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Public Domain Awareness Project

Enhancing use of CC’s Public Domain tools for GLAM institutions and re-users

Part 1: Challenges to supporting a robust public domain in a complicated ecosystem

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Welcome!

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Logistics for the whole session

Part 1: Speakers will give an introduction and general overview to the problem, and temptative roadmap.

Part 2: Discussion in four break-out groups: Legal, GLAM, Re-users, and Tech.

Part 3: Discussion of the roadmap, and follow-up on next steps.

Scann: “I’ll explain briefly the logistics for the whole session, and for the breakout groups will have a better, more detailed explanation before breaking out. This session has three parts that total 3 hs. Part 1 speakers will give us a general overview of what is the problem that we have at hand: the complexities and challenges of public domain jurisdictional rules in a world where digital heritage is being shared globally. Then,Diane will present the temptative roadmap CC has been working on, followed up by a short discussion. On Part II, we’ll break out in 4 different groups (legal, GLAM, reusers and tech). Each group will have a set of questions that we have designed with leaders and moderators of the groups, and groups are supposed to have around 30 minutes for each set of questions, and some report back to all of us before continuing with the discussion. Lastly, on our last day, on Part III, Diane and I will focus on the notes and outcomes of this session, report back, and discuss follow-up and next steps. The outcomes of the discussion will help inform next steps, research and scope of the project.”

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Agenda and notes

Agenda for the whole session is available here: http://bit.ly/pdaj-agenda
General notes here: http://bit.ly/pdaj-notes
Notes for each group here:

GLAM: http://bit.ly/pdaj-notes-glam
LEGAL: http://bit.ly/pdaj-notes-legal
TECH: http://bit.ly/pdaj-notes-tech
REUSERS: http://bit.ly/pdaj-notes-reusers

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The Structure of the Public Domain

Professor Michael Carroll

American University Washington College of Law

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Public Domain is the default

The commons that we’re building starts with the public domain – copyright, related rights, and special laws are temporary exceptions to the commons.

One goal of CC licenses it to communicate the applicable terms of permissions and use with licensed works.

Users do not currently have equal clarity about the public domain.

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Public Domain is the default

Marking and tagging the Public Domain is valuable.

There are some complications, but this should still be the goal.

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Copyright’s Recognition of the Public Domain

How do we get the absence of copyright?

Not copyrightable – ideas, math, inventions, shapes, [data], etc
Never copyrighted – Macbeth, the Illiad, the Grecian urn, the pyramids, the Rosetta Stone,
Was protected and copyright has expired

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The Global Public Domain

With respect to copyright expiration:

Works from the early 19^th century and before are in the global public domain (even if there are other use-based restrictions)

Otherwise, lack of harmonization creates complications for more recent works.

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The Global Public Domain - limits

Timing for copyright expiration varies
Some countries have special laws or term extensions for categories or even individual works.

Works created during WW II - France
The Little Prince
Crown copyright

Then there are use-taxes on works in the Public Domain

“Paying Public Domain” – small number of countries
Peter Pan - UK
Public Lending Right – more common
Use of cultural heritage imagery

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Creative Commons Public Domain Tools

PD - Creative Commons Public Domain Mark

Used to mark existing 3^rd party material in the global public domain.
CC does not have jurisdiction-specific marking for PD works.

CC0 - Creative Commons Public Domain Waiver

Where the creator intends to waive all copyright and related rights in the work

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Marking and Tagging the Public Domain

Timing for copyright expiration varies
Some countries have special laws or term extensions for categories or even individual works.

Works created during WW II - France
Peter Pan or The Little Prince
Crown copyright

Then there are use-taxes on works in the Public Domain

“Paying Public Domain”
Public Lending Right
Use of cultural heritage imagery

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Marking and Tagging the Public Domain

Different Goals:

Precision for institutions, archives, and GLAM professionals who want to capture the information they have
Encouragement and freedom to act for end users and creators.

We shouldn’t let complication obscure the value of marking the public domain when we can.

For areas where you have reasonable certainty, use the PD mark, where you don’t, look to the Rights Statements
Rights statements document important information, but they are not licenses and have a different immediate purpose.

