[od-discuss] Open Data - Licensing with CC-BY 4.0?

Mon Dec 15 15:39:49 UTC 2014

[Copying my co-authors and the open-definition list].

Thanks for our interest! I think you have spotted a link-bug. The link is
to http://opendefinition.org/licenses/#Data which, in 2010, had a section
#Data, which has now been removed. This means the link now points to a list
of licences which are compliant with the Open Definition, some, but not
all, of which are indicated for data.

By copying this to the list I think we will get a wider and useful
discussion.  CC-BY 4.0 can in principle be used for data but can cause
problems. Firstly facts are uncopyrightable and so licences may not be
appropriate. Then CC-BY requires attribution and in many cases data are
recursively used, creating attribution stacking ("the boiling point of
water is 373.15 K (ref A, who got it from B's collection, who got it from
C...) I'm a physical and bio scientist (and Panton was primarily for
scientists in 2010) and I have physical scientist's view of data :-).
However there may be types of data where a licence may be useful.

On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 3:16 PM, Felix Schönbrodt <
felix.schoenbrodt at psy.lmu.de> wrote:
>
> Dear Dr. Murray-Rust,
>
> with a lot of interest I read the Panton principles. We currently work on
> a manuscript about open research (see https://agendaforopenresearch.org/)
> and are discussing licensing issues.
>
> One piece of information on your website left me puzzled. On the front
> page, under point 2, you write:
>
> "*Creative Commons licenses* (apart from CCZero), GFDL, GPL, BSD, etc *are
> NOT appropriate for data and their use is STRONGLY discouraged*. Use a
> recognized waiver or license that is appropriate for data. - See more at:
> http://pantonprinciples.org/#sthash.vgpy9IHw.dpuf”
>
> If I follow the link to the table of licenses, however, CC-BY-4.0 is
> listed as a "Recommended conformant license”.
>
> Do I see it correctly that the 4.0 version of CC-BY *is* recommended for
> Open Data?
> (see also http://theodi.org/blog/cc-40-and-open-data)
>
> Thanks!
> Felix
>
> _______________________________
> PD Dr. Felix Schönbrodt
> Department of Psychology ⸰ Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
> Leopoldstr. 13 ⸰ 80802 München ⸰ Germany
>
> Phone: +49 (0) 89 2180-5217
> Fax: +49 (0) 89 2180-99-5214
> http://www.psy.lmu.de/allg2
> http://www.nicebread.de
>
>

-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/od-discuss/attachments/20141215/07db8577/attachment-0002.html>