On April 22, 2017 (Earth Day) tens of thousands of people will join the March for Science and stand together “to acknowledge and voice the critical role that science plays in each of our lives.” Marches will take place in Washington, D.C. and over 500 other cities.
The mission of the March for Science is to champion the robust funding and public communication of science as a pillar of human freedom and prosperity. It aims to promote science that serves the public interest, fuels evidence-based policymaking, and advocates for cutting-edge research and education.
A particularly important aspect of science is communicating openly about the results of scholarly research. Practicing science in such a way that promotes collaboration can accelerate and improve research discoveries. From the website:
Restricting the free exchange of scientific research within local and global communities threatens to stall the scientific progress that benefits people all over the world. Gag rules on scientists in government and environmental organizations impede access to information that is a public right. Our tax dollars support this scientific research, and withholding their findings limits the public’s ability to learn from the important developments and discoveries that we have come to expect from our scientists. In addition, scientists often rely on the public to help identify new questions that need to be answered.
Check out the satellite events and join a march to promote and protect science for the good of all.
Dr. Michael Geist is a law professor at the University of Ottawa where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law. He is an authority on intellectual property, telecommunications, and privacy policy, and is a frequent writer and commentator on issues such as international trade negotiations and Canadian copyright reform. Geist will join the CC community at the Creative Commons Global Summit later this month.
Creative Commons is looking forward to hosting its Global Summit in Toronto at the end of this month. One of the topics to be discussed is how CC allies from around the world can share information and work together around supporting the reform of copyright rules in service of users and the public interest. CC affiliates are already active in copyright reform and commons advocacy in Europe, Australia, Latin America, and other places. Can you describe what’s going on with copyright reform in Canada, and how the Creative Commons network can help mobilize positive changes? What do you think we should push to achieve at the Summit re: copyright reform organising?
Canada is often held out as a great example of successful copyright advocacy leading to a more balanced law. After more than a decade of debate, the law was overhauled in 2012. While there are plenty of provisions for rights holders – strong anti-circumvention laws and anti-piracy measures – the law also features some innovative limitations and exceptions such as an exception for non-commercial user generated content. There is also a cap on statutory damages in non-commercial cases and a privacy-friendly approach to intermediary liability. Moreover, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that fair dealing is a user’s right that should be interpreted in a broad and liberal manner, leading to results that affirm a balance to copyright.
The 2012 reforms also included a mandatory review every five years, which means that a new review will start late in 2017. There is still room for improvement and learning from best practices from around the world would be enormously helpful. Moreover, there is an expectation that some rights holders will demand that the government roll back fair dealing at the very time that other countries are open to fair use provisions. The Global Summit offers an exceptional opportunity to develop national and international strategies, learn about reforms around the world, and begin the process of speaking with a consistent voice on positive copyright reform.
You’ve been a key voice in opposition to international trade agreements that attempt to push through restrictive clauses around intellectual property and e-commerce that enhance corporate protections while downplaying user rights. The most recent version of this was the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a sprawling agreement signed by 11 Pacific Rim nations, including Canada. Now that the United States, under the Trump administration, has formally withdrawn from the agreement, what is the future for the TPP? And what do you make of the seemingly inevitable reopening of NAFTA, especially with regard to digital rights?
The TPP in its current form is dead. The agreement reflects a bargain for countries premised on access to the U.S. market. Without the U.S., that bargain doesn’t make any sense.
That said, the U.S. seems intent on reviving many of the IP provisions in future trade talks, including NAFTA. The renegotiated NAFTA will have enormous implications for copyright and digital rights more generally. I expect to see pressure for copyright term extension and increased criminalization of copyright. On the digital rights issue, privacy concerns such as data localization and data transfers will be on the agenda. The U.S. is likely to promote restrictions on both issues, leaving countries between a proverbial rock and a hard place with the U.S. seeking open transfers and the European Union focused on privacy protections from localization and limits on transfers in some circumstances.
As usual, there’s a lot of FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) that’s continually sown around claims about copyright’s effect on rightsholders. You’ve written on several of these topics recently, including efforts by rightsholders associations to inflate numbers on piracy rates, fraud in search index takedown notices, and disinformation around the impacts of fair dealing on publishers’ businesses. How can digital rights advocates fight against such tactics?
