This week I presented at an event organised by MEP Amelia Andersotter at the European Parliament. This was a screening of three short films produced by the Blender Foundation and released under a Creative Commons licence. I was already familiar with some of Blender’s work, the excellent Elephants Dream (the Read more…
Creative Commons has released the first draft of the 4.0 version of its licences for public comment, and while there is much to discuss about it, I will be doing it in a later post. The following words are prompted by something that I have noticed arising from the public Read more…
Since 2004 I have been the technical editor of SCRIPTed, the open access journal of Law and Technology published by the SCRIPT Centre in Edinburgh. This involvement has survived all other Edinburgh-related commitments, and has become one of the most rewarding aspects of my academic life. Every four months I Read more…
Last week, Yours Truly attended the 5th edition of the Creative Commons Summit in Warsaw, Poland. This was an impressive event bringing together Creative Commons affiliates and enthusiasts from all over the world. Anyone who has been following the rise of Creative Commons as an international movement may have noticed Read more…
(Apologies to Aurelia and John for feeding the trolls). From time to time I come across an insidious, wrong-headed yet pervasive meme floating around the Internet; it can be encapsulated like this: Creative Commons is bad because it affects creators. How does it do it? There are two different versions Read more…
Through Twitter we have learned a staggering new development in Portugal, which threatens Creative Commons licences and other open content licensing schemes. According to several reports, the Portuguese Socialist Party is announcing that it will push for a reform to its copyright legislation that will make economic rights inalienable and Read more…
I’ve read with great interest the text of a presentation by Dr Francis Gurry to the Blue Sky Conference: Future Directions in Copyright Law, held in Queensland at the end of February. Dr Gurry is the Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organisation, and I believe that his presentation Read more…
(via Esther Hoorn) This is such a jewel that I felt like sharing. Click on this link with a video presentation from Larry Lessig entitled “What CC Was For?” When you try to go to the presentation, you are introduced to this screen: No need to add anything really, sometimes Read more…
(via Carlos Solís) This one is self-explanatory. One of my favourite observations about the copyright wars comes from Tim O’Reilly, who commented that “Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.” In the words of Cory Doctorow, you cannot monetize obscurity. Nina Paley (of Sita Read more…
Professor Séverine Dussollier of the University of Namur has emailed us to let us know about a new case involving Creative Commons in Belgium, and has kindly agreed to allow me to repeat her short analysis of the case here. She writes: A Belgian court today has applied the CC Read more…