From cornelia.kutterer at beuc.org Thu Nov 10 12:04:42 2005 From: cornelia.kutterer at beuc.org (Cornelia Kutterer) Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 18:04:42 +0100 Subject: [Cc-be] BEUC Campaign on Consumers Digital Rights Message-ID: <6AFC67E5397FF249B046F65AD09FF4966008B9@anbe-mail.anbe.org> Dear all, We have today launched our consumers digital rights campaign and we would be very happy if you support us in signing our petition! www.consumersdigitalrights.org Spread the petition as much as you can!! Those who have participated in th einterviews special thanks (you will receive a separate email of course) Best wishes, Cornelia Cornelia Kutterer Senior Legal Advisor BEUC The European Consumers' Organisation Avenue de Tervuren, 36 Bte 4 B - 1040 Brussels Tel: 02 - 740 28 10 E-mail: cornelia.kutterer at beuc.org Website: http://www.beuc.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-be/attachments/20051110/eedd2446/attachment.html From wouter.vanden.hove at telenet.be Sat Nov 19 08:05:46 2005 From: wouter.vanden.hove at telenet.be (Wouter Vanden hove) Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 14:05:46 +0100 Subject: [Cc-be] IFPI Petition: Extend 50 years protection Message-ID: <437F232A.7040900@telenet.be> Hello, I would like to hear some opinions about the IFPI-petition in attachment. Exactly what is protected for 50 years? A songwriter writes lyrics for a song. a performer sings this song in agreement with the songwriter and puts it in a record to sell. Then what happens after 50 years? All royalties stop to the singer, but not the songwriter? Wouter opencursus.org vrijschrift.org -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: IPFI - Term of Protection petition.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 6573 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-be/attachments/20051119/15fcd44d/attachment.pdf From frederik at questier.com Sun Nov 20 07:56:28 2005 From: frederik at questier.com (Frederik Questier) Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 13:56:28 +0100 Subject: [Cc-be] IFPI Petition: Extend 50 years protection In-Reply-To: <437F232A.7040900@telenet.be> References: <437F232A.7040900@telenet.be> Message-ID: <200511201356.28847.frederik@questier.com> Op Saturday 19 November 2005 14:05, schreef Wouter Vanden hove: > Hello, > > I would like to hear some opinions about the IFPI-petition in attachment. These are just the record companies, trying to make copyright protections infinite, killing the public domain, and increasing their control over the artists. > Exactly what is protected for 50 years? > > A songwriter writes lyrics for a song. > a performer sings this song in agreement with the songwriter and puts it > in a record to sell. > > Then what happens after 50 years? > All royalties stop to the singer, but not the songwriter? It means that when a performance is 50 years old, the copyrightholder of the performance (and that is almost always the record company and not the artists) is no longer the only one whose has control over the recording, who can make money of it, or copy it freely. This is of course in the case nobody else has still copyrights pending, such as the songwriter. So think about 50-year old performances of e.g. Beethoven's music. This means e.g. that is harder than it should be for other artists such as movie makers, to include old music in their own works... Compare it with Disney: they copied lots of things from the public domain, like Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, or a sad example: Pinocchio in 1940, one year after the copyright of Carlo Collodi finished. But now that their own creations like Mickey Mouse should finally have fallen into the public domain, they are the strongest pushers for never expiring copyrights... This extension is totally against the original copyright idea (UK 1710: "for the encouragement of learning"; US 1790: "to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.") Originally these protection terms were 14 years on request, renewable once on request for 14 years. If the record companies can't make enough profit by being the only one who can sell a specific product during 50 years, they have a very flawed business model. Compare this with products like medicines: these need typically an development investment of 300M Euros and can still be profitable with 20 years patent protection minus 10-12 years development. Extending the record companies' monopoly for another 50 years (yes, they ask 100 years), will even stifle innovation, as it will be much easier for those record companies to get the crazy high prices for the re-releases of these oldies (on HD-DVD or whatever is next) than to invest in new artists. Read also: http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,67783,00.html Frederik -- Free University - Free Software ! Vrije Universiteit - Vrije Software ! "The most fundamental way of helping other people, is to teach people how to do things better or how to better their lives. For people who use computers, this means sharing the recipes you use on your computer, in other words the programs you run." Richard Stallman, Free Software Foundation. -- Frederik Questier, PhD Onderwijsvernieuwing & Onderwijs Service Centrum Vrije Universiteit Brussel http://osc.vub.ac.be http://questier.com From paula at creativecommons.org Wed Nov 16 22:10:50 2005 From: paula at creativecommons.org (Paula Le Dieu) Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2005 19:10:50 -0800 Subject: [Cc-be] Creative Commons and iCommons Message-ID: <1132197051.25327.16.camel@localhost.localdomain> Dear All, Recently Creative Commons celebrated the 24th launch of a Creative Commons local jurisdiction license (congratulations Slovenia!). With at least 70 local jurisdiction