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Paul Keller

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Article 14 DSM: Works of visual art in the public domain

Member States shall provide that, when the term of protection of a work of visual art has expired, any material resulting from an act of reproduction of that work is not subject to copyright or related rights, unless the material resulting from that act of reproduction is original in the sense that it is the author's own intellectual creation.

❤️

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Our objective: encourage the use of standardised expression of rights information in the cultural heritage sector

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RightsStatements.org provides 12 standardized rights statements for online cultural heritage (intended for use in situations where the CC licenses and PD tools cannot be used)

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source: World copyright terms.svg by Balfour Smith, Canuckguy, Badseed, Martsniez, CC-BY

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Current approach:

Separate jurisdiction specific statement

Alternative approach:

General statement + rationale
Rationale = jurisdiction or x years PMA?
Encode death date in statement?

Jurisdiction specific No Copyright statements

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Andrea Wallace

Douglas McCarthy

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http://bit.ly/OpenGLAMsurvey

Douglas McCarthy and Andrea Wallace

The Open GLAM survey examines how GLAMs make open access data – whether digital objects, metadata or text – available for re-use.

Started in March 2018
Informal and crowdsourced initiative
Ongoing and growing:

30 GLAMs in March 2018 600+ GLAMs today

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http://bit.ly/OpenGLAMsurvey

Douglas McCarthy and Andrea Wallace

Why we started the survey

Information gap

Lack of up-to-date information on this topic
No ‘shared place’ to see/add relevant data
Perceived European & North American bias in the field;

we are motivated to discover the global picture

To develop a resource for

people who want to find & use open content or data
GLAMs exploring open access data & policy

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http://bit.ly/OpenGLAMsurvey

Douglas McCarthy and Andrea Wallace

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https://medium.com/@CultureDoug/uncovering-the-global-picture-of-open-glam-af364aadeeee

Douglas McCarthy, “Uncovering the global picture of Open GLAM,” Medium 4 April 2019

Definition of open access

‘Open means anyone can freely access, use, modify, and share for any purpose.’ (The Open Definition)

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https://medium.com/@CultureDoug/uncovering-the-global-picture-of-open-glam-af364aadeeee

Douglas McCarthy, “Uncovering the global picture of Open GLAM,” Medium 4 April 2019

Conformant legal tools

and equivalents

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https://medium.com/@CultureDoug/open-access-scope-in-open-glam-70461bec2bca

Douglas McCarthy, “Open Access Scope in Open GLAM,” Medium 6 May 2019

Scope

The survey covers only digital surrogates of objects in the public domain, where any term of copyright for the material object has expired or never existed in the first place
The survey includes all GLAMs make available on their websites and/or external platforms such as Github, Europeana, German Digital Library or Wikimedia Commons
Only open access data is eligible (no NC or ND licences)

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https://medium.com/@CultureDoug/licensing-policy-and-practice-in-open-glam-49c867b49de8

Douglas McCarthy, “Licensing policy and practice in Open GLAM,” Medium 16 April 2019

Policy vs practice

The survey’s ‘Online Policy’ field links to the most relevant rights policy and terms of use information that GLAMs provide on their websites (when available),

BUT

these pages are often generic and lacking in detail
GLAM policy statements are often conflicting,

subject to change and do not expressly disclaim copyright

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http://bit.ly/OpenGLAMsurvey

Douglas McCarthy and Andrea Wallace

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http://bit.ly/OpenGLAMsurvey

Douglas McCarthy and Andrea Wallace

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http://bit.ly/OpenGLAMsurvey

Douglas McCarthy and Andrea Wallace

Medium Series� by Douglas McCarthy

Part 1: Uncovering the global picture of Open GLAM

https://medium.com/@CultureDoug/uncovering-the-global-picture-of-open-glam-af364aadeeee

Part 2: Licensing policy and practice in Open GLAM

https://medium.com/@CultureDoug/licensing-policy-and-practice-in-open-glam-49c867b49de8

Part 3: Open Access Scope in Open GLAM

https://medium.com/@CultureDoug/open-access-scope-in-open-glam-70461bec2bca

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Jorge Gemetto & Scann

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Database of authors - Main challenges kickstarters

Lack of local, accurate information about authors (i.e. other databases such as VIAF are useless for GS);
paying public domain, but no information about who’s in the public domain;
therefore no info about what works can be digitized, impossibility to measure the impact of copyright extensions.

