Grants:Project/E@I/Testamentu
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Project idea[edit]
What is the problem you're trying to solve?[edit]
What problem are you trying to solve by doing this project? This problem should be small enough that you expect it to be completely or mostly resolved by the end of this project.
Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.
Wikimedia, as a libre education movement, can thrive in non-libre world because it stands on the principle of non-copyrightability of an idea. But some Wikimedia projects, like Commons and Wikisource, explicitly require a free license. History shows that many people are willing to free their work, but they do not do so due to a lack of legal understanding of both
- the licenses themselves and
- the process of freeing.
The problem is elevated by the fact that after death of an author / creator of creative work, it becomes much harder to come to a license freeing agreement. The freeing process requires finding, contacting and convincing all the inheritors and just one disagreement ruins the effort.
In contrast, it is easier to share and give physical objects than intellectual property. There are many innovative projects within the boundaries of our material world which look at a range of field: cars = car sharing, clothes = second hand/charity shops, food = food sharing (public refrigerators or giving after due-date food away as well as discounted overproduce), goods = various internet websites where one can literally give anything (physical) away - e.g. Slovak www.za-odvoz.sk. Our website should support the sharing of intellectual property and the ease of the process. Because of this we wish to create a multilingual web, where one can create, save and share "testaments" = documents proving the freeing of creative works, their re-licensing under a new open license. By doing so we can help many authors free their works under a selected license as well as help the works, freed by the authors, have more freedom and be more widely used.
The problem is bigger than current solutions. E.g. Creative Commons' Licence Chooser is helpful at identifying the specific CC licence but (besides the icons and HTML code) does not help with the issue of re-licensing a previously published creative work nor does it help with non-CC licenses; or OTRS works well however only for immediate liberation and only in Wikimedia context.
We see this pattern repeating itself over and over e.g. in the Esperanto community (where our organisation is very active), which has been our primary inspiration.
What is your solution to this problem?[edit]
For the problem you identified in the previous section, briefly describe your how you would like to address this problem.
We recognize that there are many ways to solve a problem. We'd like to understand why you chose this particular solution, and why you think it is worth pursuing.
Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.
Creating and releasing a multilingual web tool which facilitates and simplifies the entirety of the license freeing process. An author would come to the website, fill in the form and subscribe the created document. That's it. The tool will be able to archive the scanned subscribed license freeing documents in order to preserve them for future use and need(preventing license conflicts due to lost or stolen physical documents) alongside a machine-readable form recorded in a database.
A specific feature of this tool would be the facilitation of the whole liberation process, especially complex use cases, not limited to immediate freeing by creating a "buffer zone" between fully closed and libre work. For example, people unwilling to re-license their work immediately, might be open to the idea of freeing them 20 years after their death, which would significantly help the Wikimedia movement, as it can usually take up to 70 years after creator's death, for creative works to become libre). Such agreements could include e.g.:
- All books for which I am the only one author will be released into CC BY-NC-ND 10 years after their first publishing and into CC BY-SA 20 years after my death.
- My author contribution to the movie "The brave puppet" is immediately released under CC-0. I concede that the license of the whole movie, as a collaborative work, depends on licenses of the collabourants.
- All my photos depicting a water body will be released under GFDL / CC BY-SA 4.0 in 2025.
- 20 years after respective publishing date of my books their content is going to be licensed under CC BY-NC-ND, with the license changing to CC BY-NC 10 years later. In case of my natural death, 20 years after death the license goes to CC BY-SA; in case of non-natural death the required time is 40 years.
Specific advantages:
- facilitation of the whole process, including non-trivial, more complex use cases
- possibility of delayed liberation
- archiving of documents confirming license conditions
- registering data in machine-readable format
- multilingual
- worldwide access through web
Specific advantages in comparison to OTRS:
- highly automated (after testing period, the site runs mostly on autopilot)
- support for minority languages (one time translation working for long time, in comparison to the required continuous participation of a speaker in OTRS)
Project goals[edit]
What are your goals for this project? Your goals should describe the top two or three benefits that will come out of your project. These should be benefits to the Wikimedia projects or Wikimedia communities. They should not be benefits to you individually.
Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.
Main goals of this project are:
Create and launch an online platform which facilitates the license freeing process. Hence changing one's creative work's license to a libre one as well as informing others about libre and freshly freed works becomes straightforward and easy (regardless of field and genre). A list of freed works will be part of the website. Encourage a world-wide discussion regarding author's rights and copyright laws, and use the newly created website as a medium to inform authors and the public of the possibility of freeing their creative works.
Project impact[edit]
How will you know if you have met your goals?[edit]
For each of your goals, we'd like you to answer the following questions:
- During your project, what will you do to achieve this goal? (These are your outputs.)
- Once your project is over, how will it continue to positively impact the Wikimedia community or projects? (These are your outcomes.)
For each of your answers, think about how you will capture this information. Will you capture it with a survey? With a story? Will you measure it with a number? Remember, if you plan to measure a number, you will need to set a numeric target in your proposal (i.e. 45 people, 10 articles, 100 scanned documents).
Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.
Within the project's duration, the most important issue is to create the online platform (the main goal of the project itself), which will give authors an easy and hassle-free way to liberate their works (or parts of them).
Goal 1: Create and launch online platform which facilitates the license freeing process.
To achieve this goal we will:
- Consult lawyers (who specialize in Copyrights, author's rights, Creative Commons, etc.) as important part of the preliminary research. The lawyers-team will prepare texts, to be the founding blocks of our "online testament system".
- Programming & design - the technical part of the work - creation of the site, translation area (the whole site will be ready to be translated into any language), online testament system, uploading of the testaments, database of works and authors, news, forum…
Continuous positive impact to the Wikimedia movement:
The Testamentu tool will fill the gap found in current liberation of creative works in the Wikimedia movement. Being able to immediately notify of the freeing of creative works by the means of OTRS, however complex cases being harder and not always immediate. By lowering these barriers is going to encourage authors to liberate their creative works and make the public aware of the possibility. As a result, with time, the number of libre creative works will increase and will be available for the Wikimedia community to incorporate into its projects.
In that regard, the Testamentu project is similar to planting a tree where the real fruit of labour will show with time. The best opportunity we had was in 2001, when Wikipedia was founded; the second best time is now.
Goal 2: Initiate a worldwide discussion about author's rights and copyright laws as well as inform the public about the available options they have regarding sharing their works by the means of the newly developed online platform.
To achieve this goal we will do PR / dissemination / promo activities. They will make the project more visible, well known in the community of authors, artists, programmers, free knowledge fans etc. Such activities will include:
- Sending out press releases (in at least 10 languages).
- Creating a promotional video (subtitled in 5 languages)
- Sending out a MassMesage to Village Pumps of Wikisources and Commons (at least in 15 languages) (to be approved)
- at least 60 permissions from a minimum of 20 authors
- 10 articles (blog, newspapers) about the project
- 10 events for the stakeholders, presenting the project "live"
Continuous positive impact to the Wikimedia movement:
The wider public will find out about the libre culture and the possibility of becoming a part of it. All thanks to a simple, accessible, multilingual tool and an inclusive informational campaign they will feel invited to join and will get to know the tool which will inevitably be of service to them. Number of people who willingly release and re-license their works under libre licenses as well as invite their circles to do so as well will be on the rise. Some of who will decide to instantly free their creative works and will use OTRS; others will make use of "Testamentu" (e.g. "re-licensing after a period of time" agreement). Resulting in a growing number of works available under libre licenses or in public Domain, hence an increased availability of works useable in our Wikimedia projects.
In addition to that, on more subtle level, the tool and its adoption will help spread values of libre culture, its sharing and participation. Wider acceptance of these values will help Wikimedia movement in the long run, especially in our general work (creating partnerships; positive attitudes of public, institutions and media; non-wikimedians freeing their creative works on their own accord).
Note about the goals:
- We are aware of the fact that the impact our project has on the Wikimedia community (especially Commons and Wikisource, but also, at a lesser extent, Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, potentially Wikidata) will fully materialize especially after our project will be over. That is so due to the site needing time to enter the subconscious of wider public while serving its purpose (collecting "testaments" and transforming works into the free / libre variety of works of intellectual property), eventually becoming well-known and reaching the general public worldwide. By then, the newly freed works will already serve as a great source for the, though not limited to, wikimedia volunteers to enrich Wikimedia projects.
