[open-bibliography] Orphan data

Fri Mar 2 17:17:24 UTC 2012

John, this is a large dataset, and not available as a batch anywhere at 
this time. I have no interest in obtaining it, but I would be happy to 
see it "freed" if that is economical for the holding organization.

But mainly I saw this as an interesting example of a kind of "gotcha" 
that I hadn't considered before: datasets with no one claiming 
ownership. That doesn't make them public domain, it really makes them 
orphans.

kc

On 3/2/12 8:32 AM, John Mark Ockerbloom wrote:
> On 03/02/2012 10:43 AM, Karen Coyle wrote:
>> 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.
>
> Do you have any sort of contract or licensing arrangement with the
> organization
> that has the data? If not-- if, for instance, you just came across
> it on a public website-- then you shouldn't be bound by one, I wouldn't
> think.
> If you happen to be bound by one, is anyone else able to view the data
> who is
> not subject to a contract?
>
> Also, how large is the data set? Is it of a size that would make it
> feasible to "re-curate" (that is, check the facts asserted, add anything
> else that seems relevant, and delete or change irrelevant or badly
> encoded information, or expressions that are not simply factual)?
> If feasible, I'd think that would be sufficient
> processing to address US copyright and provenance concerns.
>
> (Note however, that I am not a lawyer, let alone your lawyer)
>
> John Mark Ockerbloom

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