From an urgent COVID-19 response project that monetizes collaborative documents for charitable relief to a hackathon offering developers a chance to learn about open standards in Web Monetization, to an artist exploring ways to generate revenue from her original work, these awardees demonstrate that there is a fierce appetite and enormous talent for exploring new ways – and motivations – to exchange money on the web using open standards.
Creative Commons is proud to work alongside Coil, Mozilla, and Loup on Grant for the Web, which is is working to “fund individuals, projects, and global communities that contribute to a privacy-centric, open, and accessible Web Monetization ecosystem.” We’re especially excited that Grant for the Web is committed to awarding at least 50% of all grant dollars to projects that will be openly licensed.
We’re pleased to announce that Alexis Muscat returns to Creative Commons (CC) as our Legal and Policy Intern this summer. Over the next 10 weeks, Alexis will work closely with our Open Policy Manager, Brigitte Vézina on law and policy research projects that support our mission and community. We can’t wait to get started!
Meet Alexis!
Photo credit: Eric McKelvie
I am entering the third and final year of my law (JD) degree at Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. I have always been interested in the idea of storytelling. I have an honours BA in English Literature, and have worked in public relations and communications for a number of years prior to entering law school. My interest in intellectual property law, particularly copyright, comes from a desire to learn about how law and policy influence storytelling, sharing and communication. I love to read, take care of my house plants, watch movies, and hike.
My research this summer will focus on the intersections between traditional cultural expression issues and Creative Commons licenses and tools. I will be looking at the policies and practices of cultural institutions with regard to online access, sharing and use of the traditional cultural expressions in their collections. I will also be considering the concept of the public domain in relation to rights and interests in traditional cultural expressions.
Keep an eye on our blog to stay updated on Alexis’s research outcomes towards the end of July.
Today is International Museum Day and we at Creative Commons (CC) are thrilled to celebrate the institutions that curate, care for, and provide access to the world’s rich diversity of cultures, ideas, and forms of knowledge. This year’s theme, dedicated to the universal values of equality, diversity, and inclusion, is a testament to museums’ ability to act as intercultural bridge-builders and powerful engines of social change.
International Museum Day 2020 poster designed by the International Council of Museums.
At CC, we share these values and we’re glad to support museums in nurturing the cultural fabric of societies around the globe. We do that through our work on openGLAM, where we help cultural institutions make the most out of the possibilities offered by CC licenses and tools to share their collections of cultural heritage online as openly as possible. We’re also busy promoting the interests of museums in the copyright law and policy arena. Central to CC’s copyright policy agenda is making sure museums’ concerns and needs are treated on equal footing with those of copyright owners, in a balanced and fair manner. In this blog post, we focus on the importance of copyright limitations and exceptions (L&Es) as the pillars on which museums can rest to fulfill their mission free of any undue legal encumbrances.
Limitations and exceptions (L&Es) to copyright exist to ensure a fair balance between the rights of creators and the rights and legitimate interests of users and the general public. L&Es allow uses without authorization from the copyright owner, most often without payment. In countries of common law tradition, they often take the form of “fair use” or “fair dealing,” and in countries of civil law tradition, L&Es are usually circumscribed and precisely defined in the law.
Museums’ invaluable mission: sharing their collection with the public
Museums collect, preserve, research, interpret, exhibit, educate, and offer spaces for visitors (both on-site and online) to interact and participate in an incredible variety of histories, artifacts, and experiences. They are entrusted with the public interest mission of providing access to knowledge and culture, thereby contributing to economic, social, and cultural development. Together with galleries, libraries, and archives (known collectively as “GLAMs”), many museums strive to take advantage of digital technologies to preserve and provide access to their collections for the benefit of present and future generations. For example, Paris Musées recently released over 100,000 works in the public domain under Creative Commons Zero (CCØ), adding their name to the growing list of GLAMs that recognize the importance of open access to artistic and cultural artifacts. This is especially important to address the risks of loss and degradation presented by global challenges such as climate change.
A portrait by Paul Cardon of French feminist journalist Caroline Rémy (1855-1929) in the public domain. Made available by the Paris Musées.
For museums dedicated to cultural heritage, broadly disseminating online the world’s shared heritage is directly aligned with their public mission. Also key is the sharing with visitors and the general public of information and content—ranging from digital images to information about works, including bibliographical information and metadata.
Copyright should not stand in the way of museums’ basic functions
Alas, for museums on all continents, basic functions like making copies of works under copyright for preservation or making available online are hampered by a jumble of entangled copyright issues. This is especially the case in the digital environment, where legal uncertainty is rife. One troubling gray area is the claiming of rights over slavish reproductions of works. On that point, CC adamantly asserts that digitized public domain works must remain in the public domain. The world over, outdated, and misaligned copyright rules fail to accommodate the legitimate activities of museums, exacerbate inequalities by curtailing efforts of museums to provide access to knowledge and culture, and carve a black hole into our shared digital heritage.
Copyright should be limited where it serves a public interest. Stronger, clearer, and more effective limitations and exceptions are necessary to allow museums to fulfill their mission.
At CC, we firmly support the view that copyright laws should not stand in the way of preservation and access to education, scientific and cultural works, as well as other legitimate, public-interest activities of museums. In fact, we believe that copyright should be limited where it serves a public interest. That’s why we fully agree with the International Council of Museums (ICOM) that stronger, clearer, and more effective L&Es are necessary to allow museums to fulfill their mission. Indeed, last month we signed the open letter co-prepared by ICOM and others, calling on the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to urgently create an international legal instrument with clear rules allowing the preservation of cultural heritage.
A clear way forward for international law and policy on limitations and exceptions
At the European level, the 2019 Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (CDSM) contains several mandatory L&Es aimed at supporting museums and facilitating the digitization and online sharing of cultural heritage. For example, article 6 provides an exception for the preservation of cultural heritage while article 14 states that faithful copies of works of visual art that are in the public domain must remain in the public domain. CC-sister organization Communia is offering guidelines and assistance in the implementation of the CDSM. The EU Member States have until June 2021 to seize this unprecedented opportunity to recognize and support the pivotal roles of museums in society and write clear E&Ls into their national copyright laws.
Internationally, there is currently no clear international framework providing for mandatory L&Es for the benefit of museums. That means that countries are not obligated to have museum-friendly L&Es in their national copyright law, and many, indeed, don’t. A 2015 WIPO study on copyright L&Es for museums prepared by Dr. Lucie Guibault and Jean-François Canat shows that L&Es vary greatly across jurisdictions. Less than a third of WIPO Member states provide specific L&Es for museums, while two-thirds allow museums to rely on general L&Es and/or licensing solutions. Specific exceptions include reproduction for preservation purposes, use of works in exhibition catalogs, the exhibition of works, use of orphan works; general exceptions comprise use for educational or private purposes. According to WIPO’s 2019 Revised Report on Copyright Practices and Challenges of Museums, E&Ls are not frequently well understood or used due to legal uncertainty.
Hence, it’s essential to create an international treaty that clearly enshrines the rights of museums to conduct their legitimate activities without the burden of having to abide by out-of-touch, impractical, and sometimes straight-out unfair copyright rules. We recently said on this blog that it’s high time to establish an expeditious way forward on L&Es within the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR), with a view to safeguarding the interests of museums and GLAMs in general. Building on the adoption of the 2013 Marrakesh Treaty on access to works for visually impaired people, the SCCR should now concentrate on creating clear and mandatory L&Es for GLAMs.
Museums deserve to be celebrated all year for a multitude of reasons, and we’re proud to support the museum sector through our openGLAM and copyright policy efforts. Interested in learning more? Get in touch info@creativecommons.org!
We’ve got great news for content creators and innovators interested in new ways of doing business online. Grant for the Web—the $100 million initiative by Coil, Creative Commons, and Mozilla (previously discussed here) to fund projects that utilize and build upon the Web Monetization standard—has issued its first public call for proposals.
The Web Monetization ecosystem includes wallets, providers, and tools. Grant for the Web was established to encourage, support, and promote ambitious projects that use and experiment with Web Monetization, and this CFP is a big step towards making the dream of better web business models a reality.
With $100 million to distribute globally over five years, Grant for the Web will seed an online monetization and payment ecosystem to challenge the web’s most urgent issues: loss of privacy, centralization of power, and inequalities in online participation. … No longer can earning revenue online be tied to proprietary platforms, companies that abuse our privacy, and 20th century revenue models. We’re ready to start building what’s next.
There are two award tracks that applicants can submit their projects to: Creative Catalyst (content projects that use Web Monetization) and Foundational Technology (projects that innovate around the tech side of Web Monetization). A particularly exciting aspect of this CFP, as well as the entire Grant for the Web initiative, is that at least 50% of all grant dollars will go towards funding openly licensed projects.
The deadline for applications is Friday, June 12, 2020 at 12:00pm (PST). The program team is providing support to the community during the application period. For all the information you’ll need in order to prepare your submission, visit Grant for the Web’s detailed Call for Proposals page.
This week is bittersweet. Bitter because instead of welcoming you to the CC Global Summit in Lisbon, I’m at my home in Toronto wishing we were together. Sweet because we have been given the opportunity to revision the CC Global Summit—to turn this annual, in-person gathering into something uniquely digital that will, hopefully, address the current needs of our community.
In March, after officially canceling the in-person CC Summit, we began this revisioning process by gathering insightful feedback from members of the CC Global Network and working with the Program Committee. Committee members have proven invaluable during this process and we’re grateful for their hard work, vision, and flexibility. Although there are still many things we need to figure out, I’m excited to provide a brief update on what we have so far, and what we’re working on.
Here’s what we know so far
The revisioned version of the CC Summit will be entirely online, free of cost, and held over a few days during September and/or October 2020. Based on feedback from the CC Global Network obtained via a short survey sent out in April, we will try our best to ensure the event features:
Programming in languages other than English
Programming in a variety of time zones
Opportunities to meet in small interactive groups to work on projects and goals together
Some fun surprises!
Here’s what’s coming up
If you’ve already submitted a proposal, don’t worry. We’ll be in touch with you to confirm that you still have the capacity to engage with the CC Global Summit. If yes, we’ll then ask you to tell us what changes you’ll make to your proposal so that it’s more suitable for digital. Check your email for the next steps!
Finally, in June, we’ll launch a new call for proposals to reflect the dynamics of our world today, as well as the changing medium of the CC Global Summit. We’ll ask for proposals that are better suited for a digital environment, as well as encourage proposals that address issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the role of open licensing during times of crisis. This is something our team has been working on as part of the Open COVID Pledge. We’ll also welcome proposals that promote CC Global Network-specific issues and projects—we want to ensure this event remains globally-focused.
Thank you again for your support throughout this process. Stay tuned for more updates!
