WebMink
Simon Phipps's personal commentary

Digital Libraries

Jobim & Son

I had a great opportunity today to see the Java platform in action in a project to preserve and publish the personal library of the great Brazillian musician and composer Antonio Carlos "Tom" Jobim. It's not live yet, but there will be a research centre with correspondence, personal recordings, interviews and performances by Tom Jobim. The A C Jobim foundation, spearheaded by his son Paulo, is using a Java system to catalogue and publish the private collection

Paulo spoke about the difficulty he faces getting the rights to post the interviews and performances from his father online. Some of the works are owned by companies that don't return calls (probably because rights have been inherited through acquisitions and are not part of a high-value collection), others by companies afraid of internet publication.

Paulo is responsible and calm and will clearly do the right thing throughout, but it became clear to me the value of the work being done at the Creative commons. They're crafting licenses that preserve just the rights companies need to operate and waive the ones that Paulo needs (in this case for non-commercial inclusion in a research library).

The principle of "some rights reserved" seems so right for the massively-connected era - essential rights are protected, yet rights that grow the culture and the commons are released. If the concept had existed years ago, Paulo would not now be faced with writing letters to hundreds and hundreds of "rights owners" worldwide to allow people to study his father's genius.

Related: DRM For The Citizen

posted at 10:10 PM (UK) | |