There has been a remarkable amount of fake news associated with copyright’s effect on rights holders. The Google data on fake takedown notices from its search index were stunning – more than 99% of requests did not involve an actual page in its search index. Similarly, during a recent trip to Australia and New Zealand I was shocked to see how Canadian law has been badly misrepresented with claims about effects on publishers that were simply false.
The best way to counter FUD is with facts. In Australia, one representative from a leading publisher approached me after a talk to express embarrassment over the claims that had been in that country’s policy process in light of the real facts. Our community should not hesitate to counter inaccurate claims on piracy and fair use/fair dealing with a clear, objective discussion of the reality online and in the marketplace.
The issue of supporting and expanding copyright exceptions for education is on the table now within the context of the reassessment of the EU copyright rules, the international agenda at WIPO, and other national level copyright reforms. How do you see this will be addressed within the Canadian copyright reform which will commence this autumn?
Canada included several new exceptions within the 2012 reforms, including the additional of “education” as one of the fair dealing purposes. The reality is that this change was relatively minor since the existing purposes such as research and private study covered most purposes within education. Indeed, the Supreme Court’s rulings on fair dealing were far more important than the legislative change. That said, there will be a concerted lobbying effort to roll back fair dealing for education in Canada that must countered with facts. Further, there is room for improvement. Canada’s anti-circumvention laws are among the most restrictive in the world and do not include a fair dealing exception. That should change if Canada wants to ensure that fair dealing is treated equally in the analog and digital worlds. Moreover, Canada would still benefit from a fair use provision, particularly given the increased emphasis on data and machine learning, which may not neatly fit within our existing purposes in all circumstances.
Sessions in the “Spheres of Open” track will focus on meaningful discussions about how we can work together to enhance, promote and move further the premises of CC in different areas of Open, such as Open GLAM, Open Education and Open Culture. Be prepared not only to learn from global practitioners, but also to be involved in a collective journey to search for the common questions regarding how we can make the world a better place with the CC community, its values, licenses and tools. This is an important year for the Creative Commons (CC) community gathering at the CC Summit, as we’re in the middle of discussing our new strategy, so be sure to drop by and join us!
Some of the questions that we’ll be exploring include:
How can we celebrate and strengthen our ties to creators of culture who make the Commons visible and real to people?
How might we ensure Open Access initiatives meet the knowledge and information needs of the public?
How can we shape the future of the GLAM sector in a world with imbalanced copyright laws?
How do we open up government archives and advance Open Data initiatives?
Should we create an annual a CC film festival?
How do we mainstream Open Education?
How can open education be aligned with the global grand challenges we all face?
These are some of the questions we’ll be exploring as the CC network shifts from its role as a set of legal tools and licenses to a community that focus on people, sharing, and gratitude.
SPACE10 is a Danish “future living lab” with an open source twist. Founded by IKEA in 2015, the lab is focused on innovative design to help solve some of the world’s biggest problems. To that end, in February 2017, the lab licensed their popular Growroom design under CC BY in order to provide the maximum impact possible. This attractive, sustainable indoor circular garden quickly grows a massive amount of food in only a few square feet by utilizing vertical space, urban architecture, and hydroponics. In the words of director Carla Cammilla Hjort, “At Space10, we envision a future where we grow much more food inside our cities. Food producing architecture could enable us to do so.”
The Growroom can be downloaded and fabricated for free at the SPACE10 website and you can find out more about the project via their “Conversational Form.” Thanks to SPACE10 Communications Director Simon Caspersen for the interview.
Photo by Alona Vibe
The Growroom was launched in 2016 and open-sourced in February 2017. The expressed impetus for open sourcing the design was to encourage local production and materials. How did you come to that conclusion, and how has the project changed since it was open sourced? Why is open sourcing the plans vital to local food production?
We feel it makes complete sense because both our global food production system and our global supply chain of goods are based on the same model.
We produce everything on massive scale far away from where we live and ship everything halfway across the planet and into our cities, where we consume it before we export the waste.
