[od-discuss] Up and Coming: Open Government Licence in Canada (OGL-C)

Fri Dec 7 09:11:44 UTC 2012

I find the addition of an explicit right to "sub-Licence the 
Information" intriguing.  Myself and a few others have been pushing for 
the GoC to make the licence compatible with international licences such 
as ODC-By and CC-BY. I wonder if this is intended as a response to this 
request, especially given that we have suggested a right to sublicence 
under CC-BY as a solution (see 
http://www.cippic.ca/sites/default/files/Creative%20Commons%20Licenses%20-%20Options%20for%20Canadian%20Open%20Data%20Providers.pdf).

Of course, the OGL-C draft does not limit the right to sublicense to a 
particular licence or set of licences. Does this perhaps make it 
wide-open, subject only to the fact that you can only sublicence what 
you're licensed in the first place (thus, not personal data, third party 
rights, etc)?  If so, it doesn't even seem like you'd even necessarily 
have to propagate the attribution obligation into a sublicence.  I'd 
hesitantly say that this term is intended to be this broad, but the 
particular wording muddies the waters.  Aside from the fact that 
"license" should be spelled with an 's' when used as verb, the capital 
on 'L' on Licence seems to reference the defined-term "Licence" -- as 
in, the OGL-C licence.  Then again, in the context of an open licence, a 
right to sublicense under the exact same Licence would be rather moot 
and meaningless...

>> First, something about the UK OGL that I hadn't noticed before,
>>
>>      "This Licence does not grant you any right to use: ... Information
>> subject to other intellectual property rights, including patents and
>> trademarks."
>>
>> Is this effectively granting narrower permissions than an instrument
>> which merely does not grant any patent or trademark rights? Compare
>> with, for example, http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/ which
>> "does not cover ... patents ... trademarks"; but it doesn't say does
>> not grant you any rights if these exist.
This is an interesting point.  It seems to me that this distinction 
could be especially pertinent for trade-marks (in which copyright often 
subsists as well).  For licences that merely "do not cover" the 
trade-marks, you can still use and reproduce them so along as you're not 
doing so in association with wares/services (and as long as they're not 
official marks).  However, as Mike notes, the terms of the OGL and OGL-C 
would appear to revoke your copyright licence wherever trade-marks apply.

Kent