JORGE: The reason that led to the creation of this project was to identify the works that were in the public domain in order to digitize them and upload them to the Internet. Information about the date of death of the authors was previously dispersed or not publicly accessible. Therefore, there was very little information about what works were in the public domain. That made it very difficult to digitize works safely.

Another reason that motivated the project was also to measure the impact of copyright extensions. That is, to measure (and communicate to the public) all the cultural heritage that would have to be removed from the internet if the copyright term was increased (in Uruguay it is 50 years post mortem). Without systematized information, that was impossible.

Finally, another difficulty we have in particular in Argentina and Uruguay is that there is a paying public domain. That is, there is no complete public domain. Works in the public domain can be published, performed and shared without asking permission, but in theory you have to pay to the State through a collecting society. This paying public domain, up to now, is applied mainly to the publication of physical books, to the representation of plays and the exhibition of films in cinemas. In other words, it works in the offline world, but so far there have been no attempts to charge for content in the public domain available on the Internet. However, it is a latent threat, and it is one of the main barriers to go out and seek financing for our project (if money is collected to sustain the project, we may be required to pay a public domain fee).

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Main challenges today

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Internationalization: only adopted in some countries

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Scalability: development, loads, digitization, all volunteer; no funding

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Technology: using Drupal with modules + PHP

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Technology: few automated data extraction flows (regex + xpath)

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Sources: lack of sources, © of original sources, digitization

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Data roundtripping: info in WD doesn’t go back to CMS

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Lack of institutional support: personal project style

"Arkhai" by Bianka Schumann is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0

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In a nutshell

Scalability & internationalization: only replicated in a few countries; volunteer work; manual loads
Technology: the CMS is difficult to implement, install and maintain; few automated data extraction workflows
Sources: access to sources, © of original sources, digitization
Data roundtripping: info that goes to WD doesn’t go back to the CMS
Lack of institutional support: personal project style

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Structured �and machine-readable data �for copyright and licensing �on @wikicommons and @wikidata

Sandra Fauconnier @sanseveria sfauconnier@wikimedia.org

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Wikimedia projects

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Centralizes interwiki links
Centralizes data in infoboxes
Offers an interface for ‘rich queries’

Multilingual
Machine-readable
Referenced
All data is CC0 – freely reusable by everyone

Founded in 2012

Structures the ‘sum of all human knowledge’

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Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons

2017-19

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Structured_data

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The work�https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q61483227

Digital representations

Dakar Railway Station, photo CC BY-SA Unported, by J.W.H. van der WAAL, Wikimedia Commons

The Monument Demba et Dupont, Place du Tirailleur Sénégalais in Dakar, Senegal, photo CC BY-SA 3.0 Spain, by Inextre, Wikimedia Commons

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Creative works on Wikidata

Not easy to count, but here are some numbers...

As of 30 April 2019:

Works of art: 1,700,000�(~400,000 paintings, see Sum of All Paintings project, and many GLAM partnerships)�Films: 284,000�Items that use the 'creator (P170)' property: 490,000�Items that use the 'author (P50)' property: almost 4,000,000� (many are scientific papers, through the WikiCite project)

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Property for indicating copyright of creative works:

P6216

Copyright status

Already used on more than 300,000 creative works on Wikidata

Two possible values

Public domain
Copyrighted

(Each work can have multiple of these, and also both values combined)

To be qualified (enhanced) with additional information

WORK IN PROGRESS!

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Help:Copyrights on Wikidata

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Help:Copyrights �or https://w.wiki/3VD

Kudos to Jarekt and Hanno Lans!

For creative works (Wikidata)
And digital representations of those works (Wikimedia Commons)

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A simple(r) example...

