Problems in adaptation of Creative Commons

licenses to the Ukrainian legal system

Maksim Naumko, Creative Commons Ukraine

How we started

2004-2005: Access to Knowledge Project

Project leads: Andriy Pazyuk, National Academy of Public Management, and Galina Sovenko, Public Agency for Copyright and Related Rights, a small grant from the International Renaissance Foundation.

2004-2005: Access to Knowledge Project

Project leads: Andriy Pazyuk, National Academy of Public Management, and Galina Sovenko, Public Agency for Copyright and Related Rights, a small grant from the International Renaissance Foundation.

Results: the Ukrainian text Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 license, public consultations in February 2005.

2004-2005: Access to Knowledge Project

Project leads: Andriy Pazyuk, National Academy of Public Management, and Galina Sovenko, Public Agency for Copyright and Related Rights, a small grant from the International Renaissance Foundation.

Results: the Ukrainian text Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 license, public consultations in February 2005.

Outcomes: The concept of open content licenses was new for Ukrainian copyright law and amendments to the existent legal framework were required.

2005-2006 – attempts to amend the copyright law

NO RESULT

March 2007 – international round table “Creative Commons: Open Content

Licenses in Ukraine”with Alek Tarkowski, CC Poland, and Bardhyl Jashari, CC Macedonia, hosted and funded by the International Renaissance Foundation.

March 2007 – international round table “Creative Commons: Open Content

Licenses in Ukraine”with Alek Tarkowski, CC Poland, and Bardhyl Jashari, CC Macedonia, hosted and funded by the International Renaissance Foundation.

Outcomes: legal experts discussed wording of Ukrainian versions of CC licenses and possibilities to introduce the licenses in the frames of the current copyright legislation.

2007 – 2008Dmitriy Kolesnik joined the project as a legal lead (together with Iryna Kuchma as a public lead);

2007 – 2008Dmitriy Kolesnik joined the project as a legal lead (together with Iryna Kuchma as a public lead);

http://creativecommons.org.ua, http://cc-ua.livejournal.com/ and Creative Commons Ukraine Facebook group launched;

2007 – 2008Dmitriy Kolesnik joined the project as a legal lead (together with Iryna Kuchma as a public lead);

http://creativecommons.org.ua, http://cc-ua.livejournal.com/ and Creative Commons Ukraine Facebook group launched;

draft Ukrainian text of CC BY 3.0 was released for public consultations, a lot of skepticism from the community.

2009Institutional support from Non-profit organization "Internet initiatives"

2010Law company «Jurinnovation» and Law agency «Intelactive» joined the team with Maksym Naumko and Andriy Bichuk (legal leads, Intelactive), and Vitaly Mamchur and Nina Khalaim, Jurinnovation.

2010Law company «Jurinnovation» and Law agency Intelactive joined the team with Maksym Naumko and Andriy Bichuk (legal leads, Intelactive), and Vitaly Mamchur and Nina Khalaim, Jurinnovation.

Results: Draft Ukrainian text of Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license, public consultations

Legal impediments for CC under the current Ukrainian legislation

Contracts concerning the assignment of rights to use

works shall be made in writing.Article 33 of the Ukrainian Law on Copyright and Related

Rights

Article 1107 of the Ukrainian Civil Code, which regulates various types of agreements on the use of intellectual property rights, provides that the failure by the parties to conclude such agreement in written form renders it immaterial (that is, renders it invalid by law meaning that one does not need to take recourse to law to have such agreement recognised as null and void).

Article 1108 of the Ukrainian Civil Code provides for

licensor's written consent to the licensee granting a

sublicense.This means that the licensee will have to request a

separate permission of granting a sublicense each time.

A contract concerning the assignment of rights to use works shall be deemed

concluded if the parties agree on all essential terms and conditions

(contract term, the method of using a work, the territory covered by the assigned right, the amount and

procedure for paying the author's remuneration, as well as other terms and conditions with respect to which an

agreement should be reached at the request of one of the parties).

Article 33 of the Ukrainian Law on Copyright and Related Rights

The author's remuneration shall be stipulated in the contract as percentages of the income derived from the use of a

work, or as a fixed amount, or otherwise. The author's remuneration rates

shall not be lower than the minimum rates established by the Cabinet of

Ministers of Ukraine.Contract conditions that worsen an

author's (his legal successor's) situation as compared to the

situation established by effective legislation shall be invalid.

Article 33 of the Ukrainian Law on Copyright and Related Rights

Successes

Creative Commons licenses are discussed in specialized and general media (legal

experts, journalist and librarians contributing to the discussions)

Creative Commons licenses are discussed at academic conferences (legal experts,

librarians and scientific journal publishers contributing to the discussions)

Community of users in Ukraine (unported licenses):

Wikipedia UA;

Open Educational Resources: Video lectures on using FOSS: http://grusha.org.ua and Youth Action Multimedia: http://elekcii.org/;

NGOs and grass root initiatives: No boarders: http://noborders.org.ua/;

Academic publishers:Symmetry, Integrability and Geometry: Methods and Applications (SIGMA) journal published by the Department of Applied Research, Institute of Mathematics of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine: http://www.imath.kiev.ua/~sigma/;

Commons: A Journal of Social Critic: http://commons.com.ua/;

Nauka publishers for Ukrainian translation of Opening up education: the collective advancement of education through open technology, open content, and open knowledge/ edited by Toru Iiyoshi and M. S. Vijay Kumar.

OtherArt journals: Art Journal AZH http://www.azh.com.ua/

Municipal web-pages and news portals: Unofficial municila page of Stryi town: http://stryi.com.ua/; Ivan Frankivsk Briz news: http://www.briz.if.ua/index.php

Literature: Maksym Kidruk (book awards winning writer): http://www.kidruk.com/; Literature blog http://translitera.org/

Musicians: Viy, The Telnyk sisters, Singleton, The Sterns, Elevate Heavens and much more can be found on Jamendo

Situation is changing for the better

On December 2011 State Service for Intellectual Property of Ukraine issued the document called «Recomendations regarding using of free public licenses in Ukraine».

Now they are working on project of new edition of Law on Copyright and Related Rights that will provide legal basis for using Creative Commons licenses in Ukraine.

Plans

• Finalizing Ukrainian text of Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license and translating all other licenses into Ukrainian

• Round table with legal experts

• Commons Deed translated into Ukrainian

• Promo campaign: CC Ukraine logo, promotional materials, evidence based promotional campaign using the case studies of early adopters in Ukraine, FAQs, etc

• Public launch event

• Working groups on promoting CC licenses for different types of content: research and educational content, music, video, governmental information, etc

• Partnerships with like-minded organizations

Our affiliate institutions are:

You can contact us at:http://creativecommons.org.ua/

http://cc-ua.livejournal.com/or at our Facebook group «Creative Commons Ukraine»

http://jurinnovation.com.ua/ http://internetinitiatives.org/