Brigitte is passionate about all things spanning culture, arts, handicraft, traditions, fashion and, of course, copyright law and policy. She gets a kick out of tackling the fuzzy legal and policy issues that stand in the way of access, use, re-use and remix of culture, information and knowledge.
Before joining CC, she worked for a decade as a legal officer at WIPO and then ran her own consultancy, advising Europeana, SPARC Europe and others on copyright matters.
Currently located in the Netherlands where she lives with her husband and two kids, Brigittegrew up living in eight different countries across North America, Africa and Europe but Montréal is where she proudly comes from.
Brigitte is a fellow at the Canadian think tank Centre for International Governance Innovation. She holds a bachelor’s degree in law from the Université de Montréal and a master’s in law from Georgetown University. She has been a member of the Bar of Quebec since 2003.
Photo credit: Victoria Heath CC BY 4.0
On 29 January 2020, the Canadian federal government introduced Bill C-4, “An Act to Implement the Agreement between Canada, the United States of America and the United Mexican States” (CUSMA).1 The bill includes a proposal to extend copyright’s term of protection2 by 20 years, moving it from “life of the author + 50 years” (the … Read More “Our Response To Canada’s Copyright Term Extension Consultation”
Developments in artificial intelligence (AI) raise several questions when it comes to the use of copyright material and Creative Commons-licensed content in particular.1 One of them is whether CC-licensed content (e.g. photographs, artworks, text, music, etc.) should be used as input to train AI. To get a sense of the various views on this question, … Read More “Should CC-Licensed Content be Used to Train AI? It Depends.”
We at Creative Commons (CC) have long disagreed with the use of digital rights management (DRM) and technological protection measures (TPMs) in the open environment. We believe that DRM and TPMs should not be used to control, limit, prevent or otherwise affect activities and uses allowed under CC licenses’ terms. Plainly, DRM and TPMs are … Read More “We’re Against Digital Rights Management. Here’s Why.”
On November 2 and 3, 2020, Creative Commons (CC), the European Fashion Heritage Association (EFHA) and the Onassis Foundation held the online symposium: Is Sharing Always Caring? Bringing together 250 participants from 38 countries on four continents— from museum professionals to fashion design students all the way to big fashion brands—the event was an opportunity … Read More “Can Open GLAM Reshape the Fashion Heritage Narrative?”
Four years ago today, the Marrakesh Treaty entered into force. The Treaty is truly special in the international copyright law universe: it has a clear humanitarian and social development dimension and it’s the first international treaty that focuses on the beneficiaries of limitations and exceptions, rather than on the rights of creators or holders of … Read More “Implementing the Marrakesh Treaty in Latin America: A Look at the Experiences of Four CC Community Members”
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. … Read More “Six Projects Get Funding from the Creative Commons Copyright Platform Activities Fund”
Last month, cOAlition S released its Rights Retention Strategy to safeguard researchers’ intellectual ownership rights and suppress unreasonable embargo periods—Creative Commons (CC) keenly supports this initiative. Modernizing an outdated academic publishing system Under a traditional publishing model, researchers who want to publish their articles in a journal typically need to assign or exclusively license their … Read More “Why cOAlition S’ Rights Retention Strategy Protects Researchers”
In the second part of our series on artificial intelligence (AI) and creativity, we get immersed in the fascinating universe of AI in an attempt to determine whether it is capable of creating works eligible for copyright protection. Below, we present two examples of an AI system generating arguably novel content through two different methods: … Read More “Artificial Intelligence and Creativity: Can Machines Write Like Jane Austen?”
Should novel output (such as music, artworks, poems, etc.) generated by artificial intelligence1 (AI) be protected by copyright? While this question seems straightforward, the answer certainly isn’t. It brings together technical, legal, and philosophical questions regarding “creativity,” and whether machines can be considered “authors” that produce “original” works. In search of an answer, we ran … Read More “Artificial Intelligence and Creativity: Why We’re Against Copyright Protection for AI-Generated Output”
This post was co-authored by CC’s Open Policy Manager Brigitte Vézina and Legal and Policy Intern Alexis Muscat. Tomorrow is International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, a day that seeks to raise awareness of and support Indigenous peoples’ rights and aspirations around the world. We at Creative Commons (CC) wish to highlight this important … Read More “Sharing Indigenous Cultural Heritage Online: An Overview of GLAM Policies”
