[od-discuss] MapLight Launches New US Money and Politics Data Set

Tue Oct 2 21:29:26 UTC 2012

In the US, the Center for Responsive Politics is the most important source
for improved campaign finance data (among other things, they add coding
data that allows aggregation by donor entity instead of just by candidate).
Sunlight provides support for CRP to redistribute their data under a
CC-BY-NC license -- otherwise, organizations have to negotiate with CRP for
access, or simply quote aggregate numbers from opensecrets.org.

Sunlight is committed to making US campaign finance data as open as
possible, but we respect the important role CRP plays and their feeling
that they can't offer their data in an unfettered manner while maintaining
financial sustainability. I suspect that the Maplight folks took a look at
CRP's terms and added their own spin and values -- just a guess, knowing
the folks involved.

I'm curious whether people on this list think FEC-derived data could *ever*
satisfy the open definition, as per the restrictions Andrew identifies.
 These are primarily designed to protect donors from solicitations, and I
think they're extremely unlikely to be changed anytime soon.  Unfortunately
I think this means that US campaign finance data won't meet the open data
definition for the foreseeable future.

Tom

On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 5:17 PM, Mike Linksvayer <ml at gondwanaland.com> wrote:

> Agree with all of Andrew's analysis.
>
> Agree the effect of termination and modification of terms at any time
> on use of already downloaded data not entirely clear, but I take that
> to be in poor spirit, at the very least. As to whether a revocable
> license is OKD compliant, I'd say no. It isn't explicit, but maybe
> should be in the forthcoming OKD revision. If one likes the related
> (as OKD is derived from the OSD which is derived from the DFSG)
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guidelines#debian-legal_tests_for_DFSG_compliance
> revocation completely fails the desert island and tentacles of evil
> tests.
>
> Surprised anyone would conclude " This is not a CC license, but it
> more closely resembles Sharealike than Noncommercial." Although it
> allows use on sites with ads, no fees are allowed, and there's no
> ShareAlike-like term.
>
> Though these terms clearly aren't open, I'm fairly curious how they
> came up with them.
>
> Mike
>
> On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 1:55 PM, Andrew Stott <andrew.stott at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> > To see the discussion on another list about MapLight below.
> >
> >
> >
> > The licence is at
> > http://maplight.org/data/get/federal-money-and-politics-dataset/license
> >
> >
> >
> > From the point of view of the Open Definition the licence seems to fall
> on
> > several grounds:
> >
> >
> >
> > (1) the free use *only* for uses that are freely available to the public
> is
> > contrary to the “redistribution” requirement
> >
> >
> >
> > (2) the restriction on non-public uses seems contrary to “no
> discrimination
> > against fields of endeavour”
> >
> >
> >
> > (3) the potential requirement to supply traffic statistics seems like a
> form
> > of non-financial consideration – would we regard this as a type of “other
> > fee” in terms of the “redistribution” requirement? (If not, is this a
> > problem in the Open Definition itself?)
> >
> >
> >
> > (4) the provision for an iframe with embeddable code that delivers an
> > advertisement “If you are using data from the MapLight tables “U.S.
> Federal:
> > All Contributions” AND if you are displaying such data on a website with
> > average site traffic of more than 10,000 visits per month” is surely
> > problematical.  It is hard to defend as a kind of attribution
> (especially as
> > there is a separate provision for attribution), but if it is then would
> we
> > consider it “onerous” (it is beyond the forms of attribution required in
> > CC-BY 3.0 clause 4(b) for instance)?  It seems more like another kind of
> > non-financial consideration for the use of the data.
> >
> >
> >
> > (5) in the penultimate clause the import of use restrictions set by the
> > Federal Election Commission requires some test of whether those
> restrictions
> > themselves lead to a non-open conclusion.
> >
> >
> >
> > (6) it’s not clear whether the licence modification clause would affect
> data
> > already downloaded.  (Although does the Open Definition actually prevent
> > open licence revocation?)
> >
> >
> >
> > Regards
> >
> >
> >
> > Andrew
> >
> >
> >
> > From: openspending-bounces at lists.okfn.org
> > [mailto:openspending-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Jonathan Gray
> > Sent: 02 October 2012 20:18
> > To: Heather Morrison
> > Cc: open-government; OpenSpending Discussion List; civicaccess discuss
> > Subject: Re: [OpenSpending] [CivicAccess-discuss] Fwd: Fwd:
> [sunlightlabs]
> > MapLight Launches New US Money and Politics Data Set
> >
> >
> >
> > My mistake, Heather!
> >
> >
> >
> > I was under this impression from the press release, which says: "The
> > MapLight Money and Politics Data Set can also be downloaded or accessed
> via
