So Much Fuss Over A Photo That The Photographer Has No Problem With People Copying

Polish Prime Minister Says Things Funded With Public Money Should Be In The Public Domain

from the wow dept

Wed, Jun 1st 2011 1:14am — Mike Masnick

Slashdot points us to a report that Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has declared that anything funded with public money will be in the public domain (Google translation from the original Polish). It sounds like there was some hedging on this, as he perhaps suggests that they still need to classify what exactly will be public, but it's encouraging. It's also not entirely clear from the report if this just refers to state documents, or also the output of research funded by the state. Hopefully we'll get some clarification soon.

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Filed Under: copyright, poland, public domain

13 Comments

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Di Fiasco (profile), 1 Jun 2011 @ 1:19am

So we can expect all technical and software data on the Airbus A380 Superjumbo to be made available, for free, to all?

Cool. I'm starting up my own aircraft manufacturing firm. Who's with me???
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Jun 2011 @ 1:26am

re Airbus A380 Superjumbo not a bad idea.
it would probably take a decade to get ready to make one so airbus would stay ahead of the game - unless they wanted to waste their time and energy going to court - i think that a good idea mr AC.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Jun 2011 @ 2:44am

Re:
I'm with you, as long as you are providing the funding to make that Airbus. Don't worry, we should be able to have a running prototype in about a year for less than a Billion � (a real bargain).

Of course our product would be obsolete by then, because the "others" wouldn't just sit still. But it's all free right? So we're good (well, I would be. You would just be about a Billion � lighter.).
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Jun 2011 @ 2:54am

Sounds about right. Taxpayers are paying for the works anyway, so they should be able to freely access them.
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-, 1 Jun 2011 @ 3:02am

It's yet not fully what will be considered public information, but the talk was about openness other government related bodies, no word about patents and such.

Full recording of the meeting (in Polish):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f8nLz94oQ8
The quote starts at 24:47
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Jun 2011 @ 3:04am

Re:
Sorry, one edition was unfinished, the first sentence was supposed to be:
It's yet not fully what will be considered public information, but the talk was about openness of government and other related bodies, no word about patents and such.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Jun 2011 @ 5:00am

I've always believed drug research done with federal money should be benefitting the public more. At some point a corporation locks up the drug that results without repaying the public coffers for the research that lead to the result.
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jweb (profile), 1 Jun 2011 @ 5:24am

hmm.. about those bail out funds..
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Di Fiasco (profile), 1 Jun 2011 @ 5:37am

Re: re Airbus A380 Superjumbo not a bad idea.
That's ok - we could just steal their new schematics as they appear and sell them to Embraer to pay for our own manufacturing costs.
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Beta (profile), 1 Jun 2011 @ 6:12am

let us not forget
How about applying this to publicly funded art?
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-, 1 Jun 2011 @ 6:52am

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikisource/en/wiki/Polish_Copyright_Law_from_4_February_1994

"The copyright shall not cover:
(...)
2) official documents, materials, logos and symbols
(...)"
Yes, art is no different.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Jun 2011 @ 7:10am

Yup!
And if they don't like it, they can fund their own research.
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weneedhelp (profile), 1 Jun 2011 @ 8:29am

Gasp!!!
You mean give the people what they paid for? But but but...
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