[pdb-discuss] Re: Writing a grant proposal for the public domain works db

Thu Jun 8 21:33:43 UTC 2006

Hi all!

here's a first draft, it obviously needs fleshing out in various  
areas. I personally feel that it needs a lot more information about  
the structure of the database, and the methods by which we will build  
and populate it, but not being involved in active development of the  
project (my programming skills are negligible, bordering on non- 
existent), It would be helpful if someone with a little more hands-on  
experience could provide some input. I will  look up some good  
references to flesh out the 'importance of a public domain' bit.. see  
comment inline below.

Anyway, feel free to rip it apart anyway you like.... full text below.

Cheers,

Tim

----------------
Public Domain Burn – Application for funding

The Public Domain Burn project, instigated by Free Culture UK, aims  
to build a database of artistic and cultural works that have fallen  
into the public domain, locate them, and finally to digitise copies  
of the works and make them available online (1).

It has long been acknowledged that the existence of a public domain  
of cultural works, and easy access to it is essential to the business  
of educators, academics, artists and critics alike (2). The  
importance of prior art  to the future success of creativity (and the  
‘knowledge economy’) both in the UK and Globally, cannot be  
underestimated.

The first law to introduce the concept of a ‘copyright’  (and,  
accordingly, the concept of a ‘public domain’) for authors and  
publishers was the Statute of Anne of 1710 (3), which expressly  
stipulated that any work to be copyrighted should be registered with  
the Company of Stationers, in order to provide a central, accessible,  
register of copyrighted works, thereby enabling any interested party  
to determine whether a specific work was currently covered by the  
term of copyright. The Company of Stationers also kept copies of all  
registered copyrighted works on file, and therefore also provided a  
central library where registered works could be inspected or consulted.

Under the modern conception of Copyright law, it is no longer  
necessary to register a work in order to gain the benefits of  
copyright protection. Any work eligible for protection is covered  
from the time of the making or publication of the work, without any  
need to register that work as being protected, or to mark it as such.  
As a result, the process of identifying protected or public domain  
works is no longer trivial, as there is no central registry for  
copyrighted works, determining whether or not a work is still covered  
can rely on guesswork, or substantial (and costly) investigation.

/* NEED EXAMPLE! should explain the length of term of copyright for  
various different forms of work here – when length of copyright  
relies on length of authors life, it is essential to know the date of  
death of the author, or last surviving author. Causes problems when  
dealing with corporate or joint authorship. Footnote explaining  
current efforts to extend term of copyright. Explain how this would  
cause more problems, especially if applied retroactively, etc.  
Mention Sonny Bono in the US– works fell back into copyright after  
having become PD. */

The Public Domain Burn Project aims to create a registry of public  
domain works, and copyright works which are nearing the end of their  
term of protection.

In order to do this, several facts about each work need to be  
ascertained – The date the work was first published, the name(s) of  
any contributing authors, and the dates of the death of these  
authors, if they are deceased. In addition, it is important,  
particularly in the case of sound recordings, to ascertain the same  
information about copyrights which the work in question may derive from.

This registry will take the form of a database and associated web  
application storing the above details for as many cultural artefacts  
as possible. With this data stored, it would then be possible to  
programmatically determine which works are currently in the Public  
Domain, and to use this data in order to find, duplicate, and make  
available a copy of that work.

Such a database could be populated by manual entry of data, or indeed  
populated in bulk from other trusted sources (the British Library has  
a large catalogue of early sound recordings, and their catalogue is  
easily accessible through web page scraping, in order to add the data  
to our database).

Ultimately, we intend the Public Domain Burn database to contain a  
comprehensive catalogue of cultural works, and an associated database  
of authors, in order to easily identify and make available Public  
Domain works for the benefit of the wider cultural community and  
society as a whole.

Bibliography

(1)  – www.freeculture.org.uk/PublicDomainBurn

(2)  – CITATION NEEDED! – Kings College notice on term extension,  
Lessig, Vaidhyanathan

(3) – www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/eurodocs/anne_1710.htm
---------------
On 8 Jun 2006, at 20:51, Rufus Pollock wrote:

> Dear Tim,
>
> Just wondered what's happening on this ...
>
> ~rufus
>
> Tim Cowlishaw wrote:
>> Just a quick update.... I have a few hundred introductory words  
>> written... need to tidy up the text and find a couple of  
>> citations, then i'll post it up to the wiki, or to this list. I'll  
>> also have a crack at outlining the technical details and  
>> architecture of the project, but this may need wholesale  
>> correction / adjustment / clarification by someone actually  
>> involved in the development process.  I'll aim to get a first  
>> draft done tonight.....
>> On 5/26/06, *Rufus Pollock* <rufus.pollock at okfn.org  
>> <mailto:rufus.pollock at okfn.org>> wrote:
>>     Tim Cowlishaw wrote:
>>     [snip]
>>      >
>>      >     PS: we should produce this first version as a plain  
>> text (we
>>     can convert
>>      >     to something glossy pdf/word ... later if necessary)
>>      >
>>      >
>>      >
>>      > page on the wiki perhaps?
>>     yes though i often find email easier at the 'alpha' stage --  
>> so either
>>     post to the list or post to the wiki and then notify the list
>>      > Also, I've been looking at the AHRC website... waht  
>> category does
>>     this
>>      > research fall under. AS it isn't a Doctoral / MRes project for
>>     anyone,
>>      > I'm assuming it comes under 'Knowledge Transfer Schemes'  -
>>      > http://www.ahrb.ac.uk/about/ke/knowledge/ 
>> knowledge_activities.asp
>>      >
>>      > Is this correct? It'd be good to be able to find out what  
>> specific
>>      > information they're after. would they want a budget, or  
>> atleast a
>>     rough
>>      > suggestion of numbers? otherwise, I''m assuming that I'm  
>> essentially
>>      > writing an academic paper on the benefits of the pdb  
>> project. Is
>>     this
>>      > the case?
>>     For the first version I wouldn't worry too much about the AHRC  
>> angle but
>>     instead focus on a simple two pager that we can send to Vera.  
>> We can
>>     always extend and beef this up later as needed. In particular  
>> we do
>>     *not* need a budget in this first version just an overview of  
>> the issue
>>     and what we propose to build (i.e. a prototype web application  
>> and db).
>>     Regards,
>>     Rufus