Name: National Book Trust of Uganda [NABOTU]

Definitions

How does your team define a successful jurisdiction project?

A successful jurisdiction project according to the Uganda CC team is one where a national CC license developed is widely accepted and applied by content creators; takes into account new and perceived needs. The national CC license is consonant with the national copyright legislation and that promotes open sharing of knowledge in Uganda and around the world.

Priorities

What are the top three priorities of your team in the first quarter of the year? 1 year? 2 years?

In the first quarter of the year, the Uganda CC team will:

1. Draft the national license;
2. Have NABOTU attain Affiliate institution status with CC International;
3. Raise support for the next set of activities for promoting the national license

In one year, the top three priorities include:

1. Open national license draft for discussion and launch it;
2. Promote the license to a community of content creators and users to get feedback;
3. Advance public education about the applications of the license

In two years, the top three priorities include:

1. Promoting applications and re-use of works licensed under the national license
2. Undertake research on various applications and business models
3. Provide on-going legal support to license development

Deliverables

Detail tangible project outputs (e.g., events, papers, blog posts, video/film, etc.) by expected date of delivery.

The tangible outputs will include:

1. 1st draft of national license disseminated for discussion by end of December 2010
2. Web site and blog discussion page set up by February 2011
3. Seminar for content creators and users organized on World Book and Copyright Day April 23, 2011
4. Uganda CC Team meetings to consider reviews of draft national license in view of new information- will meet every quarter beginning April 2011
5. Papers on national license presented at forums organized by right holders for example, Uganda Publishers Association, Uganda Writers Association, the Musicians Union, Uganda Performing Rights Society etc beginning 2011
6. Research on different aspects of the national license including business modeling, collective rights management undertaken beginning May 2011
7. Media articles written about national license beginning April 2011
8. National license launched in October 20110
9. 2 Application workshops for national license organized for content creators in April and October 2012
10. An online catalogue of culture licensed under the national license developed and launched by October 2012

Community

Describe the user communities you are targeting. How do you see the project benefiting the communities? What is your relationship with the communities you are targeting? Is your organization in a good position to work with these communities, or will you need to identify additional partners?

The user communities for the national license being targeted include authors and publishers who are the copyright holders. Copyright holders are, together with other groups such as libraries, institutional repositories, open educational resources and education institutions, content users. The project will benefit these communities in many ways including:

• Providing them with a viable option for licensing works especially online and transform licensing practices
• It will help to evolve new business models built around new licensing practices
• It will free knowledge and culture from the constraints of traditional copyright practices and make it available universally
• It will provide inexpensive content that could be converted to different uses including adaptations, re-development and commercial uses by publishers.

The National Book Trust of Uganda (NABOTU) already has the different communities as members. These include associations of copyright holders like publishers and authors as well as content users like libraries, education institutions etc. In 2007, NABOTU implemented a research project, “Publishing and Alternative Licensing Models for (PALM) Africa” which successfully demonstrated the use of CC licensing in a commercial publishing context. One of the key recommendations from the IDRC funded research by the publishers and authors that participated was that it was necessary to promote adoption and use of the CC licenses by porting a national license. In addition, NABOTU has since 2009 organized copyright holders through a collecting society to offer traditional photocopying and digital copying licenses.

Team Composition

How do you plan to expand the jurisdiction team based on Self Assessment you completed? How do you envision it developing over the next six months, 1 year, 2 years? You may use the timesheet to assist. 

The Uganda CC team already has the National Book Trust of Uganda (NABOTU) as the proposed Affiliate institution. In the next six months, NABOTU will formally request CC to recognize/grant the status by signing a Memorandum of Understanding. The team will ride on the already established structures and members of NABOTU to commence work on the national license. Book publishers and authors who are members of NABOTU will form the primary community. In one year’s time the community will have been expanded to include other content creators including journalists, musicians, institutional repositories, open educational resources and projects such as schoolnet etc.

A legal team composed of IP lawyers from Uganda is already constituted and has began work on the draft national license. The team will be boosted regularly with legal expertise from the international CC community. .

Metrics

How will you measure and evaluate your project’s impact - on your main participants? Other contributors? On the larger community?

