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Defining the Cultural Commons
The document discusses the challenges and opportunities in establishing a cultural commons, particularly in relation to copyright issues faced by cultural heritage institutions. It highlights the complexities of managing public domain works and metadata, and suggests strategies for dealing with third-party copyrights to enhance accessibility. The need for advocacy for exceptions and a shift in perspective on public sector involvement is emphasized to foster a true cultural commons.
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Defining the Cultural Commons
- 1. Defining the Cultural Commons Paul Keller, OK fest Helsinki, 19 September 2012
- 6. 1. where do we come from? 2. where are we now? 3. what is to be done?
- 7. 1. where do we come from? 2. where are we now? 3. what is to be done?
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- 15. What have we learned from this? Cultural heritage is a surprisingly difficult domain for building a commons. The works are concentrated in the hands of institutions that generally do not control the rights in these works. This has a number of consequences: • Cultural heritage institutions often feel trapped by copyright. Many of the look at open content licenses as the solution to their problems (and are disappointed when they figure out that they aren’t) • Where institutions do have the rights in works in their collections they are often very conservative about access & reuse.
- 16. What have we learned from this? • For the same reason many cultural heritage institutions have a almost schizophrenic relationship with the public domain: They value the fact that there are no restrictions on works in the public domain and at the same time they have the desire to exercise control over such works (for example by applying CC licenses). • Open content projects like the ones presented here often have the function to be able ‘to do something’ and, as a result, they often distract from addressing the underlying problems.
- 17. 1. where do we come from? 2. where are we now? 3. what is to be done?
- 18. Norm setting With regards to norm setting we have actually made some pretty good progress in the last couple of years. Norm setting is possible in those areas of the commons where the cultural heritage institutions themselves control the rights or where the rights have expired: • Public Domain works • Metadata (and ‘secondary works’) • Works where the copyright is with the institutions
- 19. Norms: Public Domain (1) The general principle that ‘what is in the public domain in analogue form should be in the public domain in digital form’ is gaining ground: • (COMMUNIA) public domain manifesto 2010 • Europeana Public Domain Charter 2010 • Committee des Sages report ‘the new renaissance’ 2011 • EC Commission recommendation on digitization 2011 • LoC request for information on private digitization 2012 • Europeana Data Exchange Agreement 2012
- 20. Norms: Public Domain (2) The main challenge for this principle is the need of institutions to generate revenue/pay for digitization: • Google contracts with Libraries grant Google a 15 year period of ‘preferred commercial exploitation’ (PSI directive might reduce this to 7 years) • LoC request for information asks for maximum of 3 year exclusivity. On the other hand first experiences of the Rijksmuseum show that free availability doesn’t hurt revenue generation.
- 21. Norms: metadata The general trend with (simple) descriptive metadata points into the direction of free (no restrictions/ conditions) availability. Metadata is widely understood as a tool to improve the discoverability of collections. • Various Libraries have release their bibliographical records under CC zero (Harvard Library System alone 12M records) • Europeana has released more than 20M records from all types of institutions under CC zero last week.
- 22. metadata objects public domain own own copyright copyright third party copyright
- 23. public domain own copyrights
- 24. 1. where do we come from? 2. where are we now? 3. what is to be done?
- 25. Third party copyrights (1) Central question is how do we deal with material that is under third party copyright? This is the majority of 20th century culture (including virtually all moving images). How do we envisage bringing these works into the cultural commons? Suggested strategies include: • lobbying for exceptions that would allow heritage institutions to make use of such works (and possibly individual end-‐users too)
- 26. Third party copyrights (2) • Licensing rights (via collective rights management organizations). Generally this does not create anything resembling a commons. • Working with institutions to develop strategies to ensure that new acquisitions can be made available. • Getting in touch with rights holders to obtain permission to publish works under open licenses (does not scale very well).
- 27. Rights holders tend to be much less conservative than we generally assume (example below) Artists contacted 429 Choices made 267 CC-‐BY-‐NC-‐ND 54 CC-‐BY-‐SA 64 Permission to use 145 No permission 3 Special contract 1
- 28. What is to be done? (1) If we are serious about creating a true cultural commons (that does not only consist of the leftovers) we need to work on the issue of third party rights: • lobby for exceptions that allow institutions to make available works in their collections online (free? renumeration? how to differentiate between works in commercial circulation and those that are not?) • lobby for exceptions that allow private individuals (and non-‐profits?) to re-‐use works from those institutions.
