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Tag: policy
FIRST Act moving ahead in US Congress
by Timothy Vollmer UncategorizedUpdate: The amendment to Section 303 was adopted. Can it be salvaged to promote public access to federally funded research? In March we wrote about the introduction of the Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science and Technology Act of 2014 (FIRST Act). The aim of the FIRST Act is to promote the dissemination of publicly funded…
Launch of the Open Policy Network
by Timothy Vollmer UncategorizedToday we’re excited to announce the launch of the Open Policy Network. The Open Policy Network, or OPN for short, is a coalition of organizations and individuals working to support the creation, adoption, and implementation of policies that require that publicly funded resources are openly licensed resources. The website of the Open Policy Network is…
White House supports CC0 for federal government datasets
by Timothy Vollmer UncategorizedToday the White House released the U.S. Open Data Action Plan, reaffirming their belief that “freely available data from the U.S. Government is an important national resource… [and] making information about government operations more readily available and useful is also core to the promise of a more efficient and transparent government.” The report (PDF) outlines…
Proposed U.S. law would weaken and postpone public access to publicly funded research
by Timothy Vollmer UncategorizedThis week the U.S. House Representatives introduced H.R. 4186, the Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science and Technology Act of 2014 (FIRST Act). The stated goal of the proposed law — “to provide for investment in innovation through scientific research and development, [and] to improve the competitiveness of the United States — is worthy and well…
Getty Images allows free embed of 35 million photographs
by Timothy Vollmer UncategorizedKristina Alexanderson / CC BY-NC-SA Getty Images recently announced that it will allow free noncommercial embedding of 35 million of the images in its stock photography database. This is a good step toward better supporting a variety of users. Getty is clearly seeing its images appear across the web anyway, so it’s decided to go…
CC Europe responds to review of EU copyright rules
by johnweitzmann UncategorizedYesterday the European CC Leads have under their regional identity CC Europe responded (PDF) to the ‘Public consultation on the review of the EU copyright rules’, run by the EU Commission through its Internal Market and Services Directorate. Like several other groups, the CC Leads have stressed the need for more robust and flexible exceptions…
"Really Open Education" Policy Discussion In the European Parliament
by Timothy Vollmer UncategorizedCreative Commons would like to invite you to a breakfast discussion “Really Open Education. Domestic Policies for Open Educational Resources”. The event will take place on the 18th of February 2014 and be hosted in the European Parliament by Róża Gräfin von Thun und Hohenstein, MEP. The event will highlight open education initiatives currently implemented…
Congress passes spending bill requiring free access to publicly funded research
by Timothy Vollmer UncategorizedCopyright Week: Tools and policies for building and defending a robust public domain
by Timothy Vollmer UncategorizedThe public domain is the DNA of creativity. Whereby current copyright law requires permission in order to use a work, the public domain is a copyright-free zone whereby anyone can use the work for any purpose without restriction under copyright law. One way works rise into the public domain is when the copyright protection term…
Policy Projects at CC: Open Policy Network and Institute for Open Leadership
by Cable Green, Timothy Vollmer UncategorizedOver the last year we’ve been working on developing two new projects: the Open Policy Network and the Institute for Open Leadership. Both of these initiatives arise out of a direct identified need from the Creative Commons community. Let’s explain a bit more about each of these projects. Overview Over the last several years, Creative…