IPI founding member of Communia

This week a new association called Communia was established in Brussels. Its main goal is to promote the digital public domain.

The establishment of Commnuia, whose founding member is also the Intellectual Property Institute, is a reaction to efforts to strengthen the copyright legislation. Formally, Communia will start to operate on 16 June, when the founding members will present the 14 principles for protecting and promoting the public domain. Its main tasks will be consulting and researching. One of the main prepositions is to stop the endless extension of the term of copyrights (extension to 90 years), to sanction the attempt of misuse the works in the public domain and to promote the development of the copyright registration system.

The association will, amongst others, strive to facilitate the access to copyright works for educational and research purposes, the harmonization of exceptions and limitations to copyrights, the establishment of a pan-European system for resolving the problem of orphan works and the enforcement of the publicly financed cultural organizations with the purpose of enabling a wide access to information.

The establishment of Communia is the result of a project from 2007, that was financed by the EU.  The project unites 50 partners from the research, library and consulting sector. The majority of the participants, who are also partners of the project Creative Commons, believe that the creation of such an organization was necessary and needs to remain even after the exhaustion of financial stimulation by the EU.