Hi Simon,<div><br></div><div>(CCing to the list)<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Sep 6, 2010 at 2:20 PM, Simon Cropper <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:scropper@botanicusaustralia.com.au">scropper@botanicusaustralia.com.au</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div class="im">On Monday 06 September 2010 11:38:38 am you wrote:<br>
> Nobody is arguing with that. It's just that CC licenses and particularly<br>
> CC-BY-SA don't mean what's "on the cover" with respect to datasets.<br>
> Creative Commons themselves say they shouldn't be used.<br>
<br>
</div>Robert,<br>
<br>
After many years of publishing books, reports and data, both in traditional<br>
paper-based form and electronically, it has become apparent to me that most<br>
people do not think that much about copyright or intellectual property.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I agree! in the past this would have been ignored entirely. The number of people/organisations I speak to about data where the sentiment is "just use it" and you get a blank look when asking about what license it's available under....</div>
<div><br></div><div>However, I think people are becoming more aware of the issues. There still seems to be an anti-commercial sentiment in some sectors. The problem is, commercial covers nearly anything.</div><div><br></div>
<div>Arguably a researcher working on a project partially funded by a company is commercial, as is a lone developer who builds a mashup and has some Google ads on the website. </div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<br>
I mention this because I recently pointed out to people publishing educational<br>
material in OSGeo that despite stating that they release 'their' document<br>
under creative commons the data used and images presented, and the data the<br>
authors pointed the reader to in order to reproduce a method illustrated in a<br>
tutorial were all covered by restrictive licenses conditions. In other words<br>
not all elements of the published work were covered by the license specified.<br>
So despite an author releasing work as a CC-BY-SA, derived works were<br>
impossible to create as the rights to use, share or reproduce the underlying<br>
data, images, etc had not been obtained.<br>
<br>
This issue of copyright or access/usable rights associated with 'components'<br>
of a work is particularly important and is rarely addressed.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Yep. I think that'll be next on the awareness list after the larger "work". Already you're seeing news media getting pulled up heavily around using citizen photos from twitpic/etc without attribution.</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<br>
It would be valuable if groups, like Creative Commons group, created an<br>
interactive key that (1) identified copyrightable/licensable elements of a<br>
work, then (2) pointed the publisher to the relevant type of licenses<br>
available.<br>
<br>
In relation to the above mentioned license change. What remains ambiguous to<br>
me is what is actually meant by data or databases. Not so much the full blown<br>
relational databases (i.e. fields names, query forms, table relationships,<br>
coupled with data) as this is obvious but rather the smaller more unusual<br>
datasets.<br>
<br>
For example...<br>
1. Data stored in a table in a report.<br>
2. Attribute data stored in shapefiles (including field names and codes)<br>
3. Vector data or raster data<br>
3. Aerial Photography<br>
4. Any derived images or maps created with the this data<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>It's definitely designed to cover attribute data & vector data. Maps created with it aren't covered by the license - they'd be CC-BY-SA for the OSM ones, and I can't speak to the rest.</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<br>
It is unclear to me whether this type of data would be covered by the Open<br>
database License. Better explanation of what is meant by 'data' with good<br>
examples would be invaluable in helping people understand whether this new<br>
license is relevant to them.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>To be honest, I'm not sure what level of applicability there is to other databases/projects - I haven't looked. Creative Commons/Science Commons have gone down the path of only recommending Public Domain for datasets. Which is fair enough, but does leave the share-alike space with nothing.</div>
<div><br></div><div>It would be nice to see a range of content/data licenses presented concisely, with plain-language interpretations so people can make a good decision about what is the right license for them. </div><div>
<br></div><div>Rob :)</div><div><br></div></div>
</div>