Do you have any goals around participation or content?[edit]
Are any of your goals related to increasing participation within the Wikimedia movement, or increasing/improving the content on Wikimedia projects? If so, we ask that you look through these three metrics, and include any that are relevant to your project. Please set a numeric target against the metrics, if applicable.
Our project is mainly aimed at creating infrastructure (a tool) to increase the number of creative works available under free licenses or in Public Domain. Thanks to a tool, such as the one being proposed here, our project and the final outputs - (agreement from the authors' sides) - will be available for Wikimedia volunteers helping them faster build and improve the content on Wikimedia projects, especially Commons and Wikisource, to a lesser extent, also Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikiversity, potentially Wikidata.
As the project is focused on creating and raising awareness of the platform (enabling the authors to contribute and donate their works to the world), we foresee a considerable rise in the re-licensing to libre especially AFTER the official end of the project - as only then will the site and the system have reached the subconscious of the public worldwide and have its services considered if not used on daily basis. In this "after the project" time we foresee hundreds of permissions coming in, in a steady stream.
In regards to the abovementioned, the three shared metrics about participation and increased / improved content in Wikimedia projects are irrelevant.
Project plan[edit]
Activities[edit]
Tell us how you'll carry out your project. What will you and other organizers spend your time doing? What will you have done at the end of your project? How will you follow-up with people that are involved with your project?
What was done:
- research about availability of such tool
- exploring the interest of Wikimedians
- friendly, unofficial consultation with lawyers
The duration of the project is 9 months.
Project is composed of 4 parts:
- lawyer analysis
- website creation
- promoting
- polish
Lawyer analysis
- A law firm is to prepare an analysis based on which also the license freeing agreement will be made. The exact format of the document will be specified based on the analysis, important questions such as whether have a single document for each medium or a number of them, each looking at a specific medium (e.g. text, audio, video, ...). The envisioned goal is to have a general document which would work all over the world, encompass a wide spectrum of licenses, with minimal limitations (e.g. having options for jurisdictions which do not yet officially recognize open licenses - the final form of the document will be created in this phase of the project.)
- A note: According to the Slovak law only a law firm can interpret such laws and not a lawyer nor an individual. At the same time, however, Slovak law firm cannot interpret law from outside of Slovakia.
Website creation
- The license freeing agreement turns into a website. Certain specifics will depend on the final structure and form of the document itself. We envision a form with details identifying the author, the work and a selection of the new license and conditions ruling when and how the new license will officially come into effect.
- Design - attention paid to making sure the site is designed in a responsive way ensuring it can be viewed on any screen size without the loss of functionality.
- Translation backend - linking the site with the translation backend, instantly making it translatable into any language.
Promotion:
- Blogs, magazines
- Press releases (translated into several languages)
- Press conference/s (cooperating with some Wikimedia movements: Slovakia, The Czech republic, ELiSo, Germany...)
- interviews (Radio, TV)
- Youtube-channel/s and Social networks (Facebook, VKontakte…)
- dissemination to culture institutions (associations of writers, National Library etc)
- dissemination within relevant events (conferences, seminars - artists, writers, translators…)
Polish
- License freeing document amendments: As the budget does not allow for a complete analysis of every country in the world, the lawyer proposed creating a document which would be as general as possible hence making it applicable everywhere. This approach however, carries a risk that certain parts of the license freeing document would turn out problematic. In spite of best efforts anticipate and prevent such blocks beforehand, already in the phase of analysis, the risk of their occurence cannot be completely ruled out. In the case of the aforementioned the law firm will take necessary steps to solve the issue at hand.
- Website feedback as well as constructive criticism received will be assessed and potentially implemented.
Additionally:
- Administration - all administration tasks, needed to fulfill the aims of the project.
- Management - ensuring the whole project will run smoothly and that the expectations reflects reality.
Budget[edit]
How you will use the funds you are requesting? List bullet points for each expense. (You can create a table later if needed.) Don't forget to include a total amount, and update this amount in the Probox at the top of your page too!
