[open-archaeology] Open Data Licences and the Heritage Lottery Fund (great guidance but recommend the NC clause) - lobbying activity

Fri Feb 8 13:52:01 UTC 2013

I agree with Leif that it might be nice to move from the specifics of the HLF case to the general, especially with regard to any possible workshop. Moreover, strategically, it might also be best to suggest that the HLF itself funds such a workshop as a continuing marker of its willingness both to consult further and thereafter lead on the issue?

Also, I vaguely wonder wonder whether the current document should address the public domain/CC-0 style licenses vs attribution licenses distinction a little bit more? Many would argue that the former is the only clear-cut way to avoid some of the data fragmentation issues raised, as even proper attribution becomes a tangle over the long term (and despite automated attribution methods). However, raising this too strongly would certainly be counter-productive as the important debate is about NC.
Happy to sign up to this too if you choose to list people individually.

Andy

On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 9:25 PM, Ant Beck <ant.beck at gmail.com<mailto:ant.beck at gmail.com>> wrote:
Dear All,

TL/DR: We would like to influence the Heritage Lottery Fund to change their data licence from CC-BY-NC to CC-BY to stop data fragmentation. Do you support this?

I've been in communication with Lorna Richardson over the past few months about the Heritage Lottery Fund guidance entitled “Using digital technologies in heritage projects”. This is a truly wonderful and forwarding looking piece of work which IMHO opinion has a substantial flaw; they mandate that any content they fund must be made available under a CC-BY-NC licence. I'm loving it until the Non-Commercial clause.

I believe they have done this with the best of intentions but do not quite see the potential negative implications the NC clause this may have over the medium to long term.
I have spoken to one of their managers and they are somewhat perplexed as to why NC might be a problem. I said I would get in touch with a number of organisations, get a concensus and then get back to them (although likely to be informally through Bob Bewley in the first instance). This is the first step in this process.

Together with Lorna we have created a document which outlines the impact of NC as we see it and have set forward some recommendations to try to influence HLF to change this clause (at least for the data elements - I do have sympathy with their arguments that the data creators should be in the best position to financially exploit the resources they generate particularly if this is images, video or books (but not data (I don't consider raw photos to be data per-se))). The recommendation is to organise a workshop (under the auspices of OKF or ADS??) with key stakeholders in place. The outputs can be used to catalyse an immediate re-draft or inform a future re-draft (depending on how they take the recommendations!).

You can find the document here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nw8kwSYdcLgf_QFo5sugRgrwtDtYZomeJ4Sh9T-T46Y/edit?usp=sharing

It is open to edits and comments: please feel free.

Please be aware this is primarily of UK interest. However, the implications are global.

I would like to find out if:
this document reflects the views of the members of this forum (i.e. can I sign it off as representative of this forum).
how we can get OKF to provide support for this activity (someone with decent debating skills at the workshop with a rounded legal knowledge of the CC licences and their impact on the data landscape)
which other forums/stakeholders to canvas (Antiquist/ADS, etc.)
Views on stakeholders to invite
Views on funding (HLF may not fund this activity)
and obviously critique of the document itself.

I've pasted the executive summary below.

Thanks for reading this far :-)

Best

Ant

Executive Summary

The HLF have produced a guidance document entitled 'Using digital technologies in heritage projects'. This document establishes a 21st century agenda for funding agencies by recognising the long-term role that project content play in science and social agendas. The Open Data in Archaeology working group strongly endorses this document and believes that improving long-term access to project content will have immense impact across domains and have particular benefits for engagement.

However, the Open Data in Archaeology working group has some concerns about the use of the Creative Commons by attribution non-commercial (CC-BY-NC) licence for all project content. Whilst we see the benefit for many project resources we would question the benefit of this licence for resources described as 'preservation technologies'. We feel that whilst CC-BY-NC may provide some short-term benefits it has the potential to produce license incompatibilities which may introduce profound problems in the medium to long term. It has the potential to fragment the data landscape creating pockets of knowledge which are rarely used in mainstream analysis, research or policy making. This will be further exacerbated when automated data aggregation and analysis systems become the norm. We believe that such fragmentation goes against the intent of the HLF document which is clearly focused on accessibility, engagement and enjoyment by all.

We would like to engage in further discussion with the HLF on these issues and propose that a workshop is established to bring together the major re-use stakeholders under the umbrella of the Open Knowledge Foundation (who will provide legal, technical and practical advice on licence issues).

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