- 29. What is to be done? (2) This probably includes a different perspective on the PSI directive. There is a lot of resistance among cultural heritage institutions to be included, because they feel that this limits their options. I would argue that if institutions are serious to be part of a cultural commons they should embrace the special position created by the PSI directive and position itself as part of the public sector (which will make it easier to claim special status in the context of copyright).
Editor's Notes
- #2 the only thing is i wont do as part of this presentation is to define the cultural commons. my definition of the CC is a relatively simple one: those parts of our cultural past that are not in meaningful commercial circulation anymore or that are in the public domain or both. some of this stuff we are free to access and use and some of if we are currently not. that last part is - as far as i am concerned the real tragedy of the commons.\n
- #3 speak about involvement in these projects as kennisland and personally. summer of 2003 when we started with Creative Commons Netherlands\n
- #4 speak about involvement in these projects as kennisland and personally. summer of 2003 when we started with Creative Commons Netherlands\n
- #5 speak about involvement in these projects as kennisland and personally. summer of 2003 when we started with Creative Commons Netherlands\n
- #6 speak about involvement in these projects as kennisland and personally. summer of 2003 when we started with Creative Commons Netherlands\n
- #7 speak about involvement in these projects as kennisland and personally. summer of 2003 when we started with Creative Commons Netherlands\n
- #8 speak about involvement in these projects as kennisland and personally. summer of 2003 when we started with Creative Commons Netherlands\n
- #9 speak about involvement in these projects as kennisland and personally. summer of 2003 when we started with Creative Commons Netherlands\n
- #10 i want to answer 3 questions. obviously this is highly subjective but i hope that this provides a good overview and manages to provide a frame for the discussions during the rest of the day\n
- #11 i want to answer 3 questions. obviously this is highly subjective but i hope that this provides a good overview and manages to provide a frame for the discussions during the rest of the day\n
- #12 i want to answer 3 questions. obviously this is highly subjective but i hope that this provides a good overview and manages to provide a frame for the discussions during the rest of the day\n
- #13 before i continue with the rest of the presentation let me point out that in the following i will focus on projects and initiatives that have chosen (or are required) to operate within the limited space provided by copyright. In no way is this intended to ignore the important work that is being done by preservation projects that operate outside this space. the contribution of projects like karagarga, ubuweb or oxdb to preserving 20th century culture cannot be underlined enough. These are the projects that are currently saving us from our own foolishness.\n
- #14 the mother of all projects\n
- #15 incredibly important project (lots of respect to Mathias Schindler and everyone else involved). This really showed that it is possible to align the intrests of the commons movement and cultural heritage institutions.\n
- #16 interesting thing we have not heard that much about the flickr commons lately (poor flickr you have been mismanaged) still this is an important ressource and was a really important step in letting CHIs think outside the box (of their own websites) and the benefits of audience interaction.\n
- #17 lovely project. we had much fun doing this.. (very rewarding moment to be almost alone in a major museum with a bunch of determined amateurs + an equal number of guards) \n
- #18 lovely project. we had much fun doing this.. (very rewarding moment to be almost alone in a major museum with a bunch of determined amateurs + an equal number of guards) \n
- #19 lovely project. we had much fun doing this.. (very rewarding moment to be almost alone in a major museum with a bunch of determined amateurs + an equal number of guards) \n
- #20 interesting case at the intersection of government data and cultural heritage. probably aided by the fact that in NL we have this general rule that copyright of employees is automatically assigned to the employers.\n
- #21 shows the potential impact of open cultural data. video material in here was resonsible for 15 percent of all video on wikipedia. 3 m pageviews per month. also note that open beelden contains only a fraction of the material from the polygoon collection (ill come back to this in part 3)\n
- #22 in a way this is the current status quo. we have managed to upscale our interventions (we even manage to get paid). very much based on what i will discuss in section 2.\n
- #23 surprisingly difficult in the sense that we are talking about publicly funded institutions here were many of us instinctivly feel that there is a moral obligation to contribute to a digital commons. the fact that they do not own the rights is fundamentally different from sctors like academia, governement data or educational materials\n
