We’re delighted to announce the six selected projects that will receive funding from the CC Copyright Platform Activities Fund in 2020!

The CC Copyright Platform is an active space for copyright advocates and experts to coordinate copyright law and policy-related activities. This year, CC launched an Activities Fund to support copyright-related activities by Platform members. The Fund made available a total of US$20,000 to platform members, who were invited to propose activities in the field of copyright that advance our shared CC mission and in alignment with the goals and principles of the CC Copyright Platform. 

In this blog post, we present the six winning projects. We also warmly thank all applicants for their proposals and members of the decision committee (Lisette Kalshoven of CC Netherlands; Elliott Bledsoe of CC Australia; Franco Giandana of CC Argentina; Liz Lenjo of CC Kenya; and Sami Mlouhi and John Weitzmann of the Creative Commons Global Network (CCGN)) for their dedication and commitment. 

• How the Paying Public Domain impacts the CC0 and Public Domain Mark tools

Maximiliano Marzetti of CC Argentina wrote in his proposal that “the public domain is not completely free everywhere.” Argentina and Uruguay are two of the many countries that enforce a paying public domain system. For instance, the Argentinian dominio público pagante requires the payment of a fee to a state agency (the Fondo Nacional de las Artes or National Fund for the Arts) for reproduction, publication, performance, communication to the public, and many other acts in relation to any type of work in the public domain. Not that long ago, UNESCO and the World Intellectual Property Organization were busy promoting the internationalization of the paying public domain, including in model laws. In this project, Maximiliano proposes to study how the paying public domain system may affect open culture and CC initiatives and tools such as the Public Domain Dedication Tool (CC0) and the Public Domain Mark (PDM). To that end, he will contact all relevant CC Chapters and create a map and/or an infographic (using design tools) to show information in a visually friendly way.

• Low-bono DCDSM transposition proposal

Siyanna Lilova, a member of CC Bulgaria, proposed a project that engages a legal team to research and draft expert legal opinions on the current Bulgarian copyright legislation and the best way to transpose the European Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (DCDSM). The focus is on promoting user rights and helping public stakeholders such as GLAMs (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) and educational institutions identify the most beneficial way to implement the new copyright exceptions and limitations set out in the Directive. 

• GLAMS to Fix Copyright: Preparing GLAMs for the Copyright Reform in Bulgaria

In a related but distinct project, Ana Lazarova, also a member of CC Bulgaria, proposes a training series for public libraries and national archives in Bulgaria to inform them about the European Copyright Directive implementation into national law, with a particular focus on exceptions (e.g. text and data mining, out-of-commerce works, digitization and preservation). These will have a direct impact on access to knowledge. Digital Republic, which is an institutional member of the CCGN, will lead the project. Digital Republic is traditionally actively engaged in providing legal advice and promoting copyright literacy for local GLAMs. 

• Rebooting copyrightexceptions.eu 

In 2016, on the eve of the European Union (EU) copyright reform process, Kennisland (then the host of CC Netherlands) build the website www.copyrightexceptions.eu. The purpose of this website was simple: show the uneven implementation of copyright exceptions throughout the EU Member States in order to make a case for further harmonisation of users rights in the EU. The simple map-based interface of the www.copyrightexceptions.eu was powered by contributions from researchers from the different EU Member States, many of whom had affiliations to CC-related projects. After its launch, copyrightexceptions.eu quickly became a reference point for activists and policymakers. But since 2018, the website has not been actively maintained and with the ongoing implementation of the 2019 EU Copyright Directive (which contains five new EU-wide exceptions), it risks becoming out of date. With help from the CC Copyright Platform Activities Fund (and additional support from Wikimedia Italia), Paul Keller of CC Netherlands and his team will rebuild the underlying technical infrastructure of the website and update the information on copyright exceptions in the EU Member States. 

• Building an Open Science Platform in Slovenia

Maja Bogataj Jančič, a member of CC Slovenia, will design a strategy on how to set up and run an Open Science Platform aimed primarily at the scientific sector, but also geared towards the education sector, cultural heritage institutions, and civil society. More than a platform, the Open Science Platform will be a community of stakeholders that will collaboratively carry out several activities, such as the creation of resources, running of workshops as well as the development of a long-term learning program to empower stakeholders into tackling copyright issues on their own. 

• Copyright, copyleft, public domain and policy making —  A transmedial initiative to strengthen the commons in Mexico

Proposed by Ivan Martinez, a member of CC Mexico, the project plans to create a research group and the first issue of a transmedial publication devoted to the analysis and diagnosis of copyright law and copyright-related policies, background, risks and opposition against copyleft, in order to strengthen open access and CC licences in Mexico. Several authors and researchers will integrate a multidisciplinary group guided by a lead researcher and project manager. The aim is to build tighter links among key players across regions. Research proceedings will include a print-ready publication, a platform-agnostic ebook, and international online talks. The research group will found the “Proportional Intellectual Property Task Force” to be presented in online/offline events and is intended to be the seed of opposed speech gaining momentum in Mexico.

We look forward to seeing project results in December 2020, and we expect these projects to fuel more copyright law and policy activities in 2021 and beyond.