[open-bibliography] Orphan data

[Karen Coyle]

This isn't a question about copyright, and most data and metadata are 
not considered for copyright. It's about licensing and contracts. That's 
a different area of law. That is the area of law that we covered in our 
principles, not copyright.

kc

On 3/1/12 11:39 PM, Peter Murray-Rust wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 3:16 AM, Karen Coyle <kcoyle at kcoyle.net
> <mailto: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

-- 
Karen Coyle
kcoyle at kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet