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Subject: Creative Commons Jurisdiction Teams in Sub-Saharan Africa

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  • From: Tobias Schonwetter <tobias AT creativecommons.org>
  • To: CC Africa mailing list <ccafrica AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [ccAfrica] CC and copyright reform
  • Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2013 11:57:47 +0200

Dear CC Africa list members:

a happy new year to all of you! This year is going to be a very exciting one for Creative Commons in Africa for sure.

I would like to get this year's discussions on this list started by introducing you to a very exciting global discussion about Creative Commons licensing and copyright reform more generally, and I would like to hear your opinions to enrich the discussions at CC HQ and make sure that our African voice is heard. The discussion started as a result of the following petition by CC members to CC HQ at the Global Congress on IP and the Public Interest in Rio in December 2012:

"As a group of CC affiliates who have participated in the 2nd global congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest in Rio de Janeiro from 15-17 December we want to initiate a discussion on the relationship between Creative Commons and the copyright reform movements that have been gathered at the Global Summit. 

We are pleased to see that so many CC affiliates, including our organizations, take an active role in the copyright reform movements that are gaining momentum around the world (about 1/6th of the participants of the Global Congress were CC affiliates). At the same time we are concerned that as Creative Commons we do not have a shared position or agenda that can guide our work - for example, in a forum like the Global Congress - and that can ensure that Creative Commons is fully contributing to the copyright reform agenda that is currently being discussed.

Given this we feel that it is time to have a discussion among the network (that is the affiliate teams and HQ) aimed at clarifying the position of Creative Commons with regards to the copyright reform agenda. We are specifically thinking about how Creative Commons can support the push for more robust user rights (in the form of flexible Limitations and Exceptions) to strengthen it's core mission to act as the steward of the Creative Commons licensing suite. We believe that a robust “stewardship of the commons” model needs to include both approaches.

We are calling for an open discussion about this issue among the members of the network and headquarters in an open forum like this mailing list aimed at coming up with a position of the Creative Commons as a whole. We are aware that, given the diversity of the network and the diverging institutional interests of the affiliates and HQ, this will not be a simple task. Nevertheless we feel that it is important that we attempt to clarify our position in this important policy space."


My questions to this list are as follows:
(1) what is your response to this petition - do you agree that such a discussion should take place at CC and why;
(2) some CC members around the world are concerned that Creative Commons licensing could actually stifle important copyright reform initiatives as the argument could be made that because the short comings of copyright laws in terms of allowing access to copyrighted materials could be "fixed" by using CC licences, no real need exists for a more comprehensive (and certainly very controversial) debate around copyright law as such. Do you think this is a valid concern? How could we respond to such concerns?

I am looking forward to receiving your comments.

Best,

Tobias
--
Dr. Tobias Schonwetter
Regional Coordinator: Africa
Creative Commons


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  • [ccAfrica] CC and copyright reform, Tobias Schonwetter, 01/11/2013

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