[okfn-discuss] registration and "relinquishment"

[jo at frot.org]

dear all,

I am looking at the overview of the next Communia workshop in Amsterdam:

  Creative Commons and others are currently developing tools to
  certify the public domain status of a work or to determine the status
  of works with unknown status. This session will also touch on the role
  of copyright registries ... http://communia-project.eu/node/109

I would be interested to hear more about what CC are doing with this.
Also supposing that CKAN is one of the "and others" concerned.

Doesn't this look like a DRM worldview? I've heard the argument from 
(Geo)DRM fans that their work is in the interests of openess because 
it serves to provide assurance that works are free and for public use.
I'm reminded of the work done for the recent EU funded project Orchestra:

  Therefore for the purposes of the prototype rights management 
  capability we drew inspiration from and extended the standard
  licensing terms as defined in Creative Commons [0]
  http://www.eu-orchestra.org/docs/ORCHESTRA-Book.pdf section 7.5

... thus combining CC terms with a set of different DRM restrictions. 

So of course work on registration and *certification* of works 
serves equally well to close as it does to open. 
I wonder to what extent CC's development of work in this area has been
driven by approaches from restrictions-focused projects like this. 

"Double edged sword" i hear you say. Well yes but it would be
preferable not to have a sword in the first place. What other kinds of
"solutions" may be out there that serve the purposes of making it
easier to find, reuse and have assurance of quality - *without*
having this property of encouraging restriction and over-precision 
on the flipside?

cheers,


jo
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