The Importance of Being Attributed

A few weeks ago, the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 received Royal Assent. Among its rag-bag of measures are some dealing with the vexed issue of orphan works (or hostage works as they should really be called.) 

On Open Enterprise blog.

Badgeware Comes in from the Cold

Has badgeware - software whose licences requires attribution to be displayed in all copies - gone legit? Roberto Galoppini seems to think so:

Badgeware is not only OSI approved, but it is also endorsed by the Free Software Foundation now, with its flagship license. The debate is over.

OpenDemocracy, Closed Minds?

I like OpenDemocracy. It has some interesting articles, very often on areas about which I know little. But I do have to wonder, sometimes, whether the minds there are quite as open to new ideas as they seem to be:

In the example of openDemocracy's articles being available on a profusion of other publications, the choice for a reader between this site or that site tends to the meaningless - indeed, it is often mediated by a search algorithm. What is the significance of reading about the Serbian election on ISN rather than openDemocracy? Is there a defining choice there? So here is the paradox for communities of the digital commons: to build a community is to offer an escape from the arbitrary; but to release material to the digital commons is to add to the conditions of the arbitrary.

Well, no, actually. Since:

Today almost all of openDemocracy's articles are licensed under Creative Commons (CC) "advertising" licenses. This is a modification of the ordinary, default, copyright position. Under the license we use, the author and the publication allow reproduction of the article as long as: the receiving publication is making non-commercial use of the material; that it is attributing the material to the original publication; and that it is not making any modifications of the material.

Assuming the licence is respected, this means that there is still a link back to this "community"; indeed, it will drive more people to that "community". Fortunately, OpenDemocracy has a voice of reason in its midst:

Becky Hogge, openDemocracy columnist and head of the Open Rights Group, put to me the orthodox position from the Commons (the diffuse movement that sees intellectual property as inappropriate to the digital age). This is just how things ought to work, she claimed: the information gets greater coverage, and, once created, that is all that counts.

Yup: go, Becky, go.