[Advocacy Advisors] Meta discussion: European Commission public consultation on copyright

Tue Dec 17 15:07:55 UTC 2013

On Mon, Dec 16, 2013 at 6:22 PM, Stephen LaPorte <slaporte at wikimedia.org>wrote:

> Hello advocacy advisory group,
>
> Here is a thought: let's collaboratively draft a public response on wiki.
> We can use the resulting page as the Wikimedia Foundation's submission to
> the consultation, or as a reference point for other interested groups. To
> get started, Dashiell posted the EC's questions on Meta, here:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/European_Commission_copyright_consultation
>
>
> The submission deadline is February 5, 2014, so if we intend to respond,
> we should start finalizing our submission on January 27, 2014. The
> process here is experimental, so feel free to discuss process on the list
> or the corresponding talk page.
>
> This may be an important opportunity for us to influence the future of
> copyright law (and free knowledge), so I am interested in hearing your
> perspective.
>

I just want to second this! Three big points, for me:

1. As Mathias mentioned here, WMDE and other European chapters plan to
draft an answer. We're suggesting this as a complement to those plans, not
a replacement!

2. Obviously, copyright reform could potentially be either a big positive
or big negative for our work as supporters of free knowledge, so I think
this proposal is in the heart of the movement's potential advocacy goals.

3. Stephen and I (as well as our intern Dash, cc'd) will be approaching
this as partners in the drafting effort, working on this as time permits
(in contrast with projects like the trademark and privacy policies, where
LCA has done essentially all of the drafting). So this will require
drafting and collaboration from other interested people if it is to succeed.

4. Hopefully this isn't a surprise, but I think collaboratively writing
answers to public government requests like this one is a good thing for us
to do. So I really hope we can use this not just to write the response, but
to begin to work out practices that we can use together in the future.

Luis

-- 
Luis Villa
Deputy General Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
415.839.6885 ext. 6810

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