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This CDIP/10 second statement on Scenarios and Possible Options Concerning Recommendations 1c, 1f and 2a of the Scoping Study on Copyright and Related Rights and the Public Domain (CDIP/9/INF/2 Rev.) is following Communia’s previous statements delivered at: – CDIP/10 commenting on Terms of Reference for a Comparative Study on Copyright Relinquishment (document CDIP/10/14), – CDIP/9 on […]

WIPO CDIP/10 – Geneva, November 12 to 16, 2012 This statement on the Terms of Reference for a Comparative Study on Copyright Relinquishment by the WIPO Secretariat (CDIP/10/14) is following Communia’s previous statements delivered at CDIP/8 and CDIP/9 supporting the Scoping Study on Copyright and Related Rights and the Public Domain by Séverine Dusollier (document […]

This post by Lucie Guibault was first published on the Kluwer Copyright Blog and is reproduced here with kind permission of the author. Last week, the European Parliament approved the draft Directive on certain permitted uses of orphan works. The approval of the Council of Ministers is expected to occur shortly. This is big news […]

Messenger boy / The Library of Congress / No known copyright restrictions Last week the Communia Association submitted comments (PDF) to the United States Library of Congress’ Request for Information on the topic of Third Party Digitization Initiatives. To give a little bit of context, the Library of Congress is looking for contractors to digitize some […]

COMMUNIA member and La Quadrature du Net co-founder Phillippe Aigrain has published 14 proposals for the reform of copyright policy and related cultural policies. The proposal, titled ‘Elements for the reform of copyright and related cultural policies‘ contains 14 interlined reform proposals that attempt to bring cultural policies and copyright in line with the realities […]

The UK Government has published a Government Policy Statement based on the recent Consultation on modernising Copyright held in the UK. The document summarizes the findings of the consultation and outlines policy actions that the UK government intends to take. The policy statement (pdf) covers three fields where the government intends to legislate: ‘Improvements to […]

The compromise text of the proposed orphan works directive is finally out. If nothing unexpected happens, this text should be what gets adopted later this year, what needs to be transposed into national legislation within 2 years from then, and what cultural heritage institutions that are confronted with hostage works need to deal with for […]

On Monday, June 18, MEP Amelia Andersdotter, along with her colleague MEP Ioannis Tsoukalas, is inviting you to attend the launch of 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. The book is under […]

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 […]