The funds will be used to build the complete project - first and foremost the analysis and preparation of all needed legal texts will be necessary. The feature-complete website will be programmed, designed and released. Additionally a variety of PR activities will be carried out in order to ensure good visibility and speed up adoption of the project - its "promo", making the project, its mission and message well known and clear.
- lawyers: 21600 EUR (estimated after informal consulting - 144 EUR/hour x 150 hours = 21600 EUR)
- programming: 12500 EUR
- administration: 2400 EUR
- promotion/PR: 3200 EUR
- management: 3800 EUR
Total amount: 43 500,- EUR (~49 533,45 USD)
(co-financing):
- ESF (Esperantic Studies Foundation): 6000 EUR (unconfirmed)
The costs of advertising, management are only part of the total cost. The rest will be done on voluntary basis.
Pirates (CZ, political party): proposed help with promotion (dissemination) and testing
Community engagement[edit]
How will you let others in your community know about your project? Why are you targeting a specific audience? How will you engage the community you're aiming to serve at various points during your project? Community input and participation helps make projects successful.
Crucial moment of our project are promotional activities - they will start already during the first phase of the project (planning and programming) and will take place throughout and well after the project. (In our case, the project itself is the beginning of a story, certainly not its end! Usage of the site will commence the moment the site is ready.)
Engagement of Wikimedia community will serve mostly for getting feedback and helping with dissemination.
Engagement of Wikimedia community will consist of:
- announcements in Village Pumps and mailing lists
- Lightning Talks and potential presentations during Wikimedia events like Wikimania, CEE Meeting, IberoConf, NEM, national conferencies
- blog posts on various Wikimedia organisation sites
- in-person discussions
- etc
For engagement of non-wikimedians see the part Promotion.
Get involved[edit]
Participants[edit]
Please use this section to tell us more about who is working on this project. For each member of the team, please describe any project-related skills, experience, or other background you have that might help contribute to making this idea a success.
The team of E@I (Education@Internet) will undertake most the tasks on the project. (Additional cooperation with needed experts is foreseen - eg. lawyers, programmers, Wikimedians, PR-partners.)
The NGO "Education@Internet" is well-known thanks to its educational online platforms. It is coordinator or partner of big, multilingual, free educational websites, often supported by European Commission (program Erasmus+), such as www.deutsch.info, www.lernu.net, www.slovake.eu, www.russky.info, www.cyberhelp.eu, etc.
E@I initiated several projects about Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects - eg. in 2013 E@I with Wikimedians of Slovakia ("Wikimedia Slovakia" in that time) has hosted the yearly Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2013, which took place in Slovakia. E@I published 2 teachbooks about Wikipedia in Esperanto ("Wikipedia – a practical handbook" by Yves Nevelsteen and "Wikipedia for you" by Ziko van Dijk, see the website), has organized competitions about writing articles for Wikipedia (see w:eo:Vikipedio:Konkurso/2010), as well as trainings and seminars about Wikipedia. E@I coworks with at least 3 founders of 3 language versions of Wikipedia (Slovak, Czech and Esperanto ones) and provides organisational help to 2 Wikimedia Affiliations (providing official address and shared office to Wikimedians of Slovakia, mentoring, encouraging collaboration and helping Esperanto and Free Knowledge).
E@I by its own work supports free knowledge since the founding of the organisation - it is one of its core goals.
E@I (Education@Internet) is an international youth organisation, which promotes international collaboration and communication throughout the world by hosting educational projects supporting intercultural learning and the usage of languages and internet technologies. In collaborative projects it focuses on intercultural learning, languages and IT usage, website development, CD/DVD/book publishing, production of publicity and training materials and organisation of seminars. At the moment there are 5 full-time employees, several temporary project-based employees as well as changing volunteers and interns from other EU countries working in the office in Slovakia. Besides its regular staff, E@I has a network of online-volunteers from a wide range of countries, helping to maintain its projects and translating website content into their languages (55 languages: all 23 official languages in the EU, many regional and minority European languages, and major non-European languages).
