Via OKFN - forwarding, as possibly of some interest. Hopefully this will make it to the new list okay!
This is an excellent suggestion, I think. It's proposing a charitable organisation which would: a) acquire copyrights (probably by bequest) in order to freely license them; b) act as a clearinghouse to support "selling" the free licensing of creative works (we pay you $1,000, you release your novel as CC-BY-SA) c) support people contesting dubious takedown notices d) support and train people in freely licensing their own work (distribution logistics, negotiating with publishers, etc) Of these, a) and b) are probably the most interesting from the WMF perspective - c) is a bit outside our scope most of the time, and d) is already something we [should be? are?] aiming to do. We have definitely discussed option a) in the (distant) past on foundation-l, and while it may not be something WMF itself wants to get into handling, it's certainly something we would benefit from someone else doing - it increases the amount of quality free content in the long term, and does so by offering a mechanism which may encourage people who would not otherwise be willing to contribute their material at the present time. I don't think we've ever considered b), but if it does get off the ground it's certainly something which would benefit us! Any thoughts? -Andrew. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Rufus Pollock <rufus.poll...@okfn.org> Date: 10 April 2012 09:41 Subject: [okfn-discuss] Fwd: "Free Culture Conservancy" exploratory meeting in NY, April 12th. To: okfn-discuss <okfn-disc...@lists.okfn.org> May be of interest to members of the list (those based near NYC!). Rufus ----- From: Karl Fogel <kfo...@questioncopyright.org> To: <a bunch of people> Subject: "Free Culture Conservancy" exploratory meeting in NY, April 12th. Date: Fri, 06 Apr 2012 17:40:57 -0500 This mail is written so you can easily respond with just "Yes" :-). Feel free to forward it within your organization. It's about an experiment we want to try -- and we want to be able to say that your organization agrees the experiment is worth making. Can we say that? Read on. (We're not asking for material help. We'll do a Kickstarter campaign for that.) Also, you are welcome to come to our meeting about this in New York City on Thursday, April 12th at 2pm, at 1995 Broadway, 17th floor. This is short notice, so if you can't make it, don't worry -- there will be other chances with longer notice. But we'd love to see you there. So: We're considering forming a Free Culture Conservancy, a long-term non-profit that would perform several interrelated functions: * A repository for copyright estates. We've heard from some artists (including one very well-known one, who has asked to remain anonymous) that they'd be interested in having their works released under free licenses [1] after their death, and that the mechanism they feel most comfortable with is to will the copyrights to an organization that commits to such release. There various reasons why artists might prefer that mechanism; for one thing, an actual transfer of the "property" can avoid certain kinds of resistance from heirs. * A liberation facilitator. Some time ago, we had an idea that government copyright offices could serve as a registry of liberation prices [2]: a copyright holder could record publicly the amount they would accept to liberate a given work either into the public domain or into free licensing. (There are a couple of more steps to it, but that's the basic idea.) Then we realized that a private foundation could serve as such a registry too -- there's no need to wait for governments to do it. Furthermore, doing it in the private sector makes an interesting model possible: On one side, the Conservancy approaches publishers and other groups that have large, unprofitable backlists, and negotiates liberation prices in binding contracts (i.e., "You agree that if we bring you the specified amount of money, you'll liberate this specific work. If we don't bring the money, nothing happens.") It also approaches individual authors with the same message, when the author has the necessary rights. On the other side, the Conservancy solicits confidential requests from anyone (say, a cause-driven group with an interest in a particular work being publicly available); it also encourages such requests where it can. When such a request is received, the Conservancy keeps it confidential, but makes sure to include the requested work among the works discussed in some larger negotiation with the relevant current rights holder. The Conservancy is explicit about the fact that this is going on; it just doesn't reveal the exact works, in order to avoid affecting a rights holder's assessment of backlist market value. (Another way to say it is, the Conservancy plays an information asymmetry game, but is open about the fact that it is doing so.) For some works, the stars will line up, and there will now be a credible way for people to fundraise (e.g., on Kickstarter) to liberate that work -- because the target price has been set and won't suddenly go up as soon as the buyers get near their fundraising goal. The Conservancy may stay in the middle, enabling it both to take a small percentage on top of the actual liberation price in order to fund its operations, and to enable contributions toward liberation to be tax-deductible for U.S. citizens. * Institutional backing for takedown counterclaims. There are many instances of videos or music being taken off of sites (e.g. YouTube) due to incorrect infringement claims. It's tough for an individual author to handle these, but an organization might be able to provide some economies of scale. * Training and instruction on how to free works, distribute, etc. Question Copyright has already been doing a little of this, but fundamentally we're an advocacy organization that concentrates on reframing public debate -- which is different from a service organization that works with artists and distributors. Nina Paley has held "How To Free Your Work" workshops. We've also helped several artists negotiate free (or "free-er") licenses with their publishers, and see an increasing need for that -- e.g., for template contract language, guidelines for authors on how to negotiate time-delayed free licensing into their contracts, etc. But all this would be more appropriate for a separate Free Culture Conservancy to do it, with a mission & program profile better suited to such services, and without a provocative name like "Question Copyright" making it hard for organizations such as the Authors Guild to even sit down and talk. Our next step, assuming the idea survives the NYC meeting :-), is a Kickstarter campaign to raise enough money to start it. I think its prospects are good; the idea is explainable, and there are a lot of people out there who would be willing to try this experiment. Kickstarter funding will probably be decisive: major initiatives need funding, and if we don't raise enough, then this one will have to wait. There's a certain value to just having the idea circulating anyway -- but we'd like to do more than just have the idea circulate, and being able to claim your support for this experiment would make our Kickstarter pitch that much stronger. In the long term, this won't be a program of Question Copyright; it should be an independent organization (hopefully with your involvement). We may start it off as a QCO program, to take advantage of our existing 501(c)(3) infrastructure, bookkeeping, etc, in the early stages. We would appreciate your feedback, and feedback from others in your organizations. If you can make it to the meeting in New York next week, that would be great. Thanks, -Karl Fogel [1] "Free licensing" in this context is shorthand for any license that meets the Freedom Defined terms -- so CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, CC0, for example, though not -ND and -NC. [2] http://questioncopyright.org/declared_value -- Co-Founder, Open Knowledge Foundation Promoting Open Knowledge in a Digital Age http://www.okfn.org/ - http://blog.okfn.org/ _______________________________________________ okfn-discuss mailing list okfn-disc...@lists.okfn.org http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-discuss -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l