[pdb-discuss] Yikes - introduction page

Fri Feb 16 12:07:04 UTC 2007

Thanks for pointing this out Tom -- and I agree with you. Though a mea 
culpa as

a) I used this approach in my 'Value of the Public Domain' essay (to be 
honest that was because I couldn't choose the title and wanted to be 
able to talk about all kinds of open knowledge (that is why I tended to 
say things like 'public domain approaches').

b) I should have thought about this more carefully before replying to 
Michael's previous mail where he proposed this approach.

It isn't a huge deal but I think you are completely right that we should 
keep a distinction, particularly for this project, between:

a) public domain works (those that are legally public domain)

b) open knowledge (be that content, data, etc etc)

Furthermore we are definitely focusing on the (a). Later on, should it 
seem a good idea, we can always discuss expanding to (b).

~rufus

Tom Chance wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> The new site is looking really nice, but I'm worried about a
> paragraph in the introduction page:
> 
> "Redefining the Public Domain Traditionally the public domain was
> defined as all intellectual works that could be copied, used and
> reused freely without legal restriction. In line with contemporary
> academia, we subscribe to an expanded notion which instead equates
> the public domain with ‘open’ knowledge, that is, all ideas and
> information that can be freely used, redistributed and reused. The
> notion of ‘free’ in this context should be loosely interpreted to
> include, for example, licence terms that require derivative works
> (e.g. Mash-ups) must themselves be published under ‘open’ terms." 
> http://blog.publicdomainworks.net/?page_id=8
> 
> That argument has its place (Benkler has given a similar argument a
> big boost, Pam Samuelson suggested it is a sensible default in
> general public discourse) but I don't think that place is on the PDW
> web site. PDW is, so far as I understand, just for works in the
> legal/constitutional public domain, i.e. works out of copyright.
> Unless PDW also intends to host a wide variety of copyleft/CC works
> then I suggest we stick to explaining that we mean the legal public
> domain, and perhaps have a footnote explaining that visitors might be
> interested in a wider discussion about the term, maybe linking to
> Samuelson's excellent paper on the subject? 
> http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/~pam/papers/enriching%20discourse%20on%20public%20domains.pdf
> 
> 
> Regards, Tom
> 
> 
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