For Immediate Release
For more information:
James Campbell
207-548-2200
campbell@spatial.maine.edu

Hands-on Sessions for Content Creators Added to
Conference on the Intellectual Commons
at the University of Maine

Scholars, artists, writers, entrepreneurs and other content creators will have an opportunity to learn about and then apply new types of usage licenses to their work at the “Copyright, Scholarship, and the Case for Open Access: Conference on the Intellectual Commons.” The conference will take place on Saturday, November 20, from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. in Orono at the D.P. Corbett Business Building at the University of Maine. The conference is free and open to the public. Registration and more information is available at http://library.umaine.edu/COIC.

As copyright and other intellectual property law has changed over the past decade, many content creators have sought new and more flexible ways to designate how their works can be used. Neeru Paharia, from the San Francisco based Creative Commons project, will be available to help interested content creators to create and apply a new, less restrictive license for use of their work right at the conference. This optional hands-on session will complement the scholarly presentations and demonstrations by national leaders in the open access movement such as Hal Abelson of MIT, Peter Suber of Public Knowledge, Jean-Claude Guedon of the University of Montreal, Tim Whidden of the MTAA artist collective, as well as Harlan Onsrud, Jon Ippolito, and Joline Blais of the University of Maine, and Rita Heimes of the Technology Law Center at the University of Maine Law School.

The conference will also examine issues in open access to information that affect libraries and public schools, issues that are at the forefront of librarianship and teaching in today’s digital environment. Business people will have an opportunity to explore how major high tech companies like IBM and Novell are building new business models built on open source/ open access products and services. The conference will also focus on how the international open access movement is changing the face of academic publishing and how the University of Maine might position itself as a leadership campus in open access.

The Conference on the Intellectual Commons is sponsored by the University of Maine Information Science Collaborative, Fogler Library, the Technology Law Center at the University of Maine School of Law, Still Water, and MESDA. There is no fee to attend but pre-registration is necessary due to space limitations. Information on the conference and registration is available on the Web at http://library.umaine.edu/COIC.
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