- #24 surprisingly difficult in the sense that we are talking about publicly funded institutions here were many of us instinctivly feel that there is a moral obligation to contribute to a digital commons. the fact that they do not own the rights is fundamentally different from sctors like academia, governement data or educational materials\n
- #25 surprisingly difficult in the sense that we are talking about publicly funded institutions here were many of us instinctivly feel that there is a moral obligation to contribute to a digital commons. the fact that they do not own the rights is fundamentally different from sctors like academia, governement data or educational materials\n
- #26 i must stress that i fully understand the situation many institutions find themselves in. There is a lot of pressure on them to generate income from their (digital) collections and public domain often look like the only ones suited for commercial exploitation. \n
- #27 i must stress that i fully understand the situation many institutions find themselves in. There is a lot of pressure on them to generate income from their (digital) collections and public domain often look like the only ones suited for commercial exploitation. \n
- #28 so i would argue that we are at a bit of a crossroads right now. we have experimented a lot, have managed do quite a lot, but if we are honest we have to conclude that we have barely scratched the surface.\n
- #29 the last part is what we have addressed in the projects i have discussed in the previous section \n
- #30 the last part is what we have addressed in the projects i have discussed in the previous section \n
- #31 the last part is what we have addressed in the projects i have discussed in the previous section \n
- #32 the last part is what we have addressed in the projects i have discussed in the previous section \n
- #33 the last part is what we have addressed in the projects i have discussed in the previous section \n
- #34 of course this is fundamentally a silly principle. the fact that many of us felt the need to elevate this self evident statement to a policy principle illustrates where we started\n
- #35 of course this is fundamentally a silly principle. the fact that many of us felt the need to elevate this self evident statement to a policy principle illustrates where we started\n
- #36 of course this is fundamentally a silly principle. the fact that many of us felt the need to elevate this self evident statement to a policy principle illustrates where we started\n
- #37 of course this is fundamentally a silly principle. the fact that many of us felt the need to elevate this self evident statement to a policy principle illustrates where we started\n
- #38 of course this is fundamentally a silly principle. the fact that many of us felt the need to elevate this self evident statement to a policy principle illustrates where we started\n
- #39 of course this is fundamentally a silly principle. the fact that many of us felt the need to elevate this self evident statement to a policy principle illustrates where we started\n
- #40 of course this is fundamentally a silly principle. the fact that many of us felt the need to elevate this self evident statement to a policy principle illustrates where we started\n
- #41 of course this is fundamentally a silly principle. the fact that many of us felt the need to elevate this self evident statement to a policy principle illustrates where we started\n
- #42 google euphemism for practical monopoly. and of course that famous case between the NPG and wikimedia seems to have generated the same insight as well \n
- #43 google euphemism for practical monopoly. and of course that famous case between the NPG and wikimedia seems to have generated the same insight as well \n
- #44 google euphemism for practical monopoly. and of course that famous case between the NPG and wikimedia seems to have generated the same insight as well \n
- #45 google euphemism for practical monopoly. and of course that famous case between the NPG and wikimedia seems to have generated the same insight as well \n
- #46 metadata most often is the product of institutions most often produced with public funding. there is a strong normative argument to be made that metadata must be made available under conditions that maximize the potential for re-use.\n
- #47 \n
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- #51 of course this is where the real question that we have been avoiding for a while lies burried\n
- #52 so i would argue that we are at a bit of a crossroads right now. we have experimented a lot, have managed do quite a lot, but if we are honest we have to conclude that we have barely scratched the surface.\n
- #53 To me is the key question. It is intresting to discuss in how far a solution like this would \n
- #54 To me is the key question. It is intresting to discuss in how far a solution like this would \n
- #55 To me is the key question. It is intresting to discuss in how far a solution like this would \n
- #56 To me is the key question. It is intresting to discuss in how far a solution like this would \n
- #57 \n
- #58 \n
- #59 \n
- #60 \n
- #61 and lets face it we suck at this. we have just lost a big battle with the oprhan works directive.\n
- #62 \n