This is a guest post by Lisette Kalshoven.

On Monday, January 25th COMMUNIA organized a Public Domain Day celebration at the European Parliament. COMMUNIA advocates for policies that expand the public domain and increase access to and reuse of culture and knowledge, and consists of many organisations including Creative Commons, Kennisland and Centrum Cyfrowe. The event, which focused on showcasing creators who have chosen to donate their output to the public domain, was hosted by MEP Julia Reda.

Julia Reda at the Public Domain Day Celebration by Sebastiaan ter Burg; CC0

Highlighting creators sharing in the public domain

COMMUNIA invited creators such as Kenney Vleugels, who makes game assets available to other game developers under the the CC0 Public Domain Dedication, Alastair Parvin of WikiHouse.cc, who is developing an open source approach to sustainable housing, Femke Snelting of Constant, who is publishing public domain magazines, Eric Schrijver, who is writing a sharing guide for artists, and Thomas Lommee from Open Structures, a standardised open design system. The lunch discussions focused on the artistic and design practices of these creators and the challenges they run into. A recurring theme was the legal uncertainty created by overly complex copyright laws, and the excessive length of copyright protection.

The public domain is traditionally seen as a body of works that are no longer under copyright because the terms of protection have expired. Public Domain Day celebrates this very moment, when the period of copyright protection ends for works of certain authors. But the public domain is not simply a dusty collection of old works. During the event COMMUNIA highlighted the fact that the public domain is a modern phenomenon—it is alive. We celebrate the practice of authors contributing to the public domain long before their copyright expires. From this perspective, the ongoing policy debate on European copyright will structure the shape and scope of our collective public domain for years to come.

Public Domain Day Celebration at the European Parliament by Sebastiaan ter Burg; CC0

Copyright debate in Europe should support the public domain

The European Commission is in the process of proposing changes to the copyright rules in the EU. It laid out some of its ideas through a Communication in December 2015, and will present concrete legislative proposals in June 2016. In 2016 and beyond COMMUNIA will advocate for specific points, including the three below. You can read more here.

1. Ensure that the mere digitisation of public domain works does not create new rights over them. Some member states would like to allow anyone who digitized a public domain work to claim new exclusive rights. This creates legal uncertainty and undermines the concept of the public domain.
2. Introduce a mandatory and strong exception to copyright for educational use. We need to ensure that education is not burdened by copyright-related barriers. To ensure this, we need a broad, harmonised exception. It should cover all types of uses, including digital and online activities, both inside and outside of the classroom.
3. Allow cultural heritage institutions to make out-of-commerce works available online. Vibrant and diverse cultural heritage institutions are one of the defining features of our European culture. In order to remain relevant, they need to show their collections online. A new exception should allow these institutions to make available online the out-of-commerce works in their collections.

COMMUNIA is following the events in Brussels closely, and is sharing the advantages of a strong public domain and a flexible copyright to policy makers. You can see photos from the Public Domain event here (all CC0, created by Sebastiaan ter Burg). If you want to stay informed on the changes in European copyright, you can follow the developments on the COMMUNIA blog. If you are interested in the area where copyright and education clash, please have a look at our Medium series on it: Copyright Untangled.

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Creative Commons (CC) believes publicly funded education, research and data resources should be shared in the global commons. The public should have access to what it paid for, and should not be required to pay twice (or more) to access, use, and remix publicly funded resources.

This is why we are pleased to announce that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has adopted a department-wide Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license requirement on intellectual property developed under a competitive Federal award process.

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DOL’s new open licensing policy may be viewed in the federal register (PDF) and on regulations.gov

• 6. Revise § 2900.13 to read as follows:
  • §2900.13 Intangible property.
    • In addition to the guidance set forth in 2 CFR 200.315(d)*, the Department of Labor requires intellectual property developed under a competitive Federal award process to be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. This license allows subsequent users to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt the copyrighted work and requires such users to attribute the work in the manner specified by the recipient.

While the total dollar amount of competitive DOL Federal grants affected by this new open licensing policy is not yet known, Lindsey Tepe at New America estimates the rule change will impact somewhere between $300 and $400 million annually.

