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

Tue Jun 20 13:44:57 UTC 2006

Great work Tim, this is *really* good and  much tighter than the first 
version. A few comments/suggestions below. These are mostly pretty minor 
and with one more iteration I think we'll be ready to go (we should try 
to aim to do this by the weekend so it is ready for Tom's presentation 
at iCommons). Anyway great work and look forward to the next and, one 
hopes, final version.

Regards,

Rufus

Timothy Cowlishaw wrote:
> Hey Rufus,
> 
> Sorry for the late reply, both deadlines at work and international  
> sports tournaments seem to have put  me behind schedule on this.  
> Revised version is below, all revisions and comments appreciated, as  
> always. I think it needs a better conclusion, (or any sort of  
> conclusion at all!) but am being careful not to repeat myself. 
> Cheers,
> 
> 
> Tim

Suggest we have section titles. Examples below

> (text follows)
> ------------------------------
> Public Domain Burn – Application for funding

In this case we are focusing on the Works Database so I'd use 'Public 
Domain Registry' or 'Public Domain Works Database' rather than Public 
Domain Burn (which describes the whole project including the 
digitization part).

Introduction
============

> The existence of an accessible public domain of cultural works is  
> essential to the business of educators, academics, artists and  critics 
> alike. The importance of prior art  to the future success of  creativity 
> (and the ‘knowledge economy’) both in the UK and Globally,  cannot be 
> underestimated.

I'd cut (or improve) this second sentence as it still sounds a little 
weak ('cannot be underestimated') and is quite vague. The first sentence 
is good and simple and can stand on its own if we don't have a 
substitute/improvement.

> Originally, in order to benefit from copyright protection for a work,  
> authors were required to register the work and deposit a copy at a  
> central registry. This ensured that the identity of the work’s author  
> could always be known, and that both copyright and public domain  works 
> could be easily identified.

perfect

> Today it is no longer necessary to do this. 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. This is an unsatisfactory situation, as the  prohibitive 
> cost and time commitment involved in ascertaining whether  a work is or 
> is not in the public domain stifles creativity that  could otherwise 
> profit from the existence of public domain ‘prior art’.

really good again. one small suggestion

-> from the use and resue of public domain works
(prior art tends to be more used in the areas of patents rather than in 
the area of copyright)

A Public Domain Registry for the EU
===================================

> In order to combat this problem and ease the difficulties involved in  
> ascertaining whether a work is in the public domain, the Public  Domain 
> Burn project, instigated by Free Culture UK, is seeking  funding in 
> order to build a prototype database of artistic and  cultural works that 

I'd put the funding aspect at the end. Here I'd go for something like:

In order to combat this problem and ease the difficulties involved in 
ascertaining whether a work is in the public domain, Free Culture UK, is 
building a <bold>*Public Domain Registry*</strong> which will list 
cultural works that have fallen into the public domain or which are 
about to fall out of copyright ....

> have fallen into the public domain or which are  about to fall out of 
> copyright, initially focusing on sound  recordings. This is currently a 
> particularly pertinent field, as  various interested parties have 
> recently launched a campaign to  extent the term of copyright for sound 
> recordings from fifty years to  ninety-five; the confusion resulting 
> from this would make it even  more difficult to determine the copyright 
> status of a work.

suggest: 'This is currently a particularly pertinent field ... -> [end 
of para]

->

'This is a particularly pertinent field because of the current debate in 
the EU about the extension of the term of copyright for recordings. Such 
an extension, which would be retroactive, would significantly reduce the 
size of the public domain in this area. However, in the absence of a 
Registry of the type we are propsing, this loss cannot be accurately 
quantified.'

[this probably needs improving tightening ...]

> 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  determine 
> programmatically or by hand which works are currently in  the Public 
> Domain.

Would make some mention of the community aspect of this. e.g.

This registry will take the form of a >wiki-like< database ...

The add a sentence such as:

A major aim of the project is to harness community and volunteer 
involvement in the process of finding and entering information as well 
as in determination of the copyright status of the work and so the 
system will be designed to allow decentralized collaborative 
contributions in a wiki-like way.

> 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 that the work in question may derive  from. For example, in 
> order to determine the Copyright status of a  sound recording we would 
> need to know:
> 
> The year in which the recording was first made
> The name of the composer of the underlying musical work
> The date of death of the composer, if he or she is deceased.

can we bullet point these e.g.
   *

> For example, in the case of Elvis Presley’s ‘That’s Alright’, we  would 
> ascertain that as the recording was made in 1955 and the term  of 
> copyright on sound recordings currently stands at 50 years, that  the 
> recording passed into the public domain in 2005. However, as the  song 
> itself was composed by Billy Crudup (who died in 1974), and is  covered 
> by a standard term of life plus 70 years, it will enter the  public 
> domain in 2044.

Good summary.

> In the case of recordings of songs with multiple composers, or  
> recordings incorporating a number of musical works, this calculation  is 
> complicated further, and the public domain burn database would  greatly 
> assist in ascertaining the copyright status of these works.  In 
> addition, the prototype that we intend to build would be reusable  in 

the prototype ... to build would be ... -> the registry would be

> other contexts (the identification of ‘orphan works’ being one  example.)

Would now insert something like (please feel free to expand/improve):

Proposal
========

We are seeking funding in order to develop the Public Domain Registry. 
The funding will be used to develop the software system and the database 
struture for the registry and will also cover the collection and entry 
of a limited amount of data for testing and demonstration purposes. Once 
there is a functioning web application the further acquisition and entry 
of data will be performed by the community.

Both the software and data produced would be 'open' so that other 
projects, for example those working on orphan works, could easily use 
and build upon our work.

> ---------------------------
> On 15 Jun 2006, at 13:27, Rufus Pollock wrote:
> 
>> Tim Cowlishaw wrote:
>> [snip]
>>
>>>> > 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.
>>
>>
>> Unfortunately I've just discovered that the creative-archive was  
>> deleted in March by the sysadmins at essential.org so all of this  
>> stuff is no longer online :( . However I have managed to repost on  
>> FC-UK site the most important bits:
>>
>>   http://www.freeculture.org.uk/copyright/recordings -- full details
>>   http://www.freeculture.org.uk/term_extn -- intro
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Rufus
> 
> 