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The European Parliament and the EU Council announced on June 6th to have achieved one further step toward EU legislation on ‘orphan works’ (we’re deliberately using ‘orphan works’ with comas because if this appellation is commonly used, it is based upon a metaphor being potentially misguiding; see our former post on Prof. Lydia Loren’s proposal […]

U.S Law Professor Lydia Loren has just published a draft paper that contains what may be one of the most sensible contributions to the ongoing discussion about the ‘orphan works problem’. In her paper ‘Abandoning the Orphans: An Open Access Approach to Hostage Works‘ she makes a strong argument that the very name that has […]

In November, Communia made a statement to support the Scoping Study on Copyright and Related Rights and the Public Domain by Séverine Dusollier (document CDIP/7/INF/2) discussed at the WIPO Committee on Development and Intellectual Property (CDIP). Three recommendations had been selected by the member states for further work by the WIPO secretariat: 1.c. The voluntary […]

We are glad to announce that the COMMUNIA Thematic Network’s Final Report, as approved by the European Commission, is available online: http://communia-project.eu/final-report. The Report of the eponymous Thematic Network provides a basis for action taken up by its successor, the COMMUNIA International Association. The document is depicting a wide range of issues and is proposing […]

The book “The Digital Public Domain: Foundations for an Open Culture”, edited by Melanie Dulong de Rosnay and Juan Carlos De Martin as an output of the Communia Thematic Network which took place between 2007 and 2011 and is at the origin of Communia Association, is out in all formats (hardback, paperback, and digital editions) […]

Information Sans Frontières (ISF), an alliance representing public cultural heritage institutions in Europe, has published a new position statement on the proposed Orphan Works directive. On 23 March the ISF reacted to the recent changes in the proposal that resulted from the ongoing negotiations between Council, Parliament and the Commission stating that it was “deeply […]

This post by Lucie Guibault was first published on the Kluwer Copyright Blog and is reproduced here with kind permission of the author. The Proposal for a Directive on certain permitted uses of orphan works, introduced in the European Parliament on 24 May 2011, has been following its merry way through the legislative meanders ever […]

Following the trend established by the Communia Thematic Network, we celebrated Public Domain Day in Paris on the 26th of January with an event organised by the Communia Association, Wikimedia France, Creative Commons France, the CNRS Institute for Communication Sciences and the Open Knowledge Foundation. What unites all these organisations is that they share the […]

In line with an issue raised in our policy paper on the proposed amendments to PSI Directive there is now a Spanish petition that asks the Europeana Commission to propose a single open data license to be used for Public Sector Information across all EU member states: Dear Neelie Kroes, We sincerely admire the courage […]

The European Thematic Network on Legal Aspects of Public Sector Information (LAPSI, coordinated by Politecnico, NEXA Research Center, Torino) is hosting its 2nd public conference in Bruxelles on January 23rd & 24th. As the European Commission is presenting a proposal for a Directive amending the 2003 Directive on re-use of public sector information, the question […]