This model has served us well. Humans have never been more food secure in the history of mankind and it would probably not by overreaching to claim that much of the living standards and material prosperity of modern society can be traced back to our current industrial model. The model, however, also has its physical limits, and these have been reached.
Our food system is driven by scale, chemicals, and fuel. It is one of the most crucial drivers of climate change. It is a critical user of our dwindling supplies of fresh water, the process compromises the nutritional value of our food severely, and 1/3 of the food produced goes to waste due to spoilage and overproduction. Furthermore, we each year note the date when humanity exhausts a year’s supply of the earth’s natural resources. In 2006 that date fell in October. In 2016 it was in August. All the evidence suggests that if we continue at our current rate, we’ll soon need a second planet…
We wanted to explore alternatives. The Growroom started as an architecture competition that we launched together with CHART. We wanted to explore how cities can feed themselves through food producing architecture. The winner was two Danish architects: Sine Lindholm and Mads Ulrik Husum, who created The Growroom as a one-off pavilion for the festival. The ideas was to spark conversations about this local food production.
The Growroom ended up sparking excitement from Taipei to Helsinki, from Rio de Janeiro to San Francisco, where people reached out and wanted to buy or exhibit The Growroom. But we didn’t feel it made sense to promote local food production and then start a centralised production of The Growroom and ship this large structure across oceans and continents.
We therefore tapped into the fab city movements idea of globally connected, locally productive cities that aspires to produce everything within our cities, went back to the drawing board and remade a version designed for open source, so we could ship the digital design files and let people build it themselves locally instead of the physical structure.
SPACE10 is a lab, a journal, and an exhibition space that explores the future of urban development. How do you think that open source plays into the future of global cities and production? How do you balance your approach to open as an Ikea project?
I think open source is one of the most exciting opportunities of our time. Open source could potentially change everything and empower people in ways we can’t even imagine. One thing is that open source and the advancements in digital fabrication will allow us to make everything locally – on demand. Whether it’s furniture, housing, cities, everything. Open source also enable us to not only share but also learn, build upon, and develop together. I deeply believe that if you are the smartest person in a room, you are in the wrong room. We need to surround ourselves with people who are smarter than us and open source allow us to learn and work together with the brightest minds out there.
In terms of IKEA, we are 100 % supported by IKEA and we work as an external future-living lab. If we weren’t looking into the opportunities of open source, we would be a pretty useless future-living lab, wouldn’t we?
We are also aware that transforming our current production system is a huge and complex issue and one of the biggest creative challenges of our time – and we also need to be aware of the social consequences if production moves out of areas where people depend on that for their livelihood. Nevertheless, it’s about getting in now, gaining learnings, and helping shape a future that is better for all of us.
Photo by Alona Vibe
How difficult is it to actually put together the Growroom? How long would it take? Have you seen any successful examples of the finished project that you’d like to share?
It is fairly simple actually. We have a very intuitive manual. No big tools needed: two rubber hammers and a screwdriver. We just exhibited in Milan for the design week and it took three people one hour, but they have also done it before and the local fab lab had a very precise CNC, so everything was like LEGO.
We are seeing different versions pop up different places using the hashtag: #space10growroom on instagram, but have also seen people who have set a little business up on top of the design – here is a nice little video from Denmark and a website in Belgium. There have also been articles in the USA and Canada. And we have been in touch with people who have concrete plans to build one in:
Lund, Sweden
Stockholm, Sweden
Helsinki, Finland
Rensselaer, United States
Minneapolis, United Sates
Pittsburgh, United States
Alberta, Canada
Québec, Canada
Germany
Plymouth, UK
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
This is the real beauty of open source. Our version is just the beginning. People are iterating, improving it, personalizing it, scaling it and implement technology in it. We even talked with people who want to make it in mycelium and pressed dirt, so it becomes 100 % biodegradable.
Photo by Niklas Adrian Vindelev, SPACE10
What advice would you give to other architects and designers who want open source their designs? Do you have plans to openly license other designs at SPACE10 in the future?
