[pdb-discuss] Conversation with cc-us about canadian public domain registry project

Tue May 23 16:02:59 UTC 2006

As you all probably know, cc-canada are working on a public domain 
registry with copyright canada:

http://www.accesscopyright.ca/resources.asp?a=198

(originally announced by Lessig back in December: 
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5734)

I tried contacting CC-US about this in January via Paula LeDieu but I 
never got a response (this email may have got caught up in Paula's 
departure from CC). Anyway a couple of weeks ago I mailed Mia Garlick 
direct. She responded immediately and we then had a phone call to bring 
each other up to speed on what has been happening. To summarize:

   1. I explained the genesis of our project last July with the launch 
of FC-UK as well as our plan to focus on recordings initially

   2. The canadian project is currently working on sorting out the data 
  issues and getting agreement among the participants on the terms on 
which data will be provided. They haven't yet begun work on the registry.

   3. That we should aim to make any data produced open so that other 
projects could easily use and reuse it

   4. We both agreed that the aim would be to collaborate in the long run

   5. However for the mean time it would be best for the two projects to 
continue working independently:
     * given geographic specificity of the public domain there wouldn't 
necessarily be much overlap
     * Neither project has yet advanced that much and until there is 
something concrete done there is nothing to collaborate on. Furthermore 
if the data is open (and the code is open) it should be easy share later on.

Thus, both groups are now up-to-date on what the other is doing and the 
idea is for us both to progress independently for the time being with 
the intention to collaborate more closely, where appropriate, further 
down the road.

Regards,

Rufus