licenses expected over the next couple of years and millions of CC licensed objects, it is clear that Creative Commons is an extraordinary international phenomenon. However, as we started to discuss at the iSummit in June, this rate of growth brings with it the need to re-think the organisational structure and to think carefully about how Creative Commons presents itself to an international public. As we've grown, we've come to recognize that the diversity and energy of the communities that have been started under the iCommons project need their own institutional structure. That institution needs to support more than the licensing project that has been the core mission of Creative Commons. We have therefore decided to migrate the iCommons project to its own separate legal entity. That entity will be called "iCommons"; it will have its own board, and is now incorporated with nonprofit status in the UK. I will serve as the executive director of this new entity. For now, iCommons continues as a subsidiary of Creative Commons, and will be supported by Creative Commons. But eventually, depending upon how iCommons grows, it could become a wholly separate entity, devoted to spreading CC licenses, as well as addressing the wide range of issues that have the attention of our iCommons partners. Whether, and how, iCommons develops will depend upon what you decide. Creative Commons will continue to work to launch Creative Commons licenses within legal jurisdictions around the world. Christiane Asschenfeldt will direct that project from Berlin with the help of a new assistant, Eva Lutterbuese (eva at creativecommons.org), as well as with Tessi Rieber, who will continue to work for the Berlin office as a student intern for two days per week. It has been Christiane's work so far that made the the international movement of Creative Commons possible. But if we are to keep the high quality that the licensing project requires, it is essential that Creative Commons keeps strong direction over the licensing project, as distinct from the other great work of the iCommons community. Therefore, in the future, new countries entering into the porting project will work with Christiane to launch licenses within their jurisdiction. Those licenses will continue to be maintained both locally and through Creative Commons. Then, depending upon the interest within the country, community members can then join iCommons. We expect iCommons to be a home for many "free culture" projects internationally. But the core will always be you. Christiane's project to internationalize the work of Creative Commons will be named "Creative Commons International." That project will continue to be supported within Creative Commons. Over the next months, we will be adding a great deal more detail to this new structuring and in doing so we hope we will address many of the questions that are raised by this first email. However it is important to note that while the world of Creative Commons International will be very defined in keeping with the renewed focus on the licenses, the world of iCommons will be far more open. Start to think about how you think you would like to contribute to iCommons, how it should be structured as a volunteer organisation and about the kinds of activities it should be engaged in. Remember, Creative Commons is supporting iCommons initially but the responsibility for it in the long term resides with the community. What do you want to achieve and how can we structure it to ensure that you succeed? There are lots of questions that we will be answering in a second email that is coming on Monday, so stay tuned. Paula Le Dieu Executive Director iCommons paula at creativecommons.org From fquestie at vub.ac.be Sat Nov 19 09:00:44 2005 From: fquestie at vub.ac.be (Frederik Questier) Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2005 15:00:44 +0100 Subject: [Cc-be] IFPI Petition: Extend 50 years protection In-Reply-To: <437F232A.7040900@telenet.be> References: <437F232A.7040900@telenet.be> Message-ID: <200511191500.45010.fquestie@vub.ac.be> Op Saturday 19 November 2005 14:05, schreef Wouter Vanden hove: > Hello, > > I would like to hear some opinions about the IFPI-petition in attachment. These are just the record companies, trying to make copyright protections infinite, killing the public domain, and increasing their control over the artists. > Exactly what is protected for 50 years? > > A songwriter writes lyrics for a song. > a performer sings this song in agreement with the songwriter and puts it > in a record to sell. > > Then what happens after 50 years? > All royalties stop to the singer, but not the songwriter? It means that when a performance is 50 years old, the copyrightholder of the performance (and that is almost always the record company and not the artists) is no longer the only one whose has control over the recording, who can make money of it, or copy it freely. This is of course in the case nobody else has still copyrights pending, such as the songwriter. So think about 50-year old performances of e.g. Beethoven's music. This extension is totally against the original copyright idea (UK 1710: "for the encouragement of learning"; US 1790: "to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.") This means e.g. that is harder than it should be for other artists such as movie makers, to include old music in their own works... Compare it with Disney who copied lots of things, like Pinnochio in 1940, one year after the copyright of Carlo Collodi finished, and who is now itself pushing for never extending copyrights... If the record companies can't make enough profit by being the only one who can sell the product during 50 years, they have a very flawed business model. Compare this with products like medicines which