Global Summit 2011/Africa Regional Meeting
Notes from Africa Regional Session
Addressing three questions from Cathy: 1. What is your vision for CC for the next 10 years? 2. What is your vision for your region? 3. What is your vision for the Affiliate Network?
Participants: Max Kaizen - CC South Africa Tobias Schoenwetter - CC South Africa Kelsey Wiens- CC South Africa Dorothy Gordon - Ghana Abbas Mahmood - Kenya Stamenka Uvalic-Trumbic - formerly with UNESCO working on OER in Africa Erik Hofer - Director of Office of Enabling Technologies at University of Michigan Dick Kawooya - CC Uganda, via Skype Charles Batambuze - CC Uganda, via Skype Aurelia Schultz - CC HQ, Africa Regional Coordinator
Vision for CC
Max: hybrid model Freedom fighting part has ben done Showing CC licenses as applicable to life, sustainability and capitalism
Tobias: Vision doesn't clearly enough show that CC licenses are applicable to offline world Sharing is missing from the vision, the concept of Ubuntu that is so important in many African cultures
Dorothy: Echoed that offline is missing Sharing is important, needs to be in context, creative industries are battling infringement of their works by Western artists Creative industries resisting CC because think it's a Western idea to steal their rights more
Max: That’s (what Dorothy said) is why the hybrid is so important
Stamenka: Has seen the same fears of CC that UNESCO found with OER, a question of "what's the real agenda," skepticism Need to be clearer about benefits Get to the government to explain benefits
Tobias: CC doesn't work without copyright law; not understood by the Global South Need ground work about copyright law with information about CC This is done in some other places but not in Africa Offline workshops are needed Need to move away from English-only At least translate the CC deeds
Dick (via Skype chat): Aurelia I have to agree with that previous speaker (Dorothy?). In Africa it's important to understand the context. In many countries people are only beginning to hear about let alone understand copyright. This is a challenge but also a moment of great opportunity since CC can easily be part of copyright awareness campaigns
Charles (via Skype chat): In Uganda we did some work on CC and our experience shows businesses can adopt new licenses or even businesses models if it makes profit sense. Based on our interactions with business, I like to see businesses with dominant CC driven business models
Vision for CC in Africa
Abbas: Challenge to convince lawyers about CC Tried to meet with lawyers but they did not show up
Dorothy: Solution is to find legal associations Have a good standard presentation to be part of those meetings
Max: Interesting having people from WIPO here Credibility hack
Dorothy: There are some people within WIPO who don't know about CC
Stamenka: Important to continue to dialogue with WIPO Shows need for awareness raising Same thing at IGOs
Max: Make CC included, not a fringe element
Tobias: Certain pegs are needed to present about CC Education is one of these Lawyers can come on board after the movement's going WIPO is changing a bit but does have a history of copyright protectionism UNESCO is a nice counter-variation
Stamenka: Openness, sharing, education is mission of UNESCO Sometimes education experts are familiar with legal issues
Dorothy: Never going to have an education expert switch to become an IP attorney Reaching out to legal fraternity is important because that's who people go to when they are creating or starting a business Agree with Max that blended business models matter Have a training package on how to make CC licenses work for you as an artist
Erik: Need to educate about use of CC licensed material as well U Mich is a partner in a search program for people trying to find OER: http://www.oerafrica.org/healthoer/RequestOER/tabid/1865/Default.aspx
Charles (via Skype chat): My view is rights holders are probably the most important in the equation. I think our actions must also be directed more at rights holders. once the rights holders demand for cc licenses then contract lawyers, state policy etc would follow suit.
Dick (via Skype chat): Meantime we need to move forward and port licenses across the continent. We cannot create awareness about something that doesn't exist locally...
Aurelia: Version 4.0 will be international, localized through translating
Dick (via Skype chat): Ok will be interested in looking at the international license and how it addresses local statutory nuances... I remember discussing the pros and cons of an international license with Frances Pinter sometime back. We both agreed that sometime an international license can only be a template as a basis for a local license...but will wait to see the natural of this license...
Tobias: Need African case studies on the website
Max: Need African stories and the local relationship Need people to know the information's out there Create info points were people can engage Example of "The Question Box" Need to provide a practical way to get in African countries can leapfrog and create something entirely fresh
Tobias: Africa isn't always behind; sometimes it's ahead Lots we can lead on Example of Wikimedia and oral citations in Africa
Vision for the Affiliate Network
Dorothy: Engage more national teams Currently less than 2% of African countries have CC teams What's the new model with porting gone?
Aurelia: Still planning to have legal and public leads Legal leads doing legal research and being part of translation of licenses Focus on public outreach Country ownership through translations
Tobias: Raised concern about loss of ownership without porting at Global Congress meeting in DC a few weeks ago Paul Keller talked about legal leads putting energy into 4.0 development
Dorothy: Perhaps a solution is to get together in Africa network of lawyers to contribute to 4.0 development
Kelsey: Better sharing across the continent
Dorothy: Regional pages and sections on the CC website would be great
Max: Learn from other regions like Arab region Perhaps something other than text, like video is the key for Africa
Dorothy: CC Should finance a project for anyone under 25 to come out with a CC product Give a topic to celebrate 10th anniversary Set an age limit Advantage in Africa is demographic Do judging online Prize and award at an event
Max: Gets young people using the licenses Miss out by not giving prizes and recognition
Dorothy: Need to have tutorials on the site about how to participate
Erik: And give examples for previous works and they have to be global Promote African works
Max: So many great stories, art and music that can be shared with the world to replace the current single story people get
Tobias: A word of caution See good possibilities of Africans working together but not sure there is an "African voice" in terms of law related to license versions
Dorothy: That's ok Need to mitigate against "this is some North American idea" stigma
Dick (via Skype chat): Very good point about Africans being involved in the international license among other stakeholders I can't speak for the Ugandan affiliate. Charles and Moses are doing the work but a vision for that network might be evolving into an East African body given the geopolitical realigning taking place. I suspect Paul (Tanzania) and whoever represents Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi will get kb board. These other countries can adopt the international license under that organizational or institutional framework? Charles thoughts?
Charles (via Skype chat): agree. the rights holders I have interacted with from the rest of East Africa appear to be keen on CC and business models. Affiliates in our case would also do joint activities to promote the license. we need some more projects the test cc business models- the idea of seeing is believing!
Aurelia: CC just did a poster contest for the Summit, most submissions were Asian CC is also currently running a video contest about explaining OER Most affiliates don't know about these contests - how do we get the word out? Also, region can run it's own contests and then ask CC HQ to promote
Max: Arab region is so successful. What are they doing?
Aurelia: Arab region focuses a lot of culture and not a lot on the legal stuff Spent a day agreeing on Arabic translation of key CC terms
Dorothy: Identify champions to convert
Max: credibility hack
