[open-archaeology] Open licenses for archaeological data matter: the case of AustArch

Tue Jul 29 23:05:57 UTC 2014

Hey Steko - as always, thanks for flagging this up. I did see Colleen’s previous post re:NC and as usual whole-heartedly agree.

Just a quick reply for now - I think an important point from the snip of Ant’s earlier post is the fact that depositor licences trump the ADS default licence. I too have had countless conversations with the ADS over this one and they have always returned to this point- if depositors want to use a different licence they can.

Obviously it would be easier (and more ideal) for the ADS to shift the defaults, but perhaps our role is one of education, advocacy and promoting the deposition of archives under more re-useable licences? Unfortunately the NC clause is a classic case that has been widely debated outside archaeology, yet still is more often than not- the default.

As an aside - from the commercial sector we have been feeling the NC licence issues creeping in more and more. The Greater London Historic Environment Record (GLHER) is now requiring all who use 'their data' to declare that they will not use it for commercial purposes. This is obviously an issue for commercial archaeology as the HER data often forms a significant component of any desk-based assessment, which of course is a service.  We have kicked up a fuss over this countless times, but have been assured that we can still use it for these purposes (even though the licence expressly says we can not). As a precaution we still put these concerns in writing every time we sign an agreement to receive data from the GLHER… 

All and all - you are right that this is an increasingly important issue, but sadly it is not limited to the ADS

Jess

-- 
Jessica Ogden
http://about.me/jessogden

On 29 July 2014 at 23:47:46, Anthony Beck (ant.beck at gmail.com) wrote:

ear Stefano,

I agree with this and came to a similar point in relation to DART...

http://antarch.calepin.co/dart-licences-and-the-ads.html

http://blog.okfn.org/2014/04/17/building-an-archaeological-project-repository-ii-where-are-the-research-data-repositories/

The OKF blog raises an interesting point in relation to the ADS licence:

<snip>
The ADS uses a more restrictive bespoke default licence which does not map to national or international licence schemes (they also don’t recognise non CC licences). Resources under this licence can only be used for teaching, learning, and research purposes. Of particular concern is their use of the NC clause and possible use of the ND clause (depending on how you interpret the licence). Interestingly, policy changes mean that the use of data under the bespoke ADS licence becomes problematic if university teaching activities are determined to be commercial. It is arguable that the payment of tuition fees represents a commercial activity. If this is true then resources released under the ADS licence can not be used within university teaching which is part of a commercial activity. Hence, the policy change in student tuition and university funding has an impact on the commercial nature of university teaching which has a subsequent impact on what data or resources universities are licensed to use. Whilst it may never have been the intention of the ADS to produce a licence with this potential paradox, it is a problem when bespoke licences are developed, even if they were originally perceived to be relatively permissive licences. To remove this ambiguity it is recommended that submissions to the ADS are provided under a CC licence which renders the bespoke ADS licence void. - See more at: http://blog.okfn.org/2014/04/17/building-an-archaeological-project-repository-ii-where-are-the-research-data-repositories/#sthash.pD3RLG9X.dpuf
</snip>

Hope these thoughts help......

Best

A nt
On 29/07/14 22:53, Stefano Costa wrote:
Dear all,
this list is admittedly not very active, however I'd like to share some
observations I made about the terms of service of the Archaeology Data
Service, that started from a discussion on Twitter:

http://archaeology.okfn.org/2014/07/29/open-licenses-for-archaeological-data-matter-the-case-of-austarch/

In short: I think custom licenses such as the ADS terms of use are
archaeological remains and should be replaced by standard, open
licenses. As Colleen Morgan succinctly put it:

        What about the professional archaeologists among us?
        They need media [and data] too.

Perhaps we could gather more comments on this and see if there is
momentum towards a wider action?

All the best, ciao
Stefano
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