Brazil: Ministry of Culture abandons Creative Commons
On January 9, Global Voices shared the concern of many Brazilian citizens who wrote an open letter to President-elect Dilma Rousseff and the new Minister of Culture, Ana de Hollanda. The letter urged the Minister to maintain the previous government's policy concerning the inclusive public policies regarding Internet, digital culture and authorial rights.
Two weeks later, on January 20, the Brazilian Ministry of Culture removed a Creative Commons license from its website. The order to remove it was apparently given by Minister de Hollanda and it provoked all sorts of reactions on social networks as well as among bloggers.
Creative Commons Brazil immediately opposed the decision of the Ministry on Twitter (@CC_BR):
Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure to maximize digital creativity, sharing, and innovation. CC licenses are flexible, and the countries who have legal representation of the institution often adapt such licenses to their own legislation. Their Brazilian representation reposted an article by Revista ARede [TheWeb Magazine, pt] talking about the enormous political meaning of replacing the line “The content of this website is published under a Creative Commons License” – on the website since 2004 – to: “User License: the content on this website produced by the Ministry of Culture can be reproduced, provided the source”:
Da forma que está hoje, o site do MinC não tem uma licença válida, explica Ronaldo Lemos, diretor do Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade (CTS) da Fundação Getúlio Vargas e diretor do Creative Commons Brasil. “Do ponto de vista jurídico, a frase que colocaram lá não quer dizer nada. Quem utilizar os conteúdos do site com base nela enfrenta um problema de insegurança jurídica enorme”, afirma ele. Além disso, a frase que o MinC deixou no site no lugar da licença CC fala apenas em “reprodução”. “Os direitos do CC são muito mais amplos e melhor formulados, abrangendo a produção colaborativa, o desenvolvimento de obras derivadas, a disseminação e assim por diante. Dessa forma, o site do MinC perdeu muito com a mudança”.
As it stands today, the Ministry of Culture website does not have a valid license, explains Ronaldo Lemos, director of the Center for Technology and Society of Fundação Getúlio Vargas and Lead of Creative Commons Brazil. “From the legal perspective, the phrase that they have put there does not mean anything. Whoever uses the contents of that website based on the sentence faces a big problem of juridical insecurity”, he states. Moreover, the sentence that the Ministry used to replace the CC license mentions only “reproduction”. “The rights of Creative Commons are broader and better elaborated, ranging from collaborative production, creation of derivatives, sharing and so on. In this regard, the Ministry of Culture website has lost a lot with the change”.
On the following day, the Ministry responded to the reaction of groups and individuals online with the official note:
“A retirada da referência ao Creative Commons da página principal do Ministério da Cultura se deu porque a legislação brasileira permite a liberação de conteúdo. Não há necessidade do ministério dar destaque a uma iniciativa específica. Isso não impede que o Creative Commons ou outras formas de licenciamento sejam utilizados pelos interessados.”
Leftist blogger Marco Weissheimer commented on the Ministry's response while comparing the current minister's decision with the work done in the mandate of Gilberto Gil, singer and songwriter who served as Minister of Culture from 2003 to 2008. He said [pt]:
A nota não aliviou as críticas e a preocupação com a continuidade da política iniciada na gestão de Gilberto Gil na Cultura. Durante a gestão de Gil, o Ministério da Cultura aderiu ao Creative Commons. Mais do que isso, Gil se tornou, em 2004, o primeiro compositor brasileiro a ceder direitos de uma canção à licença. O governo federal também passou a utilizar maciçamente as licenças. O Blog do Planalto, por exemplo, é licenciado dessa forma.
