[okfn-discuss] freebase: another new open knowledge/open data service
Rufus Pollock
rufus.pollock at okfn.org
Tue Mar 13 14:11:11 UTC 2007
rob at robmyers.org wrote:
> Quoting Francis Irving <francis at flourish.org>:
>
>> Regarding licensing, I don't know anything about law, but perhaps as
>> well as the Copy Right it is possible to license out the Database
>> Right :)
>
> The Talis licence is a DB right copyleft license, for example. But the
> DB right
> only applies in the EU, so it is not useful for global projects. And I
There is a DB right in many other countries either explicitly or
implicitly (i.e. under copyright), for example Canada and Australia both
have a common-law like protection and the Feist decision in the US is
not nearly as broadly exclusionary as many people think. For more on
this see this post summarizing a talk by Professor Hugenholtz:
http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/drn-discuss/2005-November/000086.html
As well as this article by the man himself:
http://www.ivir.nl/publications/hugenholtz/fordham2001.html
> personally think that it's not a "right" that we should have in the EU,
> never
> mind be trying to use anywhere else. :-)
I have to say I am not so sure on this point.
Firstly, databases are fairly easy to lock up using secrecy and
restrictive licensing -- particularly in the digital age. Thus, the
alternative to the right is not open dbs but dbs which are closed by
access restrictions rather than using an IP right. Furthermore for those
projects which *are* open having a db right provides a means to protect
the 'data' commons using share-alike provisions (which without the
underlying right would be meaningless). In such circumstances the
existence of an explicit DB right is good for open knowledge and not
bad. As I wrote to Jamie Boyle:
<quote>
Finally I wish to play devil's advocate and ask what you think is wrong
with the following proposition.
Assuming that:
a) we can use an exclusive, 'closed', right to build an open
'commons' (as with 'copyleft' for software)
b) in the long run open knowledge drives out closed
c) prior to the DB directive there were already db-type rights in
various EU member states as well as in many other common law
jurisdictions (I also note that, when asked why the US had not created
DB rights as in the EU at a seminar in Cambridge in November, Professor
Hugenholtz expressed the view that this was largely because US DB
companies were able to protect themselves by recreating IP type rights
through contract)
Then, in the long run, the introduction of a harmonized DB right will
promote the openness of databases rather than hinder them.
</quote>
Secondly, I would point out that even if a CC license were not *legally*
effective it might have social value in making explicit what the social
contract was for access to a given dataset.
For example, in a community of scientists even without an enforceable
right there might be many other social sanctions which could be used to
encourage (and sanction) people in regard to sharing (and not-sharing).
In such circumstances while not legally enforceable the license makes
explicits the basis on which the community will be working on the
dataset and what is expected of those who use it. (For more on this see
this email to the open-data list
https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OpenData/Message/100.html).
Regards,
Rufus
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