On May 15,
2016, at 9:47 PM, Mike Linksvayer <ml(a)gondwanaland.com> wrote:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/ab-2880 "California's Legislature
Wants to Copyright All Government Works"
More background at
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160417/09213934197/california-assembly-…
According to
http://copyright.lib.harvard.edu/states/ California is one
of the three most "open" regarding government works. Presumably it won't
be anymore if AB 2880 becomes law.
California is one of only two U.S. states with a category under
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Public_domain_by_government
--
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:PD_California (1048 items).
I haven't investigated whether and how many of those items would be
subject to copyright had AB 2880 been California law at the times of
their publication.
Skimming the bill's changes to present law at
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=20…
it seems the one or two maybe dangerous additions are these:
A public entity may own, license, and, if it
deems it appropriate,
formally register intellectual property it creates or otherwise
acquires.
The assembly's analysis views this as a clarification, but it could open
the door to widespread use (or copyright apologists would say, abuse) of
copyright by local government, as the EFF says, "to chill speech, stifle
open government, and harm the public domain."
(A) A state agency shall not enter into a
contract under this
article that waives the state’s intellectual property rights unless
the state agency, prior to execution of the contract, obtains the
consent of the department to the waiver.
(B) An attempted waiver of the state’s intellectual property rights
by a state agency that violates subparagraph (A) shall be deemed
void as against public policy.
It is not clear to me whether this addition might serve as a barrier to
agencies deciding to publish material under open licenses. In the
meantime, I assume it will foster such barriers in practice.
https://twitter.com/mitchstoltz/status/731282363674562560 says "[EFF]'ll
probably issue an action alert, but meantime, call your state assembly
member's office & ask them to oppose."
If this is indeed a threat, I wonder if there's anything Wikimedians can
do to oppose it, in addition to those of us in California calling our
state assembly members?
Mike
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