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

[Rufus Pollock]

Timothy Cowlishaw wrote:
> 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.

This is a really good start Tim. Thanks and well done. I do think we 
need tighten and make it quite a bit shorter (imagine a page of A4 max 
for the intro/overview) but that's why it's a draft! Full comments below.

~rufus

> 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).

I would move this later in the piece. First introduce (as you have done):
   1. what the public domain is
   2. why it is now difficult to identify works (no registration)
   3. need for a PD registry
     * mention special relevance because of potential term extension for 
recordings
   4. what we plan to do
     * build a registry of public domain works (focusing on recordings 
intially)
     * need funding for a prototype of software + db
     * aim would be to get db of metadata (i.e. list of works) and then 
provide a mechanism such as wiki to allow collaboration on determing pd 
status
     * the tools we build would be immediately reusable in other 
contexts (e.g. orphan works)

Insert first: what is public domain (those works whose copyright has 
expired).

> 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.

Don't think we need to sell the importance of the PD that much here -- 
we can take as given they know it is valuable. If you do have something 
like this I would make it a bit stronger, e.g. cut things such as 'It 
has long been acknowledged' so you start with 'The existence of a public 
domain to which there is easy access is essential to the work of 
educators ....'

> 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.

Think you can really compress this to something much shorter such as:

'Originally in order to gain a copyright one was required to register. 
This made it easy to identify both who were the owners of a copyright 
and what work was in the public domain'.

> Under the modern conception of Copyright law, it is no longer  necessary 

-> Today it is no longer necessary to do this. As a result it is 
difficult to know what is in the public domain (or even what works 
exist) ....

> 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.

At this point I would introduce what we want funding for: public domain 
registry, i.e. a database of works with information on whether they are 
in the public domain.

We can explain the complexities involved (as you do in next para) but we 
should keep it to one simple, concrete example such as Elvis That's 
Alright -- there was a long discussion of this on creative-friends but 
the list archives seem to have disappeared so I will try to dig up the 
email from my own archives and send it to the list.

> /* 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. */

See previous comment.

> 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.

ditto

> 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 can integrate with our example.

> 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  

cultural artefacts -> recordings, books, compositions etc

> programmatically determine which works are currently in the Public  

to determine programmatically or by hand

> Domain, and to use this data in order to find, duplicate, and make  
> available a copy of that work.

The actual digitization is a separate issue. We might mention that the 
registry would help this but it is definitely separate from this 
application.

> 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).

We don't need to mention this.

> 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.

We can also leave this out as it will follow from what we have already said.

> Bibliography

For a funding application this might seem a bit too 'academic' so I 
think you would want to integrate this into the text (in any case I 
think with my suggested edits these 2 citations are no longer needed)

> (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