If your aspiration in life is to design beautiful solutions that makes a difference for a lot of people, then you have a unique opportunity with open sourcing your solutions or build on top of others. We are challenged with some big questions and our current answers seems insufficient and outdated. We need collaboration and forward thinking people to work together more than ever. Open sourcing the physical world is still in early stage, so it’s about dipping your toes in the water, exploring the opportunities and seriously: how often do you have a chance to be a pioneer in a field that have the potential to change everything?
At SPACE10 we would like to open source every time it makes sense. We strongly believe that collaboration beats competition.
We launched an open source digital framework back in November called the “Conversational Form” that turns web forms into conversations — we make it easy for developers and designers to engage with users in a more compelling and conversational way. We needed one for ourselves, but couldn’t find any suitable solutions, so we decided to build one of our own and open sourced it. A couple of months after – 200.000 people use it on daily basis on different platforms, and developers from all over the world iterate and build upon our initial framework, which benefits everyone. Imagine how much money we would have needed to build that big of a team to do the same work inhouse. Or imagine if Wikipedia had decided to build their site with an inhouse team. Imagine how your architectural design could scale, develop and improve over time if you just open sourced it.
Why did you choose to use CC BY as your license?
I was actually a bit unsure of what the right license would be. I wanted it to be as accessible as possible, but it was important that Mads-Ulrik Husum and Signe Lindholm (the designers) were credited for their work.
Photo by: Alicia Sjöström, Salone Del Mobile
Design blogs are asking if the Growroom is the urban gardening of the future, cementing its importance in the development of cutting-edge urban agriculture. How are you maintaining the project’s longevity What hopes do you have for the Growroom, and what would you like to accomplish with it in the future?
We have been very overwhelmed and incredibly happy with the positive response we have had from people, design institutions and media. For us, the ideal outcome would be that we didn’t do anything, but that people are inspired to build it themselves locally and gets joy from producing food on their own doorstep, rooftop or in their community – that it brings people together, support people’s sense of well being and provides food that is fresh, healthy, organic, and tastes better. That is what we dream of and why we open sourced it in the first place. I would also love to see people improve it, make it better and be creative with the design.
The Usable Commons track at the CC summit contains an exciting array of sessions that explore how to make the digital commons more discoverable, usable, and human-centered. In content communities such as 3D printing, research, and social media, we will focus on key questions of human behavior, including: What motivates people to share online? What social and technical design factors help people to make connections and build relationships? What can CC and its partners do to better facilitate and foster this collaboration online?
In order of appearance on the summit agenda, below are some of the sessions and speakers central to the Usable Commons. Note that all sessions at the summit are tagged across multiple tracks. The Usable Commons is simply one way for you to navigate this year’s excellent program.
We look forward to collaborating with you at this year’s CC Summit in Toronto!
Note: Session times are subject to change. For up-to-date descriptions of each session, check the Sched app.
Sharing norms that go beyond the licenses and CC’s role, starting with 3D design community
(Day 1, April 28) Friday, 1:30-3:30pm
What would it look like for Creative Commons to shift its primary focus to the norms of sharing content online, rather than the precise legalities of sharing? To help us envision this strategy in practice, we will apply it in the area of 3D printing. We will look at the existing norms for sharing 3D designs, and then discuss how Creative Commons could help make the culture of sharing even more pronounced and productive in this domain. As part of the discussion, we will brainstorm specific things CC might do and talk about the potential negative consequences, as we explore this new way of operating. This will be a two-part session, with discussion/debate in the second hour.
Speakers:
Tony Buser (Thingiverse/Makerbot)
Meghan Coakley (NIH 3D Print Exchange)
Jeric Bautista (re3D)
Ben Malouf (Lulzbot/Aleph Objects)
Meredith Jacob (CC U.S.)