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The adoption of Creative Commons licensing clarifies to the public how they may access, use, and adapt publicly funded resources. There are multiple benefits of DOL requiring a CC BY license on publicly funded resources:

• Government increases the impact, reach and scalability of its grants.
• Government creates conditions for maximum potential value created from of all resources it funds, more efficiency, and better stewardship of public funds.
• Public has access to the education resources it funded.
• Innovative and entrepreneurial uses of openly licensed materials are enabled.
• Resources are available for reuse and value-add by anyone, including individual citizens, educators, scientists, public sector employees, and entrepreneurs.

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This major open licensing policy development codifies DOL’s longtime leadership at the program level where the department required CC BY licenses on multiple grants before making this a department-wide open licensing policy. Examples include:

• Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grant program
  • CC and its partners have been supporting DOL and its TAACCCT grantees for the last four years and will continue to do so for the next two. TAACCCT grantees are already sharing CC BY licensed education materials in the public Skills Commons OER repository.
• Career Pathways Innovation Fund Grants Program
• H-1B Ready to Work Partnership grant program

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DOL has already begun to integrate open licensing into its existing professional development SMART training series. The CC BY license requirement is referenced in the following modules:

• Capital Assets, Equipment, Intellectual Property, and Supplies
• Procurement under the New Requirements
• Uniform Guidance: Administrative Requirements
• Uniform Guidance: Cost Principles

These resources signal that the DOL is off to a great start. Creative Commons looks forward to supporting DOL with its Open Licensing Policy Toolkit and CC certificate (to be developed) for government staff.

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Creative Commons and dozens of other organizations urged the U.S. Department of Education to adopt a similar open licensing policy. We hope DOL’s policy will be a useful guide as the Department of Education as it considers its proposed Open Licensing Requirement for Direct Grant Programs.

We applaud the U.S. Department of Labor for leading the way.  Well done!

 

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Creative Commons is pleased to announce the appointment of two new senior-level positions to help implement our new strategy. Last week, CC announced a renewed vision to create a vibrant, usable commons, powered by gratitude and collaboration. These two positions will be fundamental to bringing this strategy to life. I’m pleased to appoint Jane Park as Director of Platform and Partnerships, and Eric Steuer as Director of Content and Community.

Jane Park

Jane has eight years of organizational experience in open education, communications, fundraising, and community building. Most recently, she established CC’s first internal platform team to support adoption on content platforms, and drove data collection and analysis for the 2015 State of the Commons report. As Director of Platform and Partnerships, she will be focused on engaging CC’s partners in creating and sharing content to make the commons more usable, collaborative, and full of gratitude.

Prior to this new role, Jane founded CC’s School of Open, recruiting 60 volunteers across 6 continents, and launching 100 open education courses and workshops. She has programmed workshops and resources to support grantees of the $2 billion U.S. Dept of Labor career training program requiring CC BY for all grant outputs, has led numerous public campaigns and events for CC, including a website redesign, fundraising drive, and open education salons. And she has driven adoption of CC licenses for platforms such as Blackboard, Boundless, and edX, in addition to co-authoring reports and surveys on the state of open licensing policies and copyright barriers in education. Jane’s appointment was effective January 1.

Eric Steuer

As Director of Content and Community, Eric will focus on activating creators and collaborators around open content, knowledge, and data. He will lead CC’s communications team, bringing the best of the commons to the forefront, and celebrating communities that share and create together.

Most recently, Eric was a Senior Director at WIRED, running its Audience Development group. In this role, he built readership and oversaw community engagement across all of WIRED’s properties. Under Eric’s direction, WIRED’s social media audience more than tripled and its newsletter traffic grew by 2,500%. Additionally, Eric built a syndication network made up of more than two dozen partners. Eric remains a contributing editor at WIRED, and has authored well over 100 features, essays, and articles—including two cover stories for the magazine.

