Communia has published a policy paper on the topic of leveraging copyright in support of education. We contend that exceptions and limitations to copyright for education should support broad access and re-use of copyrighted content of all types in a variety of education settings and across borders. The best way to achieve the proper balance […]

On Tuesday Creative Commons released its 2015 State of the Commons report. The annual report showcases data and trends about the growth and diversity of the commons. Creative Commons—which is a founding member of COMMUNIA— reported a major milestone this year: over 1.1 billion CC licensed photos, videos, audio tracks, educational materials, research articles, 3D […]

Last month we wrote about how the European Commission is running a consultation on the ‘Regulatory environment for platforms, online intermediaries, data and cloud computing and the collaborative economy’. While this is an important opportunity to provide feedback, it’s not been easy for individuals to parse the Commission’s long and complicated questionnaire. The Copyright4Creativity coalition […]

Above is the Portrait of Richard Wagner by Cäsar Willich, one of the contested images. Yesterday the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Deutschland announced that they’re fighting a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by the Reiss Engelhorn Museum. The German museum is suing Wikimedia for publishing digital reproductions of public domain artworks from its collection on Wikipedia. The […]

Earlier this week  LIBER released a response to the STM Association’s statement about text and data mining (TDM). The STM Association asserts that legal certainty already exists for TDM via publishers’ licences, and that creating copyright exceptions for text and data mining activities would undermine the investment incentives for ensuring that high-quality content is available. […]

Last week we took part in a breakfast meeting at the European Parliament under the theme “Why licensing is not always the solution”. The meeting was hosted by MEP Jytte Guteland and co-organised by Communia together with Copyright for Creativity, IFLA, EBLIDA, and LIBER. Our goal was to demonstrate the need for reforms that go […]

(Hyper)links are the fundamental building blocks of the web, but the practice of linking has come under attack over the last few years. If copyright holders are able to censor or control links to legitimate content, it could disrupt the free flow of information online and hurt access to crucial news and resources on the […]

Today COMMUNIA joins over 50 organizations in releasing the Hague Declaration on Knowledge Discovery in the Digital Age. The declaration is a collaboratively-created set of principles that outlines core legal and technical freedoms that are necessary for researchers. The principles would allow them to be able to take advantage of new technologies and practices in […]

This post was originally published on the Creative Commons blog under CC BY 4.0. This week is Copyright Week, a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy. Every day this week, various groups are taking on different elements of the law, and addressing what’s at stake, and what we need to do to make […]

This post initially appeared on the Creative Commons blog, republished here under CC BY 4.0.  Today Open Knowledge and the Open Definition Advisory Council announced the release of version 2.0 of the Open Definition. The Definition “sets out principles that define openness in relation to data and content,” and is the baseline from which various public licenses are measured. Any […]