Quantitative indicators by which the impact of the project will be measured include: the numbers of individuals, companies and organizations participating in the project; numbers of cc licensed culture items; numbers of projects set up to experiment with or apply cc licenses. Qualitative indicators will focus more on documenting experiences of the participants’ perspectives in respect to their understanding of the national license and perceived impact on their business practices. Evaluation questionnaires will be used to evaluate workshops while other tools will include observation.

How many participants do you expect to be involved in your project? How will you seek and sustain their involvement?

The Uganda CC team hopes to involve a total of 80 participants including content creators and users. Already most of the participants to be targeted have participated in a publishing project that demonstrated the use of the CC licenses. They are keen to see a local license ported and for that matter the team will build on the success with the previous project.

Technology

Describe what technologies and tools your project will use. What kinds of technical skills and expertise does your team bring to the project? What are your technical needs?

The project will make use of web 2.0 technologies to enhance networking amongst the teams during the process of license development .In addition the team will use the technology to facilitate online discussions and comments about the draft as well as final national license. A web site providing a comprehensive FAQ will provided for the users of the national license.

The Uganda team will need to be trained in using web 2.0 as well the different ways of deploying the technology to achieve significant results in respect to the project.

Sustainability

What challenges do you expect to face, and how do you plan to overcome them?

A Sharing culture using an open license is largely unknown in Uganda. A lot of content creators are still wary of the impact of openness on their businesses. Getting their cooperation to participate in the project is a key challenge. The team hopes to use sensitization of the participants as way of helping to remove resistance towards the project.

How do you plan to sustain your project? Detail specific plans. Do you plan to raise revenue to continue your efforts in the future, and how?

The project aims to be self-sustainable and to run with limited resources. In the long term the project can be sustained by: the team will raise funding from organizations interested in open knowledge to undertake specific activities. The team will also consider a business model that may charge for downloads from the online catalogue of Uganda CC culture. The fee will be ploughed back into activities that promote the national license.

How can this project be scalable, or have a scalable impact?

The project is very highly scalable. Initially the project will involve developing a national CC license and education activities geared towards its adoption by various culture sectors. In subsequent phases of the project, we expect more content creators and users to adopt the use of the national licenses and thereby grow thousands of content using the license.

can Creative Commons HQ best support your project to ensure its success? How can your regional CC network support you? The international CC network?

Creative Commons can support the project in various ways including: backstopping activities for developing the license including helping the team to network with legal professionals from other jurisdictions; providing expertise in different areas of license development including publicity, promotion and marketing and; pointing the team to possible funding sources for specific activities.. The team needs to learn from the experiences of others as well as take advantage of opportunities for networking with other CC networks across the world.

Regional Collaboration

Please have a look at your region's roadmap, if available. How do your plans fit into regional activities? How do you plan to contribute to inter-jurisdictional collaboration? If there is not a regional map, please contact your regional spokesperson or mentor. Which jurisdictions teams would you like to work closely with?

The Uganda CC team hopes to contribute to inter-jurisdictional collaboration in Africa in many ways including: networking with team members from other jurisdictions for example by inviting them to events in Uganda to share their experiences or sharing success stories broadly about the application of CC licenses. In addition, the Uganda CC legal team is to work closely with colleagues from South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria who have either completed the porting or are in the process.

Legal Work

What do you see as the major legal challenges facing the license porting? How do you plan to solve them?

It is only in recent times that copyright is gaining prominence as a key area for practicing lawyers which has not always been the case in Uganda. As a result, the main challenge facing the license porting is the few numbers of lawyers qualified in issues of copyright let alone interest in open licensing. The implication here is that the discussions around the draft may not attract a lot of commentary from the legal fraternity. The team plans to solve this challenge by involving as many interested lawyers as possible. In addition, the team will bridge the deficiency by relying on expertise from other jurisdictions.

Please outline your porting goals with dates. You may use the attached timesheet to assist.

1. Produce first draft of national license for discussion by end of December 2010
2. Convene legal team to agree changes to the draft by February 2011
3. Produce summaries of contributions from content creators, users and others for discussion by April 2011
4. Convene legal team to consider the summaries and review draft of national license by June 2011.
5. Publish national license by September 2011

Translation

In what languages will you promote CC in your jurisdiction and why?

How will you involve the local language(s) community?

Initially, CC will be promoted in the English language. This is because English is one of the two official languages most understood and used for official business in Uganda. At a later stage, the Uganda CC team will work closely with language experts to make translations of the license into Swahili, another official language in Uganda.