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  • From: Paul Keller <pk AT kl.nl>
  • To: "J.C. DE MARTIN" <demartin AT polito.it>
  • Cc: cc-europe AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Cc-europe] MoC draft V0.7, two weeks for review
  • Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:21:51 +0200

On 14 Apr 2009, at 22:45, J.C. DE MARTIN wrote:

Dear Juan Carlos,
thank you for sharing your thoughts on this issue. Let my try to clarify some points that might not have been entirely clear for people that have not been able to participate in the discussions in Zürich and London.

I am sorry I could only partially attend the Zurich meeting
(which unfortunately started late) and not at all the London one
(due to a mix of short notice and personal matters);
in person it would been more fun and probably more
productive to discuss this complex topic. Sorry for that.

Anyway, we have been saying for years that
it would be useful to have a "CC Europe face"
(or "front door"), and I still fully share that view.

However, I think we can achieve such objective in a
much more lightweight form than currently envisioned,
more IETF than ITU, if you allow me to oversimplify.

If, in fact, we limit ourselves -as mentioned at some point
in person with some you- to establishing:

1. a cc-europe website which could aggregate CC news from
European jurisdictions (volunteer work by all of us) and
host common "CC Europe" statements, documents, etc.
2. a spokesperson (with attached email and phone numbers that
journalists and others could call),

the discussion in Zurich did indeed revolve around creating a legal entity and we left Zurich more or less determined to set up a legal enity (i guess non lawyers would call this and organisation). During the discussion in london this idea has been pushed to the background and i think rightly so. i think partially this was motivated by the idea that we might not necessarily need one, and partially this was the consequence of being informed by catharaina about the more lightweight approach the cc-asia group has chosen. The pre-london version of the memorandum of understanding was a MoU that was intended to establish an organisation/legal entity. In the current version of the MoU we primarily express our intent to collaborate and provide a cc-europe face (intended for certain types of activities and based on a number of fairly basic procedures). As far as i can see this should be pretty much in line with what you are arguing for.

There are currently two elements in the MoU that go beyond what you are arguing for and one could argue that these two are 'leftovers' of the original text intended to form a legal entity:

The first one is the sentence: 'this may entail the formation of a legal entity named „CC Europe“' in the first point under Activities and the second one is the fact that fundraising is mentioned very prominently as the 2nd activity we foresee. if we would leave both of these out then the current MoU would probably formalize what you have in mind (and i guess this means that we could have a common face by the torino meeting_)

we could achieve a lot (not all, granted) with not much effort.

The spokeperson could be elected yearly by rough consensus,
and will deal with what she/he can on the spot (e.g., interviews),
and otherwise act as a switch to national representatives
(no light task, to be sure).
The spokesperson could also have a vice-spokesperson
in case the load of such (necessarily pro bono) work
became too much to bear.

i do not see that much of a difference between what you describe here and what is laid down in the MoU. with the MoU in place the spokespeople (called representatives in the MoU) will have a bit more legitimacy, so i actually prefer the MoU route over the rough consensus.

Some people, I believe, contemplate a CC Europe legal entity
because of potential funding that could go only to a CC Europe entity
(I do not see any other reason for the pain of going legal: am I missing
anything?).
I think this is mistaken on two grounds:
1. I am not aware of any funding that could go ONLY to such kind of entity
(as opposed to national institutions).
2. Even if there were such funding, the CC Europe entity would necessarily
be a very weak proponent in any formal grant seeking process,
as it would have not budget, no actual staff, no facilities,
no previous experience ....

i think you have tow valid points here but i do not see why this makes having cc-europe as an entity a bad thing. if we would somehow achieve to get funding (and this is not necessarily limited to EU funding but could very well be a reserach grant or other type of grant for a common project of cc, cc-europe and cc-asia (think a more internationalized version of the non-commercial study for example) than this would not be a bad thing. GIven this i think we should not rule out having a legal entity, but i completely agree that it should neither be our priority nor that it is something that is very realistic at this moment.

In summary, i do think that the current proposal for a MoU is not that far away from what you are arguing for and i do agree with you that our priority should be creating a European face (by way of website and spokespersons) and then work on getting ourselves invited to the relevant fora and making our voice heard on the european level. Once we have achieved this we might think about setting up a legal entity and go fundraising. I think the current text is a good basis for such an approach, but if there are more prople who feel about these issues like you it might be a good idea to soften the text of the MoU a bit by changing the first point to:

Hereby agree to cooperate under the terms of this Memorandum under the name of CC-Europe. Together the Members will engage in the following activities, especially as far as they cannot reasonably be entered into by one or more Members themselves:

and then taking the fundraising part, moving it all the way to the end of the activities section and rephrasing it like this:

Should the opportunity arrise, offer a platform to attract funding that is available on a transnational scale only or
otherwise not attractable by CC Jurisdiction Projects. this may entail the formation of a legal entity named CC-Europe.

does this make sense..

Therefore I encourage all of you to carefully consider
an alternative more lightweight approach (what I sketched above
is only a tentative draft) - that would also have the added benefit
that, if we wanted, it could be up and running in a week:
isn't it a nice thought? :-)

i guess it will take a little bit longer than a week if we stick to the MoU approach, but i guess we could still be running by the time of the torino meeting (or earlier if we sign and vote via mail or wiki or something like that).

all the best from the launch of cc-czech republic in beautiful prague,
paul

p.s i have approached the owners of the domain creativecommons.eu (a dutch domain squatting company) and asked them for a quote. so far they have only replied that they dont really know what it would cost. i have told them to make up their mind and get back to me, so far without any reaction.


Best,

juan carlos


John Hendrik Weitzmann wrote:
hi all,

please find attached the latest version of the draft for a Memorandum of
Cooperation for the future work of CC Europe. It is based on the first
draft V0.1, sent over the list on 23rd of March, with the following
contributions to result in this new version:

- changes agreed upon at the CC Europe meeting in London, 28th March
(marked in green)
- minor language corrections made by me afterwards (marked in yellow)
- input from CCi regarding some details (marked in ubuntu orange)

In order to get things going, the people attending the London meeting
decided to ask all other european CC project leads to consider the MoC
as it stands now and propose really important changes within a period of
two weeks. So, please do so until 17th of April, if you think that
something is utterly wrong or unclear in this text. We can then see how
to adress that or maybe explain things better. Pro, Peter, Paul,
Catharina, me and the others attending London are happy to answer
(almost) any question :)

After Friday in two weeks, if no substantial problems arise, I'll assume
that this version is more or less o.k. with everyone and that we can
start the signing process.

I'll then post the final version of the MoC over this list as ODT, PDF
and DOC and everyone interested can print it, sign it and send it to
CCi, who are so nice as to offer to keep track of who signed (and keep
that synchronised to official CC affiliation, which is a key
prerequisite). Hopefully we will have most european project leads aboard
by Torino in June.
(BTW: There's little need to feel obliged in any way to become member to
the MoC. If someone doesn't want to sign, they can still attend meetings
etc. but, for example, they cannot vote on representation or represent
CC Europe themselves)

Take care and see you soon,
John
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