Report on the 4th Communia Workshop (Zurich, 23/01/09)

Held at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, the 4th Communia workshop started with a presentation by Juan Carlos De Martin (network coordinator) about the 1st year review of the Communia project by the EU Commission.

The Commission acknowledged that the live meetings held so far have enabled the building of a vibrant community and created synergy between projects – thus meeting one of the main objectives of the project. But Communia should also aim at creating a series of policy outputs, by laying down normative recommendations and suggesting a possible path to achieve a certain goal. Policy is not a new element in the project, it just has to become more visible and more tangible. For instance, when Communia discusses issues related to ‘memory institutions’, a specific agenda can and should be identified: if we could change a current norm and create a new one, what would it be and how would memory institutions be better off in Europe in regard to the public domain? [10feb09]

Also the WGs should have a policy component, and using collaborative tools, such as a wiki, to set up an agenda, summarize activities and come out with a final document. It would be easier to formulate policy recommendations if someone can provide suggestions able to put a discussion on a concrete path. It will be good for the EU Commission to produce practical examples about dangerous copyright restrictions or the absurdity in specific copyright legislations. While there are studies on issues related to access and reuse, quantitative research or detailed data collection are lacking. Probably in 2010 we should plan an entire workshop or an extended WGs meeting only devoted to policy drafting.

The Working Groups discussed in both plenary and parallel sessions how to develop and coordinate their agendas, projects and initiatives.
WG1 on Education and scientific research, plans to build a framework to evaluate universities openness.
WG2 on Technology issues, proposes to develop rights metadata to describe and find public domain content online.
WG3 on Libraries, museums and archives, will develop models and best practices for reuse and repurposing of public domain content, also planning specific initiatives related to the next Public Domain Day (01/01/2010).
WG4 on Economic Analysis and new business paradigms, will study examples of successful business models based on the public domain.
WG5 on the Public Sphere, will act as a facilitator and gatherer of position statements, in order to disseminate them to European, international and national policy actors.
WG6 on Mapping the Public Domain, will produce a comprehensive map to actually describe the Public Domain. It also plans to draft a series of guidelines on how public domain material should be used and accessed, and to set up a ‘Public Domain calculator’.

Communia members also shared news and facts on some projects related to Open Education, Open Access and public data. They were invited to provide more details about such projects, to be published on the Communia website – which could thus become an information hub about Public Domain issues.

Then Paul Gerhardt presented in his talk, "Broadcast Archives and the Digital Public Domain": the case study of the BBC Creative Archive, the controversies surrounding its development, and its future steps. An artist gathered documentaries from late 1960’s in East London, and re-interpreted them partly by finding the same original individuals and re-introducing them into the programme today. It is interesting to see, explained Gerhardt, how a community portrayed 30 years ago by the broadcasters now came out with a clear demand: «Those images belong to us, we want to access them». This approach is quite different from the normal procedure, where image’s ownership usually remains in the hands of the broadcasting company.

The cultural patrimony of the BBC archives raises the question of who should pay, curate, and distribute these programmes paid by the taxpayer. Today’s media literacy makes it possible to quote them and partially include them in future creations as a raw material for creativity and sharing purposes – as opposed to such technologies as DRM. Then the BBC established a panel, including rights-owners, producers, Creative Commons people, and launched a pilot project as a public service interfacing with the commercial market for the footage. A new regulatory regime and other funding issues delayed this implementation. As a consequence, the BBC archives started to appear on bit-torrents and YouTube, without any producer or editorial structure.

Finally, Prodromos Tsiavos introduced the upcoming Workshop "Accessing, Using, Reusing Publically funded Content and Data" (London, 26-27 March). Lorenzo Benussi provided some information on the Second Conference, planned in Torino on June 28-30. More information about these two upcoming Communia events will be made available soon on the project website and to its members.