Frank Polcino (Thingiverse/Makerbot)
Michael Weinberg (Shapeways)
Sarah Pearson (Creative Commons)
Jane Park (Creative Commons)
CC Search: Usability, Features, and Partners
(Day 1, April 28) Friday, 4:00-5:30pm
In February, Creative Commons released a working beta of CC Search. The initial service indexes about 1 percent of the Commons, and has a few key features, including list making, favoriting, and one-click attribution. Following the release, many partners have come forward asking to be involved. Before CC builds a complete index and service, we should continue consulting with partners, users, and the CC community. We’ll generate insights and map ideas for the future of CC search as a product. We will conduct a user-testing session; share statistics and analytics of CC search tools and partner platforms; work in smaller groups to generate solutions for a vital search product for the commons built to go beyond discovery to support collaboration and human connections
Speakers:
Ryan Merkley (Creative Commons)
Liza Daly (Software engineer, lead of beta CC Search)
Rob Myers (Creative Commons)
Maarten Zeinstra (CC Netherlands /Kennisland)
How to encourage prosocial behavior
(Day 1, April 28) Friday, 4:00-5:30pm
Healthy collaboration requires a lot more than copyright licenses. Among other things, it requires that people recognize the humanity in each other and behave accordingly, something that is far from a given online. Creating online environments that encourage prosocial behavior requires proactive effort and design. This session will feature platforms who regularly grapple with these issues. Each will explain the processes and infrastructure they use to create online environments where people interact in productive ways. Discussion will follow regarding what else we can do to foster greater cooperation and sharing online, especially with regards to commons content communities. We will explore the lifecycle of sharing, including: the pre-conditions for sharing, the actual act of sharing, what happens after sharing, and then what might feed back into the cycle, which may be ongoing or a one-time act.
Speakers:
Juliet Barbara (Wikimedia Foundation)
Ashe Dryden (Programmer, Diversity Advocate and Consultant)
Alex Feerst (Medium)
Tony Buser (Thingiverse/Makerbot)
Sarah Pearson (Creative Commons)
Jane Park (Creative Commons)
Share or Die: Is the Future of Manufacturing Open Source? Open Hardware Business Models
(Day 2, April 29) Saturday, 9-10am
How can manufacturers open source their design and products without losing their unique value proposition? This panel, organized by Danish Design Centre, debates the challenges and opportunities of designing open source-based business models for manufacturing and looks at the future of production in a new era. An era increasingly defined by not only the technology of the maker movement, but also its major underlying currents of knowledge sharing, co-creation and crowdsourced innovation. A future where manufacturers and designers will have to learn to share – or die.
Speakers:
Christian Villum (CC Denmark)
Paul Stacey (Creative Commons)
How to make good on the Creative Commons Promise?
(Day 3, April 30) Sunday, 10:30-11:30am
As use of Creative Commons licenses increases, we are seeing more instances of people misunderstanding the licenses or making mistakes with reuse. Creators who use Creative Commons face the issue that they often do not receive proper attribution that the licenses promised them when their works are reused. Reusers of CC-licensed works are increasingly facing the issue of legal threats from creators if they make mistakes in their attribution. In this session, we will discuss these issues, share our experience with them, and develop strategies for addressing them. We hope to develop an approach for how to proceed to better ensure that people are getting what they expect when they both release their works using a CC license and when they reuse CC-licensed works.
Speaker:
Charles M. Roslof (Wikimedia Foundation)
Patents: The Next Open Access Fight
(Day 3, April 30) Sunday, 1:30-2:30pm
Even as scientific research becomes accessible to a wider public, some of that same research is falling into the hands of patent trolls, companies that serve no purpose but to amass patents and sue innovators who independently created similar inventions. Those trolls can undo open access allies’ work in bringing knowledge and innovation to the public. Join us for an overview and discussion about current day challenges and opportunities, and the role that Creative Commons might play in furthering a patent commons.
Speaker:
Elliot Harmon (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
Jorge Contreras (University of Utah)
Diane Peters (Creative Commons)
Ryan Merkley (Creative Commons)
CC Usability: Reimagining CC’s tools for real users
(Day 3, April 30) Sunday, 3:00-5:00pm
If we were to reimagine CC’s core tools for real users in 2017, who would be our core audience? If we didn’t have the constraints of 15 years ago when the licenses launched, how would we design the licenses to serve CC users’ needs and desires today? We will present and discuss current and new designs of the CC licenses, buttons, deeds, and chooser. Content platforms will provide insight into their users’ motivations. Additionally, we invite participants from every region to give us insight into their users’ needs, and an opportunity to help reimagine CC’s tools for the current web and sharing climate.
