Copyright Hub Goes Public: Where's the Public Domain? - Technology Blog and Community from IT Experts - ComputerworldUK.com

"Readers with good memories may remember numerous posts here in the wake of the Hargreaves report on copyright in the digital age, which was called 'Digital Opportunity' (.pdf). That report contained many worthwhile ideas, which I discussed in previous columns. But one interesting proposal that I rather skated over was to set up what the report called a Digital Copyright Exchange: ]The aim is to establish a network of interoperable databases to provide a common platform for licensing transactions ...'  It's taken rather longer than the Hargreaves report hoped, but the Digital Copyright Exchange, now dubbed the 'Copyright Hub', finally exists ... It's certainly hugely welcome that the technology behind the Hub will be open sourced. Unfortunately, that's about the most open part of the new site: the rest of it is all about asking 'permission', a word that figures frequently throughout the site. Of course, given that this is a copyright hub, and that it has been funded by the creative industries, that's perhaps understandable. But it is also rather retrogressive - unlike the open-sourcing of the code - and unbalanced ..."