Smithsonian places 2.8 million works in the public domain
Smithsonian, in cooperation with Creative Commons, made almost 3 million of its works available under the CC0 “licence”. This means that rightholders waive their rights and that the content is available to copy, distribute and modify without restrictions, for any purpose (even commercial).
Smithsonian is an institution bringing together 19 museums, 9 research centres, libraries, archives and different affiliates and thus represents the biggest museum, educational and research complex in the world. Digitalisation within the Smithsonian Open Access project lasted for a decade and the result is a base with 2.8 million 2D and 3D works, from portraits of important American historical figures to dinosaur skeletons. Smithsonian joined many cultural institutions that acknowledge the importance of open access and the availability of artistic and cultural works for everyone. With a richer public domain education, research and dissemination of knowledge will be richer as well.
Creative Commons (CC) annually holds the CC Global Summit events, bringing together experts from different fields with the purpose of spurring on debates and organising workshops related to Open Access. This year’s CC Global Summit 2021 will be a special event as Creative Commons celebrates 20 years!
This year, IPI collaborated with Communia and the Centrum Cyfrowe, which conducted an international study on the use of copyrighted works during remote teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic. The research is now published, and its results were also presented on 15 September 2021. You are invited to take a look at the survey!
On September 2, 2021, Austria has published a new draft law, which implements DSM Directive. The draft law is in consultation till October 13, 2021. In regards to Art. 17 of the DSM Directive, Austrian draft law is a mixture of the German approach, on which IPI already reported, and Europan Commission’s Guidelines.
On September 6, 2021, Dr. Maja Bogataj Jančič, LL.M., LL.M. in the radio show Studio at 5 pm spoke on the topic of the implementation of the DSM Directive in the Slovenian legal order, emphasizing how necessary it is for the exceptions and limitations of copyright to be widely implemented. You are welcome to listen to the radio show!