Public (UK) perception of copyright, public sector information, and CC

Mike Linksvayer, June 9th, 2009

The UK Office of Public Sector Information has published a report on public understanding of copyright, in particular Crown Copyright, the default status of UK government works … and Creative Commons. It contains interesting findings, though I really wish it had included two additional questions.

Among the general (UK) public, 71% agree that government should encourage re-use of content it provides, and only 4% disagree.

The survey asked whether people felt encouraged or discouraged from using content when seeing “copyright” alone or alternatives on a web page:

Clearly, copyright discourages use. Of the alternative notices tested in this way, only “Read Terms & Conditions” noticeably encourages use. As the presentation notes, this option is likely to be recognized as non-transactional.

Adding a transaction, potentially monetary, as overhead to copy & paste discourages re-use. You’ll occasionally hear us and advocates of open licensing generally talk about reducing “transaction costs” — see, that’s not just blather! One way of looking at public licenses such as CC licenses is that they make re-use non-transactional — they pre-clear at least certain re-uses.

Unfortunately, the survey did not evaluate a CC license notice in the same manner — whether it encourages or discourages use. 87% of the general public did not recognize the license icon associated with the CC Attribution license. It’s hard to say whether this is good or bad — a small proportion recognizes the image — on the other hand we’re talking about the general public and one specific image.

Hopefully this or a similar survey will be repeated in the UK and elsewhere to see how recognition increases, or does not. Furthermore, future surveys should test not mere image recognition. Typically a license icon is paired with a statement such as “This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.” And of course the icon and text are linked to a “human readable” deed explaining the terms, as well as a “machine readable” annotation so that seeing a license notice on a web page isn’t the only vector for discovering the content as re-usable without a transaction.

Even more unfortunately, they survey did not evaluate whether “public domain” encourages or discourages use.

Overall, it is fantastic that this survey was done and published. Clearly the public wants to be encouraged to make use of its own information and a non-transactional alternative to default copyright is necessary to make that encouragement.

While we’ve come a very long way toward enabling effective sharing and re-framing copyright for the digital age, one must strongly agree with Glyn Moody’s assessment:

It looks like much more work needs to be done to get the message out about Creative Commons and its licences.

You can help — release works under one of the CC licenses (or into the public domain), use and recommend licensed works, and if you’re able, please support the effort financially.

Via Open Education News.

UK Events: Jamie Boyle speaking on the Public Domain

Cameron Parkins, March 4th, 2009

Jamie Boyle, Chair of the CC Board, will be speaking at a couple great events next week in both London and Cambridge, giving British CC-ers a great opportunity to learn more about the public domain, both as a legal status and as Jamie’s new book, The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind. Details below (via BoingBoing):

LONDON: The Public Domain: enclosing the commons of the mind
Where: RSA Lecture Hall (Google Map)
When: March 10, 2009; 18:00

CAMBRIDGE: Cultural Agoraphobia and The Future of The Library (Google Map)
Where: Lee Hall, Wolfson College (Google Map)
When: March 12, 2009; 18:00

Onemedia Unconference

Greg Grossmeier, November 13th, 2008

If you can’t attend the Standford Open Source (Un)Conference this Friday because you are in London, you are in luck! There is another unconference option right in your city!

The Onemedia Unconference, which is being held in London today and tomorrow, is hoping to provide a venue for all who are interested in how new or multiple media technologies will transform the business landscape. The attendees of the conference will represent a variety of industries including TV, Film, Games, Animation, Mobile, Software, and Music industries.

Especially useful will be what is produced by the conference: a report that collects all of the unconference’s output from the wide breadth of topics that will be covered. The report will be provided under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license so attendees are free to share this report with others to allow for more enhanced discussion to happen.

If you are interested in how businesses are reacting to and creating new changes in the content arena you should check out the conference if able or at least the report when it is released.

EVENT: “Rip, Mix & Burn: Is Creative Commons a Viable Business Model?” London, 11/6

Cameron Parkins, November 5th, 2008

For those in the CC community based in London, take note of upcoming event Rip, Mix & Burn: Is Creative Commons a Viable Business Model? Featuring a keynote from CC Board Chair James Boyle, the event will take place tomorrow (11/6) and will give those in London a chance to meet up and discuss CC as a commercially viable form of licensing.

DETAILS:

When: Thursday, 6th November, 2008
Time: Registration from 5.30pm with presentations to start promptly at 6.00pm, a networking reception will follow until 7.30pm
Where: NESTA, 1 Plough Place, London, EC4A 1DE

Register in advance here.