In an interview at Fatos Etc blog, the sociologist Sergio Amadeu considers the position of the Minister quite unexpected, pointing out the controversy on the new attribution policy. He contends that the minister herself committed an illegal act, and that her position is in contradiction with the new President's governmental policies [pt]:
A Dilma mantém o Blog do Planalto, instalado, implementado pelo presidente Lula em Creative Commons, e que continua em Creative Commons. E ela, a ministra, fez um ato que é afrontar a política de compartilhamento iniciada no governo Lula e afrontar a própria Dilma, que disse exatamente que iria continuar a política iniciada na gestão do Gilberto Gil e do Lula. Então ela, além disso, cometeu uma ilegalidade, porque não poderia tirar as licenças do Creative Commons das matérias e postagens que já tinham sido publicadas em Creative Commons.
Some bloggers are discussing whether Ana de Hollanda might be benefiting ECAD (Central Bureau of Collection and Distribution), the organization responsible for distributing tax revenues on copyright media. Geraldine Juárez, writing for the blog alt1040, comments how the new Minister, a musician herself, has profited from the copyright industry and goes on saying [es]:
El único país que apuntaba en la dirección correcta para reformar de una forma justa para toda la sociedad y coherente con los retos que la digitilización implica, era Brasil. El Proyecto de Ley de Derecho de Autoral y su agenda de Cultura Digital creada por Gilberto Gil han sido uno de los factores que definitivamente ayudaron a voltear y fijar la mirada en Brasil.
On the other hand, writing at the blog Ponto e Contraponto, author Len criticized the reaction of the Creative Commons community and its supporters. He argues that the replacement text and the copyright license helps giving a better understanding of what is feasible to be done with the content of the website for the average public [pt]:
Eu vejo como uma mudança positiva. A gente tem que levar sempre em consideração que são os usuários avançados de internet e os nerds que conhecem o CC e o significado das licenças. A maioria esmagadora que usa a internet e tem conhecimento básico não possui a menor ideia do que aqueles selos significam e muito menos em uma sigla em língua estrangeira. A frase grafada no rodapé da página, escrita em português informa melhor a um número maior de pessoas. As pessoas que não conhecem o significado dos selos da CC podem ter seus sites ou blogs e querer usar material do site do MinC, e com essa mudança eles também vão saber que podem usar o conteúdo, desde que citem a fonte.
The outcome of Minister de Hollanda's actions is still uncertain: while a tough position against Creative Commons is being interpreted by some bloggers as a clear move backwards in the debate about digital culture in Brazil, others believe the change is an opportunity to discuss copyright. As a matter of fact, groups such as the community “Transparência Hacker”, a forum of transparency and open data activists in Brazil, have debated whether or not all content created [pt] by the Brazilian Government should rather be in the public domain, following the principle of dissemination of public information highlighted in the Constitution.
16 comments
Great overview. In this case I’d say my vote would go to public domain. If they’re going to change it they might as well go for even more openness!
Did you see this tweet from Minister de Hollanda, linking to an announcement on the Ministry blog – http://twitter.com/#!/anadehollanda/status/30326568161124353? The announcement says (roughly): “The removal of references to Creative Commons on the main page of the Ministry of Culture was because Brazilian law allows the release of contents. There is no need for the ministry to highlight a specific initiative. This does not prevent the Creative Commons or other forms of licensing from being used by stakeholders.”
What’s your view on this, Diego? Does you think Brazil’s access to information policy is an adequate replacement for CC?
Hi Georgia,
this was exactly what I translated in the post above, with different words ;-) I guess I should only add the link to anadehollanda’s tweet!
Personally, I do not think the legislation is adequate to a CC license, but I think this discussion is much broader. For example, I do believe that any content created by the government in should be in public domain, instead of any other form of licensing, be it CC or Copyright.
Very interesting post! I ‘ll stay tuned ;) obrigada
“ECAD (Central Bureau of Collection and Distribution), the organization responsible for distributing tax revenues on copyright media.”
ECAD is the music collecting society and the only collective copyright management association of Brazil. It does not distribute tax revenues on copyright media, but it collects and distributes copyright royalties for the public performance of the compositions and recordings of the members of its member associations.