E@I's main aim is development and hosting of multilingual and free e-learning opportunities in different fields. It is involved in promotion and development of open educational resources and voluntary work for provision of high quality free education on the Internet. E@I is actively involved in the promotion of big collaborative projects providing access to knowledge, which are based on volunteering, e.g. Wikipedia. E@I also organises summer schools and language courses, courses for Wikipedia volunteers, etc., publishes books and text books and has extensive experience in dissemination of project results to users, stakeholders and multipliers as well as to policy makers. E.g. in case of www.slovake.eu E@I is constantly involved in dialogue with high level education and culture decision makers on national and European level. Through its project work E@I has developed an excellent relationship with national education bodies, e.g. the Slovak national school authority as well as the Ministry of foreign affair. Due to a number successful, cutting-edge e-learning platforms, E@I regularly participates in national and international professional conferences and fairs on education and languages and it efficiently uses all opportunities to present new projects along with old successful projects. Thus E@I can build on its contacts and networks to ensure broad dissemination to end users and to professionals in the field of education, culture and ICT in general.
E@I constantly hosts several EVS volunteers (programme of European Commission) from different countries, mainly as long-term volunteers, who take part in the regular work of the organisation and can experience true transnational collaboration in the office. Most of the permanent staff members were hired after spending some time as volunteers in the organisation during their studies or after their studies, which is why there are native speakers of several languages among the permanent staff and even more among the volunteers.
More info: www.ikso.net and w:en:E@I
Persons involved into the project:
| Name, country, field of responsibility | description, skills, photo |
|---|---|
| Peter Baláž / article (SK) management of the project |
 |
| Dorota Rodzianko (PL) administration / finances |
 |
| Edoardo Nannotti (IT) programming, design |
 |
| Matthieu Desplantes (FR) programming |
.jpg) |
| Krystof Klestil (CZ) programming, design, testing |
new E@I staff member (EVS-volunteer in previous year) - with rich experiences and skills (3D graphics, website development…), fan of Linux and Open Source programs and solutions |
| KuboF Hromoslav / article (SK) Wikimedia engagement |
 |
| Michal Grodza (SK) PR activities |
new member of E@I staff, but volunteer during previous 2 years. Will be responsible for all dissemination of the project |
Community notification[edit]
You are responsible for notifying relevant communities of your proposal, so that they can help you! Depending on your project, notification may be most appropriate on a Village Pump, talk page, mailing list, etc.--> Please paste links below to where relevant communities have been notified of your proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions. Need notification tips?
- Wikimedia meetings
- CEE Meeting 2018 in Lviv, Lighting Talk
- Czech Wikiconference 2018 in Olomouc, Lighting Talk
- mailing lists:
- Village Pumps:
- Esperanto Wikipedia (the most active Esperanto Wikimedia project)
- Esperanto Wikisource (one of the most affected Wikimedia projects)
- Commons (in Esperanto) (one of the most affected Wikimedia projects)
- Telegram channels:
- WM CEE
- Wikimedia in Esperanto
- Esperanto activists
- Esperanto IT and FLOOSS
Endorsements[edit]
Do you think this project should be selected for a Project Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project below! (Other constructive feedback is welcome on the discussion page).
- This is an excellent idea. NMaia (talk) 11:08, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
- A big opportunity to prevent data loss. I support this. —LLarson (said & done) 14:26, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
- A great opportunity to easily deal with content liberation. A useful alternative to OTRS, which is no easy to use. --Sahaquiel9102 (talk) 16:37, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
- So many times OTRS is too slow, and I had to personally contact a volunteer to speed up the process (Especially when the document in which the rights are transferred are in a language other than English), this project will solve this. I like the idea and I hope the best for this project. --
Remux - Nunca Olvidaré, que me enamoré de la más hermosa flor. Ĉu mi povas helpi vin iel? 00:30, 5 November 2015 (UTC) 20:23, 15 December 2018 (UTC) - A great step in support of the flow of ideas and creative pieces! Sudastelaro 17:19, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
- Yvesn (talk) 10:25, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
- Ziko (talk) 23:39, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
- --Venca24 (talk) 14:10, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
- Dominikmatus (talk) 14:32, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
- Probably the most important single thing that wikimedia can do to help the commons is to create a tool like this. Brinerustle (talk) 13:29, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
