https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/ab-2880 "California's Legislature Wants to Copyright All Government Works"
More background at https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160417/09213934197/california-assembly-looks-to-push-cities-to-copyright-trademark-everything-they-can.shtml According to http://copyright.lib.harvard.edu/states/ California is one of the three most "open" regarding government works. Presumably it won't be anymore if AB 2880 becomes law. California is one of only two U.S. states with a category under https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Public_domain_by_government -- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:PD_California (1048 items). I haven't investigated whether and how many of those items would be subject to copyright had AB 2880 been California law at the times of their publication. Skimming the bill's changes to present law at https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160AB2880 it seems the one or two maybe dangerous additions are these: > A public entity may own, license, and, if it deems it appropriate, > formally register intellectual property it creates or otherwise > acquires. The assembly's analysis views this as a clarification, but it could open the door to widespread use (or copyright apologists would say, abuse) of copyright by local government, as the EFF says, "to chill speech, stifle open government, and harm the public domain." > (A) A state agency shall not enter into a contract under this > article that waives the state’s intellectual property rights unless > the state agency, prior to execution of the contract, obtains the > consent of the department to the waiver. > > (B) An attempted waiver of the state’s intellectual property rights > by a state agency that violates subparagraph (A) shall be deemed > void as against public policy. It is not clear to me whether this addition might serve as a barrier to agencies deciding to publish material under open licenses. In the meantime, I assume it will foster such barriers in practice. https://twitter.com/mitchstoltz/status/731282363674562560 says "[EFF]'ll probably issue an action alert, but meantime, call your state assembly member's office & ask them to oppose." If this is indeed a threat, I wonder if there's anything Wikimedians can do to oppose it, in addition to those of us in California calling our state assembly members? Mike _______________________________________________ Publicpolicy mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/publicpolicy
