[open-bibliography] Orphan data

Fri Mar 2 07:39:51 UTC 2012

On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 3:16 AM, Karen Coyle <kcoyle at kcoyle.net> wrote:

>
>
> On 3/1/12 6:43 PM, Mark MacGillivray wrote:
>
>
>>> don't think so. It's either yours or not yours,
>>>
>>
>> If this is true, then it is not an orphaned work.
>>
>
> No, orphan works are those for whom the owner cannot be identified: the
> work is *potentially* owned but the fact cannot be established.
>
> That said, "orphan works" are assumed to under copyright -- otherwise they
> would be in the public domain. I'm not saying that this database is
> copyrightable by called it 'orphaned.' I'm saying that the ownership of the
> data cannot be established.
>
>
> This is absurd. That's an obvious statement but there are limits.

We have stated that bibliographic data (of certain sorts) are de facto in
the public domain. No one has challenged this. So go ahead and release it.

There are organizations who delight in making thing complicated and then
asserting that they can't do anything.

There is a risk associated with anything. Anyone can sue anyone (certainly
in the US) for anything. That doesn't mean that they will win. The ACS sued
Google for using the word "Scholar" in "Google Scholar". They "lost".

The ACS could probably sue me for what I have just written. I hope they
would lose

This is a question of risk. Without a clear owner the risk is minimal.
What, anyway, is being copyrighted? the collection? some added
non-bibliographic data?

The risk is less than being hit by an asteroid. Go ahead

-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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