> > API by citizens and journalists for free *non-commercial* use in
> websites,
> > widgets, and apps." (my emphasis).
> >
> >
> >
> > I will forward the data license to the Open Definition Advisory Council
> [1],
> > to see if they think this is compliant with the Open Definition [2]:
> >
> >
> >
> > http://maplight.org/data/get/federal-money-and-politics-dataset/license
> >
> > J.
> >
> > [1] http://opendefinition.org/advisory-council/
> >
> > [2] http://opendefinition.org/
> >
> > On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 9:13 PM, Heather Morrison <hgmorris at sfu.ca>
> wrote:
> >
> > Cool resource - thanks for sharing this, Michael!
> >
> > The Open Knowledge Foundation's Jonathan Gray's comment misportrays the
> > license for this resource.
> >
> > Here is what it actually says: "free of charge for all uses that are
> freely
> > available to the public. For example, you may use the MapLight Data on
> free
> > public websites (including ad-supported websites); in news reporting
> > available to the public; in academic research; in blog posts; and in
> mobile
> > apps offered free of charge".
> > http://maplight.org/data/get/federal-money-and-politics-dataset/license
> >
> > This is not a CC license, but it more closely resembles Sharealike than
> > Noncommercial.
> >
> > best,
> >
> > Heather Morrison
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 2012-10-02, at 11:57 AM, Michael Lenczner wrote:
> >
> >> fyi
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> >> From: Jonathan Gray <jonathan.gray at okfn.org>
> >> Date: Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 2:50 PM
> >> Subject: [OpenSpending] Fwd: [sunlightlabs] MapLight Launches New US
> >> Money and Politics Data Set
> >> To: open-government at lists.okfn.org, openspending at lists.okfn.org
> >>
> >>
> >> Might be of interest. Shame it is all under a non-commercial license!
> >>
> >> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> >> From: Daniel Newman <dan at maplight.org>
> >> Date: Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 8:23 PM
> >> Subject: [sunlightlabs] MapLight Launches New US Money and Politics Data
> >> Set
> >> To: sunlightlabs <sunlightlabs at googlegroups.com>
> >>
> >>
> >> Free, Public MapLight Money and Politics Data Set Launches Today,
> >> Includes All Federal Campaign Contributions
> >>
> >> Hosted on Google Fusion Tables for Easy Searching and Bulk Download
> >> Accessible by API
> >>
> >> Oct. 2, 2012—MapLight, a nonpartisan research organization that
> >> reveals money's influence on politics, announces the launch of the
> >> MapLight Money and Politics Data Set, an easy-to-access, downloadable
> >> database of MapLight-enhanced Federal Elections Commission (FEC)
> >> campaign finance data for free public use. The data set includes all
> >> federal contributions, independent expenditures (including super
> >> PACs), and candidate and committee totals and will update regularly
> >> with the most current data from the FEC.
> >>
> >> "MapLight is excited to offer this critical civic data in a way that
> >> is more timely and accessible than ever before, said Daniel G. Newman,
> >> MapLights co-founder and president. "It will be wonderful to see what
> >> the web community builds with this continually-updated free public
> >> data, using the latest tools from Google Fusion Tables."
> >>
> >> Citizens, journalists, and programmers can now view, search, sort,
> >> filter, and visualize (with charts, line graphs, bar graphs, scatter
> >> plots, and timelines) federal campaign contributions using Google
> >> Fusion Tables. Data can also be merged with outside databases, and
> >> visualizations can be easily embedded into blogs, media sites, and
> >> more.
> >>
> >> The MapLight Money and Politics Data Set can also be downloaded or
> >> accessed via API by citizens and journalists for free non-commercial
> >> use in websites, widgets, and apps. The data set includes continually
> >> updated information on all current candidates for the House, Senate,
> >> and U.S. Presidentincluding how much each has raised and spentmaking
> >> it easy for election-related websites to integrate this newsworthy
> >> information.
> >>
> >> Read more:
> >> http://maplight.org/maplight-launches-fec-money-and-politics-data-set
> >>
> >> -----
> >> Daniel Newman
> >> President & Co-Founder
> >> MapLight
> >>
> >> --
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> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Jonathan Gray
> >>
> >> Head of Community
> >> The Open Knowledge Foundation
> >> http://www.okfn.org
> >>
> >> http://twitter.com/jwyg
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> openspending mailing list
> >> openspending at lists.okfn.org
> >> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/openspending
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
> >> CivicAccess-discuss at civicaccess.ca
> >> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Jonathan Gray
> >
> > Head of Community
> > The Open Knowledge Foundation
> > http://www.okfn.org
> >
> > http://twitter.com/jwyg
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
>
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