Post Tagged with: "obama"

The ACTA Document and Obama Transparency

There are many reports about the release this week of an ACTA summary document that was first made available on the USTR website.  These articles suggest that this reflects new support for transparency from the Obama administration.  While it may be true that the administration supports greater transparency, making that […]

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April 9, 2009 Comments are Disabled News

Comparing the Fine Print at the White House and PMO Websites

Yesterday's inauguration of President Barack Obama also brought with it a complete overhaul of the whitehouse.gov site.  While there has been some media coverage of the change (including the appointment of a Director of New Media for the White House), it is worth looking at the fine print by contrasting the copyright notices found on the White House site and the Prime Minister of Canada's site.  The Whitehouse.gov site adopts the following:

Pursuant to federal law, government-produced materials appearing on this site are not copyright protected. The United States Government may receive and hold copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise.

Except where otherwise noted, third-party content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Visitors to this website agree to grant a non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free license to the rest of the world for their submissions to Whitehouse.gov under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

In other words, no copyright in the government-produced materials and a Creative Commons license that permits both commercial and non-commercial usage (with attribution) for third-party materials.  That is as permissive as it gets – no real restrictions or requirements to obtain permission, which means that the public has both access and the right to use the materials on the Whitehouse.gov site as they see fit.

Now consider the Prime Minister of Canada's copyright notice:

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January 21, 2009 7 comments News

The Obama Transition: Technology, Innovation and Government Reform

On the day of the Obama Inauguration, it is worth taking four minutes to watch this video on the transition team focusing on technology, innovation, and government.  The new president has advisors promoting the public domain, access to government information, mashups, and the experimentation with technology.  While many Canadians lament […]

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January 20, 2009 1 comment News

Copyright and the Obama Visit to Canada

The Globe and Mail focuses on President-elect Obama's plans to visit Canada as his first foreign trip.  While economic issues will obviously be central, the degree to which copyright enters the conversation is worth watching.  The Bush administration focused heavily on copyright in its Canadian discussions, leading to the anti-camcording […]

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January 12, 2009 16 comments News

MPAA Wants Obama To Target Canada Over Copyright

The election of Barack Obama has led to considerable speculation about what the change in administration might mean for U.S. pressure on Canada on intellectual property issues.  If the MPAA – the lead Hollywood lobbyist – has anything to say about it, the pressure will only increase.  Eighteen months after […]

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December 9, 2008 22 comments News