need an investment of 300M Euros that can still be profitable with 20 years patent protection minus 10-12 years development. Frederik -- Free University - Free Software ! Vrije Universiteit - Vrije Software ! "The most fundamental way of helping other people, is to teach people how to do things better or how to better their lives. For people who use computers, this means sharing the recipes you use on your computer, in other words the programs you run." Richard Stallman, Free Software Foundation. -- Frederik Questier, PhD Onderwijsvernieuwing & Onderwijs Service Centrum Vrije Universiteit Brussel http://osc.vub.ac.be http://questier.com From hannelore.dekeyser at law.kuleuven.be Sun Nov 20 14:39:46 2005 From: hannelore.dekeyser at law.kuleuven.be (Hannelore Dekeyser) Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 20:39:46 +0100 Subject: [Cc-be] IFPI Petition: Extend 50 years protection In-Reply-To: <437F232A.7040900@telenet.be> References: <437F232A.7040900@telenet.be> Message-ID: <4380D102.6070608@law.kuleuven.be> Wouter Vanden hove wrote: > Hello, > > I would like to hear some opinions about the IFPI-petition in attachment. Personally, I find this argument rather weak. Originally, the protection for authors was 50 years after death in the Convention of Bern. Then one country (I believe Germany) increased the term to 70 years after death. Other countries followed. Then the U.S. went one step further and has increased the term to 95 years for certain works. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono_Copyright_Term_Extension_Act According to IFPI's logic, Europe should do the same. This is a never-ending story of course. I agree with the position of prof. Boyle and others: proponents of increased copyright protection should prove that this will benefit society as a whole. http://www.law.duke.edu/boylesite/experiment.html Personally, I am sceptical that another 20 years of protection will greatly boost creativity. I do see that the internet multiplies the value of works in the public domain for society as a whole. > > Exactly what is protected for 50 years? > > A songwriter writes lyrics for a song. This is protected untill 70 years after the death of the songwriter. > a performer sings this song in agreement with the songwriter and puts it > in a record to sell. The singer is protected 50 years after the performance was done (e.g. live concert). For recordings of performances (= records, video's, ...) the protection is 50 years after first distribution of the recording (e.g. sale of DVD) or first communication to the public (e.g. tv broadcast). > > Then what happens after 50 years? The performer no longer has a monopoly on the exploitation of the performance. The songwriter still has the monopoly on the lyrics, which is important for people who want to make a new performance or remix the old performance. I'm not sure if the *songwriter* has some control over the exploitation of the performance after the 50 year protection period. The assumption is that the performance was made with his permission in the first place. > All royalties stop to the singer, but not the songwriter? > Probably. I'm not an expert on the compensation rules in Belgium. Hannelore > > > Wouter > opencursus.org > vrijschrift.org > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Cc-be mailing list > Cc-be at lists.ibiblio.org > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-be -- Hannelore Dekeyser Legal researcher Interdisciplinary Centre for Law and ICT (ICRI) - K.U.Leuven www.law.kuleuven.ac.be/icri/ - www.ibbt.be From wim.schreurs at vub.ac.be Tue Nov 22 05:46:21 2005 From: wim.schreurs at vub.ac.be (wim schreurs) Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 11:46:21 +0100 Subject: [Cc-be] Cc-be Digest, Vol 12, Issue 3 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <002d01c5ef51$faa935f0$cf42b886@vub.ac.be> Dear readers, What is the significance, for the average audience, of the protection terms for neighbouring rights (10, 20, 100 or 500 years), when all records are anyway locked behind password protected databases, accesible through payment or subscription only, enjoying eternal protection? Databases enjoy eternal copyright as long as "investments" in it take place. What is the significance of the "public domain" if even 'Laurel and Hardy' are protected by European and international trademarks, e.g. for "record discs" (class 9) "entertainment" and "cultural activities" (class 41 - EU trademark 000794354)? Trademarks enjoy eternal protection as long as the trademarks are used and the protection periods are renewed through payment. >From the protection of inspiration to the protection of transpiration? Wim Schreurs -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- Van: cc-be-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:cc-be-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org]Namens cc-be-request at lists.ibiblio.org Verzonden: zondag 20 november 2005 18:00 Aan: cc-be at lists.ibiblio.org Onderwerp: Cc-be Digest, Vol 12, Issue 3 Send Cc-be mailing list submissions to cc-be at lists.ibiblio.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-be or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to cc-be-request at lists.ibiblio.org You can reach the person managing the list at cc-be-owner at lists.ibiblio.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Cc-be digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: IFPI Petition: Extend 50 years protection (Frederik Questier) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 13:56:28 +0100 From: Frederik Questier Subject: Re: [Cc-be] IFPI Petition: Extend 50 years protection To: cc-be at lists.ibiblio.org Message-ID: <200511201356.28847.frederik at questier.