News

For a century, amateurs, collectors, and archives have gathered films that entered the public domain but exist today only by miracle...

Thanks to this collaborative effort by several European film archives & centers, the Europa Film Treasures aims at preserving in digital format a good part of the world's memory in picture – although it is probable that already 70% of the images shot during the first fifty years of cinema is definitively lost.

These videos are provided with free access and via streaming (cannot be downloaded) and cover all genres and time periods, starting in the late 1800's up to our days – thus creating a moving heritage of European cultural and political history.

Recently launched, the website will be regularly expanded with films, documents, interviews, references, and much more; also its interface will be provided in five languages. Along with works already in the public domain, Europa Film Treasures will also make available film cleared with the legal successors (when they have been identified) and depositaries.

"Users expect the interoperable": this is the tile of the upcoming conference of Europeana, Europe’s digital library, archive and museum.

Scheduled for June 23/24, in The Hague (Netherlands), the event will be devoted to discussion between archivists, curators, librarians and technical experts about the ways to bring digital content – sound, film, books, papers, museum objects - together in the Europeana repositories.

The first prototype of Europeana will also be previewed, and feedback sessions held so you can contribute to the development of the final prototype, which will launch in November.

With 120 delegates already booked, this will be an excellent opportunity to network with project members and contributors from across Europe.

For more information, please see the conference program.
Contact: Jonathan Purday (Jonathan.Purday [at] KB.nl)

"Open Doors and Open Minds: What faculty authors can do to ensure open access to their work through their institution."

Released by SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and Science Commons, the new white paper assists institutions in adopting policies that ensure the widest practical exposure for scholarly works produced, such as that adopted by the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences in February.

The white paper details the motivations behind the Harvard policy, offers a concise explanation of U.S. Copyright Law and how it relates to the scholarly publishing process, and makes specific suggestions for faculty and advocates to pursue a campus-wide policy. The guide offers a detailed plan of action, a series of institutional license options, and a 10-point list of actions for realizing a policy and adopting the right University License to meet the institution's particular needs.

"Open Doors and Open Minds" and the 10-step action list is openly
available on the SPARC Web site.

COMMUNIA is opening up the general discussion on issues related to the digital public domain.

The COMMUNIA mailing list is open to anyone interested in this topic, aiming at engaging the public at large and improving interaction among organizations, movements and individuals worldwide.

For more information about the mailing list and subscription options, please visit:

https://lists.communia-project.eu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/communia

A new bill aims at reforming the current civil laws on National public assets and institutions.

The final version of the bill, in its works since June 2007 under the Department of Justice supervision, was presented on April 29 by the Italian Public Assets commission during a public event in Rome titled: "From democratic government economics to public assets reform".

Mostly focused on structural changes, the reform bill fosters the social and civil rights of each citizen in accessing and using National goods and properties. In particular, the proposed document introduces the category of "common assets" in the Italian civil code, including rivers and lakes, highways and cultural artifacts, education institutions and public service networks. Both the State and, to some extent, private entities are in charge of management and protection of such assets, but they need always to meet the public needs at socio-cultural and economic levels.

Full text of the bill (in Italian).

A public conference for the 10th year of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School.

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School is celebrating its tenth year as a research program founded to explore cyberspace, share in its study, and help pioneer its development. Along with major releases of books by Berkman projects and people, on May 15-16, 2008 a public conference will focus on "The Future of the Internet".

The various sessions are focused, among other topics, on best strategies for public media institutions and how to create a balance between open and closed domains, today's copyright restrictions and public domain development. Some of the scheduled speakers include Esther Dyson, Jimmy Wales, Terry Fisher, Charles Nesson, Jonathan Zittrain.

More details on the Berkman's Center website.

How to enhance meaning and scope of the public domain in every day life? Here is a great example!

Expanding the success of resources such as the Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg, LibriVox provides free audiobooks from the public domain. Its volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files (in mp3 or ogg vorbis formats) back on the Internet.

Launched in August 2005, by Hugh McGuire, a Montreal-based writer and web developer, the project has catalogued so far more than 1,300 books, spanning from "Paradise Lost" to the "Bhagavad Gita", from the complete Aesop’s Fables to writings by E. A. Poe, E. Pound, R. W. Emerson, B. Russell.

LibriVox main goal is to record all the books that are public domain in the USA (the copyright status of these works is different in other countries). The database includes also some recordings in languages other than English (Japanese, Italian, French, Spanish, etc.), and most information about the project is available in many languages as well.

Aimed at the "acoustical liberation of books in the public domain", LibriVox is a totally volunteer, open source, free content, public domain project.