[open-bibliography] Orphan data

[Karen Coyle]

On 3/2/12 1:24 AM, Owen Stephens wrote:

>
> While I would certainly encourage this organisation to take the risk as
> Peter suggests (and at the very least, do a risk assessment to ensure
> they understand the issues), I wonder if publishing with a 'no known
> restrictions' type statement might be another way of doing this.

Yes, this is the kind of thing I am looking for. Can we come up with a 
standard way, not unlike CC, that states: we have no idea who owns this 
stuff, no one is claiming ownership, etc. etc. As more and more data 
(and metadata) comes onto the web we will have more of these situations. 
If nothing else, there should be a way for the holder of a piece of 
information to say: "I'm not claiming any rights, not even physical 
ownership rights, over this data once it leaves my database."

kc



The
> Flickr Commons use the statement "No known copyright restrictions"
> http://www.flickr.com/commons/usage/. I realise this is not the ideal,
> and I guess some will be very much against the idea, but where copyright
> is unclear it is difficult to know what other statement can be made
> where organizations or individuals assess the risk of asserting rights
> to be too high.
>
> Owen
>
> Owen Stephens
> Owen Stephens Consulting
> Web: http://www.ostephens.com
> Email: owen at ostephens.com <mailto:owen at ostephens.com>
> Telephone: 0121 288 6936
>
> On 2 Mar 2012, at 07:39, 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
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>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-bibliography
>

-- 
Karen Coyle
kcoyle at kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
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