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Op Saturday 19 November 2005 14:05, schreef Wouter Vanden hove: > Hello, > > I would like to hear some opinions about the IFPI-petition in attachment. These are just the record companies, trying to make copyright protections infinite, killing the public domain, and increasing their control over the artists. > Exactly what is protected for 50 years? > > A songwriter writes lyrics for a song. > a performer sings this song in agreement with the songwriter and puts it > in a record to sell. > > Then what happens after 50 years? > All royalties stop to the singer, but not the songwriter? It means that when a performance is 50 years old, the copyrightholder of the performance (and that is almost always the record company and not the artists) is no longer the only one whose has control over the recording, who can make money of it, or copy it freely. This is of course in the case nobody else has still copyrights pending, such as the songwriter. So think about 50-year old performances of e.g. Beethoven's music. This means e.g. that is harder than it should be for other artists such as movie makers, to include old music in their own works... Compare it with Disney: they copied lots of things from the public domain, like Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, or a sad example: Pinocchio in 1940, one year after the copyright of Carlo Collodi finished. But now that their own creations like Mickey Mouse should finally have fallen into the public domain, they are the strongest pushers for never expiring copyrights... This extension is totally against the original copyright idea (UK 1710: "for the encouragement of learning"; US 1790: "to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.") Originally these protection terms were 14 years on request, renewable once on request for 14 years. If the record companies can't make enough profit by being the only one who can sell a specific product during 50 years, they have a very flawed business model. Compare this with products like medicines: these need typically an development investment of 300M Euros and can still be profitable with 20 years patent protection minus 10-12 years development. Extending the record companies' monopoly for another 50 years (yes, they ask 100 years), will even stifle innovation, as it will be much easier for those record companies to get the crazy high prices for the re-releases of these oldies (on HD-DVD or whatever is next) than to invest in new artists. Read also: http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,67783,00.html Frederik -- Free University - Free Software ! Vrije Universiteit - Vrije Software ! "The most fundamental way of helping other people, is to teach people how to do things better or how to better their lives. For people who use computers, this means sharing the recipes you use on your computer, in other words the programs you run." Richard Stallman, Free Software Foundation. -- Frederik Questier, PhD Onderwijsvernieuwing & Onderwijs Service Centrum Vrije Universiteit Brussel http://osc.vub.ac.be http://questier.com ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Cc-be mailing list Cc-be at lists.ibiblio.org http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-be End of Cc-be Digest, Vol 12, Issue 3 ************************************ From cuplyong at gmail.com Tue Nov 22 22:00:37 2005 From: cuplyong at gmail.com (Yong Liu) Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 11:00:37 +0800 Subject: [Cc-be] Fwd: [Cc-icommons] iCommons - the story continues... In-Reply-To: <498096330511221856pf4da50ft@mail.gmail.com> References: <498096330511221856pf4da50ft@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <96a293ee0511221900r2072e257m@mail.gmail.com> Dear All, At the end of last week I sent out an introductory email about the future of Creative Commons International and iCommons. I promised that more details would be coming this week. And here it is. This will not answer all your questions but I am hopeful that it will begin to answer the question of "what is iCommons?". Christiane Asschenfeldt (Executive Director of Creative Commons International) intends to send a similar email re-affirming the ongoing role and function of Creative Commons International and together they should provide an overall picture of the international community. For those of you that may not have had a chance to read my earlier email, I have included it at the bottom of this email for easy reference. ##iCommons Information - Location: International with an office in London, UK Staff supported by Creative Commons: Paula Le Dieu (Director, iCommons) Who else is iCommons?: Open to anyone that chooses to participate. This of course includes everyone that helps with the national porting projects but also authors, artists, creators, producers, users, campaigners, activists, the floss community - in fact, anyone interested in furthering the health of the commons. Funded by: Creative Commons provides initial funding for a fulltime staff role & London office costs. Long term, iCommons should aim to be financially independent of Creative Commons. Initial functions: 1. To provide an online "home" for the international voice of the Commons - eg. www.icommons.org/news 2. To provide an online "home" for a gateway to best practice Commons projects around the world - eg. www.icommons.org/projects 3. To provide an identity to unify and promote Commons campaigns and activities around the world - eg. www.icommons.org/campaigns 4. To provide a gateway that connects volunteers with Commons projects and campaigns - eg. www.icommons.org/commoners 5. To provide a co-ordination and facilitation role for the formation of international project and campaign consortiums that benefit the Commons. ##iCommons and Creative Commons and