[odc-discuss] Questions about ODC licenses and web site

Thu Jul 7 12:52:06 UTC 2011

On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 1:01 PM, Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org> wrote:
> On 6 July 2011 11:04, Peter B. Hirtle <pbh6 at cornell.edu> wrote:
>> This is very helpful.  I realize now that I have been equating data with content; you seem to equate data with databases.  My questions properly concern content, not databases.  (For what it is worth, it is much more likely that other researchers will want to reuse content in new ways rather than replicate or build on existing databases.)
>
> I think the exact opposite :-) I think reuse of data(bases) will
> likely be much greater than of "content" thought obviously it depends
> on the data(base) and content!
>
>> In this case, the content is factual and hence has no copyright.  The scientist who has collected it, however, wishes to receive attribution when people use the content.  I don't agree with this decision, but since he physically owns the content, he can set the terms on how it is released.

Sure. Many people and groups make unreasonable claims for attribution.
 The scientific community already have expectations for credit when
building on previous work in the form of citing sources.  Why would
attribution credit be required for the data, in addition to what is
already required for the previous work as a whole?

Consider using PDDL for both data and database.  When applied to the
data, PDDL makes clear that a consumer of the data may use it in any
way.  If another scientist builds upon the previous work, they are
already expected to cite the source.