[okfn-discuss] Data put under CC-BY in MashupAustralia competition

Thu Oct 1 12:59:44 UTC 2009

Hi all,

I recently blogged about the MashupAustralia competition, which was
announced yesterday:

  http://blog.okfn.org/2009/10/01/australian-government-releases-open-data-for-mashupaustralia-competition/

The competition is putting out lots of open data to encourage innovate
re-uses - which is great news!

Lots of the data is being released under CC-BY. On the competition
home page, Cameron Neylon raises the question of whether this is
appropriate for data, sparking off debate with Mia Garlick, organiser
of competition and ex-Creative Commons counsel:

  http://gov2.net.au/blog/2009/09/30/your-invitation-to-mashupaustralia/#comment-1818

Her basic argument seems to me to be that CC licenses are not "mere
(copyright) licenses" but are also contracts - in which case CC-BY
offers legal protection. Its seems that the rationale for doing this
is that government departments want attribution.

Would be great to have thoughts and opinions of people here!

-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://www.okfn.org