Eric’s history with Creative Commons goes back over a decade. He was CC’s Creative Director from 2005-2011, and led the organization’s work with artists, media, technology companies, and cultural institutions. Eric was a key member of the team responsible for the adoption of CC’s tools by users including Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Vimeo, SoundCloud, YouTube, Warner Bros, Al Jazeera, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Nine Inch Nails, Random House, WhiteHouse.gov, and many others.

Eric is the board chair of CASH Music, a member of KQED’s audience development advisory group, and a recording artist. He will begin his new role at CC on February 1.

Follow Jane and Eric on Twitter (@janedaily and @ericsteuer) or reach them directly via https://creativecommons.org/contact.

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The second annual Netlabel Day celebrating free music under Creative Commons licenses will take place on 14 July, 2016. The call for digital record labels is now open and applications will be accepted through 29 February.

First organized by the Chilean label M.I.S.T. Records in March 2015, the 2015 edition featured 80 labels from around the world and released more than 120 digital albums under CC licenses.

In addition to Creative Commons, this year’s sponsors include the Internet Archive and Free Music Archive.

Organizers will host local gigs and record label expos in Argentina, Canada and Chile.

“The goal this year is to discuss, debate, promote, and explore the state of musical management in the participant countries”, says Manuel Silva, M.I.S.T. label head and creator.

To apply, email contact.netlabelday@gmail.com. Visit http://netlabelday.blogspot.com for more info.

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We’re taking part in Copyright Week, a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy. Every day this week, various groups are taking on different elements of the law, and addressing what’s at stake, and what we need to do to make sure that copyright promotes creativity and innovation.

Every year we breathe a collective sigh of disappointment for millions of pieces of creative content that will not enter the public domain because of incredibly long copyright terms. We all know that creativity and knowledge owes something to what came before it—every creator builds on the ideas of their predecessors. Copyright terms that last decades past the death of the author will undermine the potential of the commons and needlessly limit the potential for new creativity.

And in the last few years, we’ve seen additional threats to the commons from prospective trade agreements such as the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership. If the TPP comes into effect, it would force member nations to set their term of copyright protection to life of the authors plus 70 years (if they do not already have that term), which increases the term an additional 20 years past the baseline required by existing international agreements. This means that works still under copyright in Brunei, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Vietnam will be automatically granted another 20 years of protection before they enter the public domain. We’re in agreement with leading economists that there is no logical reason to increase the term of copyright: an extension would create a tiny private benefit at a great cost to the public. It is estimated that the copyright term extension that would be required if the TPP is enacted would cost the public hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

At the same time, we celebrate the amazing works that are finally a part of our shared public domain. In addition to works that are now in the public domain because their copyright has expired, we’ve seen several interesting things happen this last year that is helping authors to share their works in the public domain right now. This is because major online content creation and sharing platforms like Flickr and Medium have added options to share works in the public domain using the CC0 Public Domain Dedication and the Public Domain Mark. What is CC0? It’s a tool that allows anyone to waive their copyright and place a work directly into the global public domain—prior to the expiration of copyright. What is the Public Domain Mark? It’s a digital stamp that anyone can apply to a work that’s already in the worldwide public domain—such as very old works whose copyright has clearly expired.

First stage of Falcon 9 rocket by SpaceX, CC0

What does the public get when authors share content in the public domain? We get to access and use an incredible body of content, including photos from SpaceX, NASA, and millions of others creators.

In the 2015 State of the Commons report, we noted a huge increase in the number of works dedicated to the public domain using the CC0 Public Domain Dedication and out-of-copyright works marked with the Public Domain Mark. According to the data, the total number of public domain works using these tools in 2014 was about 17.5 million. That number jumped to nearly 35 million in 2015. This means that the size of the CC-marked public domain nearly doubled over the last year. This is, in part, due to the tools being more widely and adopted by platforms like Europeana and Flickr. Of course, the public domain is not limited to content marked with CC’s public domain tools, but providing clear information about the public domain status of works alerts subsequent creators they can use those works without any restriction.

Even though copyright lasts far too long, the public domain is not lost. By fighting  for more reasonable copyright policy, and continuing to develop and steward legal tools that empower sharing in the public domain, we can help regain the public domain for all of us.

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