The musical Little Johnny Jones (1923) by George M. Cohan (1878-1942)

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6650560

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Hanno Lans & Maarten Zeinstra

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Copyclear process

collection

status NL

object

creator 1

creator 2

status VS

wikidata

copyright

checker

WikimediaCommons

publication

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Conclusions / best practices / principles

Each work needs to have copyright determination per country
Information is based on open data, but can rely on private data from institutions
We profiling / stereotype authors, we make assumptions
Rules are often too specific, we use broader categories for our determination
Accept that there are always risks involved in automatic public domain determination

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THE GOAL

To identify and coordinate existing projects and resources, and identify and build missing tools, technologies and resources, in support of a sustainable, comprehensive, connected, end-to-end solution stretching from the moment of digitization to the end-user.

PUBLIC DOMAIN AWARENESS PROJECT

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Resource intensive
Difficult to interpret for the end-users

Challenges – for digitizers and reusers

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Work Plan: a Proposal in Three Phases

Understanding the ecosystem and needs
Publish final Design and Work Plan
Build tools and connections linking projects and resources

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Phase I: Understanding the ecosystem and needs

Global Summit: understand needs and issues from perspectives of digitizers of content, intermediaries and end users, legal, and technology
Collect and document current efforts and projects, identify gaps
Publish outcomes from Summit and research for public input
Gather stakeholders to prepare draft Design and Work Plan
Refine Phase I and Phase II objectives
Secure commitments from key stakeholders and funders for Phase II

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Phase II: Publish final Design and Work Plan

Hold public discussion on proposed Design and Work Plan
Gather stakeholders to prepare detailed implementation plan
Finalize and publish Design and Work Plan
Refine Phase III objectives
Secure commitments from key stakeholders and funders for Phase III

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Phase III: Implementation and long-term planning

Pursue implementation according to Design and Work Plan
Develop and secure funding to maintain all elements and ensure long-term sustainability
Develop a public domain advocacy strategy to increase the awareness over public domain content and the need of a standardized, global set of rules.

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Open discussion

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Agenda and notes

Agenda for the whole session is available here: http://bit.ly/pdaj-agenda
General notes here: http://bit.ly/pdaj-notes
Notes for each group here:

GLAM: http://bit.ly/pdaj-notes-glam
LEGAL: http://bit.ly/pdaj-notes-legal
TECH: http://bit.ly/pdaj-notes-tech
REUSERS: http://bit.ly/pdaj-notes-reusers

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10’ Break - grab coffee and get ready!

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Public Domain Awareness Project

Enhancing use of CC’s Public Domain tools for GLAM institutions and re-users

Part 2: Exploring dependencies and legal/tech solutions for GLAM institutions and reusers

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Logistics for Part II

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Note taking

Notes are VERY important.

Designate at least one notetaker; two would be ideal.
If you are taking notes in papers, posts its, etc., make sure to capture / photograph them and paste them into the Notes doc later on.

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Notes for each group

GLAM: http://bit.ly/pdaj-notes-glam
LEGAL: http://bit.ly/pdaj-notes-legal
TECH: http://bit.ly/pdaj-notes-tech
REUSERS: http://bit.ly/pdaj-notes-reusers

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4 Breakout groups

GLAM (Leads: Scann, Paul Keller, Roger Gillis)
LEGAL (Leads: Diane Peters & Meredith Jacob)
REUSERS (Leads: Sarah Pearson & Alex Stinson)
TECH (Leads: Alden Page & Maarten Zeinstra)

30 minutes each group; questions on the notes & agenda.

Organized around a same topic but dive into specific issues.

~5 minutes to report back to the general group.

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In each set of questions, please identify:

the nature of the challenges as framed
who experiences the challenges and who will benefit from a solution
what’s necessary to solve or ease the challenge for those audience(s), and who needs to be involved in crafting its solution
tangible action items and immediate next steps

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Public Domain Awareness Project

Enhancing use of CC’s Public Domain tools for GLAM institutions and re-users

Part 3: Designing a roadmap and next steps

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Logistics for Part III