Incidentally, to add some content to my earlier post, here is the government's official response to the recommendations (which got chopped out of John's email):
http://www.finance.gov.au/publications/govresponse20report/index.html#recomm endation-06 As Jessica pointed out, 6.3 is a particularly appealing point, but I'm less enamoured with their response to 6.7, which essentially says that each agency gets to choose a licence, which might lead to the more restrictive CC licences being used (ie: the various -NC options). Still, this is a massive step in the right direction, so let's hope this gets up legislatively speaking before the next election. Cheers, Craig -----Original Message----- From: wikimediaau-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediaau-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Craig Franklin Sent: Tuesday, 4 May 2010 6:10 PM To: 'Wikimedia-au' Subject: Re: [Wikimediaau-l] Fwd: [cc-community] Australian Federal Government commits to CC BY as default What can I say, this is absolutely awesome! Will this take effect retroactively, or will it only be new stuff that's CC-BY? Either way, it's a tremendous step forward! -----Original Message----- From: wikimediaau-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediaau-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of John Vandenberg Sent: Tuesday, 4 May 2010 3:04 PM To: Wikimedia-au Cc: Jessica Coates Subject: [Wikimediaau-l] Fwd: [cc-community] Australian Federal Government commits to CC BY as default Woo hoo! This is fantastic news. A big thank you to all involved. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jessica Coates <j2.coa...@qut.edu.au> Date: Tue, May 4, 2010 at 11:54 AM Subject: [cc-community] Australian Federal Government commits to CC BY as default To: "cc...@lists.ibiblio.org" <cc...@lists.ibiblio.org>, "cc-commun...@lists.ibiblio.org" <cc-commun...@lists.ibiblio.org>, "c...@lists.ibiblio.org" <c...@lists.ibiblio.org> Big news from the Australian Government on the issue of access to public sector information. In an official response released yesterday, the Federal Government has agreed to 12 of the 13 recommendations to come out of the Government 2.0 Taskforce report released last December including Recommendation 6.3, which states that Creative Commons Attribution should be the default licensing position for PSI. In addition, the government has also agreed that the new Information Commissioner currently being established will issue guidelines to ensure that: § by default PSI is free, open, and reusable; § PSI is released as quickly as possible; § PSI may only be withheld where there is a legal obligation preventing its release. § when Commonwealth records become available for public access under the Archives Act 1983, works covered by Crown copyright will be automatically licensed under an appropriate open attribution licence. The response also includes an undertaking that the Attorney-Generals Department will examine the current state of copyright law with regard to orphan works (including section 200AB of the Copyright Act 1968), with the aim of recommending amendments that would remove the practical restrictions that currently impede the use of such works. This is the single biggest commitment to CC licensing and open access principles by Australian government, and should mean that the majority of Australian government material will soon be available under a CC licence. The fact that both the response and the announcement have been released under CC BY is a good start. The assignment of responsibility for implementation of the commitment to the new Information Commissioner is also an encouraging move, and will hopefully see a more coordinated approach to IP policy across the Australian government as a whole. The response is available here and a blog post from Finance Minister Tanner is available here. Jessica Coates Project Manager Creative Commons Clinic and Creative Commons Australia _______________________________________________ cc-community mailing list cc-commun...@lists.ibiblio.org http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-community _______________________________________________ Wikimediaau-l mailing list Wikimediaau-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaau-l _______________________________________________ Wikimediaau-l mailing list Wikimediaau-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaau-l _______________________________________________ Wikimediaau-l mailing list Wikimediaau-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaau-l