Creative Commons International... Creative Commons will soon celebrate another birthday. The CC staff are always thinking about better ways to deliver their goals and I will continue to use my position as a CC funded staff member to promote and facilitate the inclusion of the iCommoners' perspective in everything they do. Creative Commons International, the work that Christiane and many of you have undertaken to port and maintain licenses continues to go from strength to strength. The legal porting process is well developed and continues to provide guidance for those of you either porting or maintaining licenses. iCommons and Creative Commons International will work closely together in recognition that many of you will be actively participating in both the legal projects and iCommons. And finally, iCommons is born today! As of the end of last week, the charitable organisation incorporated in England is legally called iCommons. The first challenge is to create a website that provides a home for the realisation of the functions I have outlined above. Just as many of you worked towards the creation of a healthy commons by contributing to the license porting project, I am hopeful that many of you will want to continue to inspire and facilitate the use of those licenses and other tools and projects that grow the commons by contributing to, and benefiting from iCommons. Over the next few weeks I will be asking for participation in the first iCommons projects. Count down has begun :) Regards Paula ps. please feel free to send onto country lists. --------------- sent: 17th November 2005 subject: Creative Commons and iCommons Dear All, Recently Creative Commons celebrated the 24th launch of a Creative Commons local jurisdiction license (congratulations Slovenia!). With at least 70 local jurisdiction licenses expected over the next couple of years and millions of CC licensed objects, it is clear that Creative Commons is an extraordinary international phenomenon. However, as we started to discuss at the iSummit in June, this rate of growth brings with it the need to re-think the organisational structure and to think carefully about how Creative Commons presents itself to an international public. As we've grown, we've come to recognize that the diversity and energy of the communities that have been started under the iCommons project need their own institutional structure. That institution needs to support more than the licensing project that has been the core mission of Creative Commons. We have therefore decided to migrate the iCommons project to its own separate legal entity. That entity will be called "iCommons"; it will have its own board, and is now incorporated with nonprofit status in the UK. I will serve as the executive director of this new entity. For now, iCommons continues as a subsidiary of Creative Commons, and will be supported by Creative Commons. But eventually, depending upon how iCommons grows, it could become a wholly separate entity, devoted to spreading CC licenses, as well as addressing the wide range of issues that have the attention of our iCommons partners. Whether, and how, iCommons develops will depend upon what you decide. Creative Commons will continue to work to launch Creative Commons licenses within legal jurisdictions around the world. Christiane Asschenfeldt will direct that project from Berlin with the help of a new assistant, Eva Lutterbuese (eva at creativecommons.org ), as well as with Tessi Rieber, who will continue to work for the Berlin office as a student intern for two days per week. It has been Christiane's work so far that made the the international movement of Creative Commons possible. But if we are to keep the high quality that the licensing project requires, it is essential that Creative Commons keeps strong direction over the licensing project, as distinct from the other great work of the iCommons community. Therefore, in the future, new countries entering into the porting project will work with Christiane to launch licenses within their jurisdiction. Those licenses will continue to be maintained both locally and through Creative Commons. Then, depending upon the interest within the country, community members can then join iCommons. We expect iCommons to be a home for many "free culture" projects internationally. But the core will always be you. Christiane's project to internationalize the work of Creative Commons will be named "Creative Commons International." That project will continue to be supported within Creative Commons. Over the next months, we will be adding a great deal more detail to this new structuring and in doing so we hope we will address many of the questions that are raised by this first email. However it is important to note that while the world of Creative Commons International will be very defined in keeping with the renewed focus on the licenses, the world of iCommons will be far more open. Start to think about how you think you would like to contribute to iCommons, how it should be structured as a volunteer organisation and about the kinds of activities it should be engaged in. Remember, Creative Commons is supporting iCommons initially but the responsibility for it in the long term resides with the community. What do you want to achieve and how can we structure it to ensure that you succeed? There are lots of questions that we will be answering in a second email that is coming on Monday, so stay tuned. Paula Le Dieu Executive Director iCommons paula at creativecommons.org _______________________________________________ Cc-icommons mailing list Cc-icommons at lists.ibiblio.org http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-icommons -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-be/attachments/20051123/118723a9/attachment.html