We’re pleased to announce that (subject to final confirmation) the Open Knowledge Foundation is now a member of the EU funded COMMUNIA network, which is “the European Thematic Network on the Digital Public Domain”. (We blogged about the first workshop in January and the third workshop in October.)

As it says on the goals page:

The COMMUNIA Thematic Network aims at becoming a European point of reference for theoretical analysis and strategic policy discussion of existing and emerging issues concerning the public domain in the digital environment – as well as related topics, including, but not limited to, alternative forms of licensing for creative material; open access to scientific publications and research results; management of works whose authors are unknown (i.e. orphan works).

Funded by the European Commission within the eContentplus framework, the 3-years long project expects to provide policy guidelines that will help each stakeholder involved – public and private, from the local to the European and global level.

The network will now have 41 members – a full list of which is available on the membership list. We’re currently organising the 4th COMMUNIA workshop which will take place at London School of Economics in March 2009 – so watch this space!

Related posts:

1. First COMMUNIA Workshop – “Technology and the Public Domain” Last week I went to the first COMMUNIA workshop on Technology and the Public Domain in Turin. COMMUNIA coordinator Juan Carlos De Martin and Rishab Ghosh of MERIT, University of Maastricht gave opening talks. I was on a panel with...
2. Third COMMUNIA Workshop – Marking the public domain The third COMMUNIA workshop ‘Marking the public domain: relinquishment & certification’ (which we mentioned last week) took place in Amsterdam on Monday and Tuesday. It brought together COMMUNIA members and other relevant parties from across Europe for talks and workshops...
3. Moving forward with Open Science in Europe Last week I went to the Institut d’Estudis Catalans in Barcelona for the Euroscience Open Forum Satellite Event organised by Science Commons. The event brought together together lawyers, scientists, policy makers, stakeholders and representatives from many different groups and organisations...