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

Wed Jul 30 12:38:11 UTC 2014

On 30/07/14 12:42, Doug Rocks-Macqueen wrote:
>
> "We also don't see much advantage over our current license to the CC 
> ones, other than a small group of people being able to take data we 
> host and re-sell it."
>
> So I have a general question for everyone- Are there individuals or 
> organisations that take archaeology data and re-sell it?
>
>

We've had one known instance of our data being bundled up and sold on 
CDs to metal detectorists, which led us to invoke our T&Cs to stop them 
doing that.  We would have been fine with them giving those CDs away for 
free, and would have hoped any new data discovered using that data would 
then be made free & open for the community as per our T&Cs.

The only other time i'm aware we actually chased someone up for 
circumventing our T&Cs was when a necrophilia website was hard linking 
to images of partially decomposed bodies from a medieval burial crypt 
[http://dx.doi.org/10.5284/1000367].  I'm not sure of the details as to 
whether they were also charging access, but it was certainly a unique 
circumstance.

The only other relevant situation that we are trying to protect is in 
the instance of some professional photographs deposited within our 
archives, such as ERA 
[http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/era/section/gallery.jsf].  The 
professional photographer associated with that project was happy for his 
images to be openly reused as long as someone didn't take them and try 
to re-sell them, which given the quality i would say is a valid 
concern.  Our T&Cs cover this in a way that CC-BY or CC-BY-NC don't 
suitably address in our opinion.

You are right though that the likelihood of re-sale of archaeological 
data is very low, but most of our depositors want that protection (for 
right or wrong).

Just want to re-emphasise we are not trying to restrict access to our 
data in any way whatsoever, and think our T&Cs alongside the deposit 
license suitably cover our preservation activities while not restricting 
re-use in any significant way.  We want commercial units to reuse our 
data and actively encourage it, and would never discourage or stop them 
from doing so.  As Stefano has pointed out we fully appreciate that 
standardization is the way forward (we bang that drum in many other 
arenas), but we do not currently see a standardized license that fully 
addresses our preservation and dissemination activities and concerns.

michael
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