Copyright and the Queensland Government
I was doing some quick research on Creative Common licensing and came across two reports written this year for the Queensland Government dealing with copyright and use of government information online. They make interesting reading, though I have only managed to skim through both reports, they are large reports and rather hefty PDF files.
Legal Aspects of Web 2.0 Activities: weighs in at over 150 pages and looks at the legal implication of government agencies using YouTube, MySpace and SecondLife. If you are involved in government or business and looking at using YouTube, MySpace or SecondLife, get this report it will clarify a number of issues for you. I found the section on copyright very interesting:
There is increasing support for the view that providing broad usage rights for Government copyright material is of social, economic and cultural benefit to the State
Citing Access the Government Information and Open Content Licensing: an Access and Use Strategy a 100 page report looking in detail at how Queensland Government information should be licensed. The conclusion, an open content model based on creative commons.
Both reports practise what they preach, they licensed under Creative Commons 2.5 Attribution Licence and well worth the effort to read, even if I have only consumed the excutive summary of both reports and few sections.