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  • From: Gisle Hannemyr <gisle AT ifi.uio.no>
  • To: cc-europe AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [CC-Europe] EDRI
  • Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:46:57 +0200

On 27.03.2012 10:15, Jonas Öberg wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Cathy and I had a brief meeting with Marie Humeau from EDRI yesterday
> to talk about what they're doing in relation to what's on the CC
> agenda and what's current in the European Parliament. It was a very
> informal meeting that we'll follow up at some later point with Joe
> McMcNamee. We did notice during the discussion that we do have some
> overlap between EDRI members and CC affiliates: Internet Society
> Bulgaria, Iuridicum Remedium, Metamorphosis, SOIT and FSFI. I might
> have missed some.

FYI: Electronic Frontier Norway (EFN) - Norway is an EDRI affiliate
and the president of EFN, Thomas Gramstad, is also a member of the
CC Norway board.

> What are peoples perception of EDRI and the work that they're doing?
> Would it for instance be useful for CC to engage in some way with
> EDRI? As you likely know, EDRI is engaged with digital rights
> generally of which CC licensing is one part of interest, but where
> their work is much broader than this. It's not clear what the
> relations could be, or if it's even possible for CC to engage in any
> way, but your thoughts would be appreciated.

Personally, I think that Creative Commons Europe should *not* be
actively involved with EDRI or similar "digital rights" advocacy
groups beyond working with them to broaden the acceptance for
CC and CC licensing.

Since all those that have responded so far (Alek, Fedrico, Mathias,
Prodromos, Veni) has been very much in favour of broader involvement
with EDRI, I hate to be the grumpy old man. But I really think we
need to be careful about this. Here's why:

Creative Commons' mission is making CC licenses available to the
public, educating the public about the use of these licenses, and
making sure the quality of those licenses hold up in court under
*current* copyright law.

While it is possible that many CC supporters are in favour of
copyright reform, unlimited freedom of speech, broad digital
rights, piracy (as defined by the European pirate parties), and
likewise opposed to things like the DRD, PIPA, SOPA, ACTA and ITU
style Internet governance - all those issues are strictly outside
the scope of CC. Organizations like EDRI exists to coordinate
activism around these issues, and individuals (including
CC officers) who feel these are important issues should of course
consider working for/with EDRI, etc. - but *only* as individuals.

As public lead of CC Norway, I would hate to represent CC in
a room full of artists, and being asked to explain *why*
CC Europe is cooperating with EDRI in opposing ACTA. I think
the only thing I would be able to say in such a situation
would be: "Sorry, but I was invited to talk about how CC licensing
can work for artists, so I am not going to say anything about
ACTA.

AFAIK, CC International, as such, does *not* have a position for
or against things like the DRD, PIPA, SOPA, ACTA, ITU style
Internet governance, etc. - nor should CC International take
such positions.

If CC Europe plans to change this, and *as an organisation*
cooperate with various cyber-activist groups on issues *other*
than licensing, then CC Europe will move into a territory
where our core activity (to provide licenses for free culture)
will be associated with political agendas that I fear some
CC supporters (will myself at least) cannot support, nor want
to be associated with.
--
- gisle hannemyr [ gisle{at}hannemyr.no - http://folk.uio.no/gisle/ ]
========================================================================
"Don't follow leaders // Watch the parkin' meters" - Bob Dylan




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