The interesting whole day and two parts event at Brussels has been the first step of many to follow to try to adapt the copyright regime to digital today’s facts and challenges.
Moderated by Nick Ashton-Hart from the Computer and Communications Industry Association, Mario Pena, from Safe Creative, Liv Vaisberg from the Federation of European Publishers, Paul Keller from Creative Commons and Kelvin Smits from Younison, Europe’s association of independent musicians, debated about the following proposal: “Users and creators must be able to use copyrighted material to produce a new compound work for non-commercial purposes without needing a licence” not being all in total disagreement at all, but some putting some conditions such as the following:
1) The need of correctly crediting all original creators,
2) for non-commercial purposes, meaning direct commercial use when first published,
3) to use simplified, convenient and affordable technology to inform the original creator about the usage and
4) should the work become commercial, to allow the authors of the parts of the works being used, to decide if they want that and/or to be remunerated by a percentage of the revenue and if so, making the revenue sharing automatic and transparent.
As a matter of fact, authors already use other’s artist works for the purpose of learning and for private training, but the conflict might arise when the work goes public even for a small group of contacts or friends, specially in user generated content projects under social network schemes.
There’s a clear need for artists to access others’ works, and the result will be published whether they like or not, so the best solution is to bring technology into play together with clear common sense quotation rules. It is specially sensible, and we all agreed, when the work goes viral and starts to generate revenue, it makes sense that the original author of the work partly used is able to decide to get some revenue or not.
Other consideration relates to moral rights. Again we all agreed, moral rights should prevail but therefore we need a flexible harmonization, together with quotation rules, with all existing legal jurisdictions.
Of course we will keep on working together with the organizators and participants to help improve whatever is necessary to help all creators and users of contents to achieve the best technologies and good practices.
If you want to know more about the event and all that was said, clic here.
30th of May is the day chosen to discuss very interesting issues related to copyright and users’ rights in the 21st century as stated by the organization of the event at the Library of the European Parliament:
“The aim of the event is to present a set of simple, practical and readily-available solutions to make the European copyright regime more consumer-friendly, in particular with regards uses of copyrighted works which are generally tolerated but not legal in all the member States (e.g. format shifting of videos, fan fiction and YouTube mash-ups).”
The question we will try to help to answer is: Users and creators must be able to use copyrighted material to produce a new compound work for non-commercial purposes without needing a license?
We are always happy to hear your opinions, so if you have any remarks about the issue we will be talking about, please, do comment under this lines or contact directly writing to community (at) safecreative.org
Safe Creative is based on the technology to generate evidence of authorship as solid as economic and comfortable. However, to achieve the best evidence it is necessary to have the best information. Therefore the strength of a registration depends very much on the quality of the information each user provides.
In addition to the file representing the work to be of sufficient quality to identify the work upon which to build the evidence, it is essential that user’s personal data is complete, accurate and up to date.
If we do not put the full name or last name, only use initials, there are typos or information is out of date, future certificates, taking the default information available at the time of registration, will also be generated incomplete and perhaps even wrong. This may involve a number of problems especially if you want to use the evidence authorship independently from Safe Creative.
So the more and better information you fill in, the better it will be to make the most out of the evidence generated in Safe Creative. So remember to fill out with the best and accurate information. Those who already have done it, periodically verify that the email, your address and any other information is perfectly updated and without errors.
To enter or verify the existing information, go to “My Account” “Personal Data”:
Safe Creative is a registry that allows to record the license associated to a work and any changes thereof. Many users ask us to advise them on which licenses to choose for their works, and so we are going to give you some advise, not really about which license to pick, but how to choose it by yourself.
1. Note that the choice of a license or a form of protection is a very personal decision of the creator, which can necessarily involve other rights holders.
2. As the author, and owner of the rights of your work, remember that you can change its license at any time. But you must keep in mind that according to the chosen license, its validity for those who have already accessed to your work can be for an indefinite time. So, its duration could be limited only as provided by each jurisdiction law.
3. Think what you want to happen with your work and which might be the best method to achieve it. Do you want to give default permissions or do you prefer users to contact you before making any use of your work?
4. You should weigh up the pros and cons of different license types and forms of protection. These are decisions that can’t be made lightly. Think what you’d like to be done with your work, imagine possible scenarios, and basing on that choose a more or less restrictive license.
5. Some times you will have to resort to a lawyer to write you a license, negotiating point by point so that it suits your actual needs.
6. What other authors choose doesn’t have why to be necessarily good for you. Analyze your work and your circumstances instead of imitating others. It is good to be guided and take advice, but you have to assess your personal situation first.
7. Different types of content may be better suited to different types of licenses. There’s much difference between a blog article and a film for intance.
8. Browse specialized forums and take your time to read and get informed. The experiences of other users of the type of license you are interested in will help you to make a decision.
9. Analyze what “success” means to you. This is related to point 3. What do you want to achieve? To sell books, to be known, to catch someone’s attention for a contract?
10. Be consistent with your final choice (do not forget point 2).
Facing the model based on the authority of the registrar, the model started by Safe Creative offers irrefutable proof based on technology
A proof of registration valid by itself, giving autonomy and independence for authors to protect their rights.
Safe Creative improves the registration certificate, transforming it into a technically irrefutable true registration evidence, which validity, based on the technology used, is independent even from Safe Creative.
The Spanish company, which pioneered the Copyright Registration on the Internet offers, starting December 13th, a twofold registration full evidence that together with the original file consists of:
1) The proof of identification and integrity of the work, consisting of a triple fingerprint identification system (MD5, SHA1 and SHA512).
2) An equally strong proof of the date and time at which this work was registered with a separated double time stamp for each work: by a certification authority approved by the Spanish Ministry of Industry, and the certification authority of Safe Creative.
It’s definitely an element of proof of absolute solvency, independent of Safe Creative, which the authors may download or automatically receive to use as evidence of authorship.Safe Creative is defining the digital registration as the most suitable for the Internet, because unlike traditional systems, those are not based on the authority of the entity or person certifying the records, nor depend on them to prove it, but the proof of registration now becomes an indisputable piece of evidence that is necessary for authors to enforce their copyrights in case of plagiarism, misappropriation or misuse.
In the words of Juan Palacio, CEO of Safe Creative: “These changes represent a quantum leap for our users, who increasingly value for their creations the security, autonomy and independence a technology based registration service can provide. In short, a sound system for the digital reality. “
Now you can listen to our speech to the Conference on Copyright Documentation and Infrastructure on Safe Creative Youtube channel. The audio is the simultaneous translation from Spanish to English and it comes from WIPO official webpage.
Safe Creative speaks at WIPO (World Intellectual Copyright Office) important event about private copyright registration services. We have been invited to tell our experience and ideas regards the need to have online private registration services to solve todays and tomorrows creators challenges.
Here some pictures taken at the event:
Maria Pallante head of the US. Copyright Office
Carlos Rubiano opening the panel
Safe Creative en OMPI
Borja Adsuara, Of Counsel, Safe Creative, highlighting some of the main features and proposals of Safe Creative, the leading company committed to create the best solutions for creators to inform about their copyrights and generate legally sustainable authorship evidence in the XXI century:
