0/80x15.png -- (subtle difference is PDM button features a slash-C, CC0 a 0 -- most users will only care they have lots of freedom associated with the public domain, but there's a signal for anyone who knows enough to care) and given the CC0 deed the same treatment as the PDM deed -- http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

Fortunately there is no problem with interoperability among well crafted public domain tools (at least not legally, which is by far highest obstacle) so for anyone who thinks we haven't gotten the branding, naming, or lack thereof, quite right, it isn't a big loss to continue using another public domain label or dedication, as the case warrants.

I'm planning a CC blog post which reviews some of these decisions and tradeoffs, but for now easier to respond here. Feedback welcome.

From what I hear (I'm here at the Europeana conference now where they are officially launching the PDM tomorrow - as per the press release http://creativecommons.org/press-releases/entry/23755 ) CC were debating whether to use a logo that was "C-with-a-line-through-it" or the letters "PD". The concern about the former was that it could potentially look like an "anti-copyright" logo which is not the message that CC wants to send out. But, they ended up choosing it largely because Wikimedia has already made the image recognisable through templates like "PD-old" http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-old-75 So, we were involved in the creation of this Mark even though we didn't know it :-)

That was the main thing, though we also encountered a criticism that also cropped up in the development of public domain iconography at Wikimedia -- see comments on http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PD-icon.png#filehistory :-/

Not being a techie I'm not sure what would be required, if anything at all, but how difficult would it be for us to implement the machine-readable information provided by the PDM into commons so that our PD content is made findable by this schema?

Probably 80/20 is including PDM link. Beyond that may require code (PHP, not wikitext). But you should discuss with CC's CTO Nathan Yergler, who is at your event.