[open-government] National legal barriers to open data: court decisions

Wed Jan 5 13:15:10 UTC 2011

Dear Antti,

1. The spamming of newly registered companies which receive a bill (for 
a non-ordered service) is an old phenomoen and does exist in Germany and 
Austria for more than 30 years.
In the past years courts tigthened their judgements and moved the 
subject forward to criminal law. So PSI legislation cannot stop that.

2. this kind of spamming is not done by official re-use companies. Since 
all newly registred companies have to be published either in official 
gazettes or in your national company database. so with the account of an 
USER (not: re-user) anybody can access and copy the data. Or scan paper 
documents.

3. Extending legal obligations attached to official statutory registers 
to primary and secondary re-users: see my previous email.

best regards,

Gerhard

On 05.01.2011 13:06, Antti.Eskola at tem.fi wrote:
> Hi Toby and Chris,
> The key issue is the liability of the holder of the original data 
> (usually I'm thinking of PSI).
> I'm just pointing out a problem if try to isolate the acts of
> 1) running a retrieval service and setting conditions on use of such 
> service and
> 2) attaching a license to the data (= setting conditions to the use of 
> the actual data)
> Neither the conditions nor the license should need to include a clause 
> stating that they can be used only for legal purposes in an attempt to 
> guard the PSI holder from lawsuits.
> On the other hand, I also see the reasoning behind trying to extend 
> spamming laws to PSI holders. The latter may be more likely to obey 
> the law than the spammers.
> The liability questions are far from solved, but a good rule would be 
> that the users of the data bear the responsibility rather than data 
> holders or any services that facilitate the use of the data.
> Antti
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     *Lähettäjä:* Toby Mendel [mailto:toby at law-democracy.org]
>     *Lähetetty:* 5. tammikuuta 2011 13:51
>     *Vastaanottaja:* Chris Taggart
>     *Kopio:* Eskola Antti TEM; open-government at lists.okfn.org
>     *Aihe:* Re: [open-government] National legal barriers to open data
>     in Europe
>
>     Hi all,
>
>     I agree with Chris on two points, which I see as related:
>
>     1) There is no need in a licence to remind people that breaking
>     the law is illegal.
>     2) It is not appropriate, either from an openness perspective or
>     from a more general analysis of appropriate lines of
>     responsibility, to make distributors of data responsible for
>     downstream spamming.
>
>     To strain Chris' analogy below, it is a bit like making those who
>     sell knives are responsible for the wrongs that those who buy the
>     knives might commit. In other words, the spamming rule treats this
>     social good in a different way than we treat other social goods,
>     which impacts negatively on openness.
>
>     I think we must argue strongly against such rules.
>
>     Toby
>
>     On 5 Jan 2011, at 07:09, Chris Taggart wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>     On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 9:43 AM, Antti.Eskola at tem.fi
>>     <mailto:Antti.Eskola at tem.fi> <Antti.Eskola at tem.fi
>>     <mailto:Antti.Eskola at tem.fi>> wrote:
>>
>>         This solves the problem only if the retriever and the first
>>         user is the same and remains the end user. Why can't the
>>         license text mention that the data can be used only for legal
>>         purposes? Strange if it is doesn't mention it yet.
>>
>>         Cris's point may be that e.g. spam laws should target
>>         spammers themselves, not those who release public sector data
>>         in good faith, but that data is subsequently misused by
>>         spammers. Right?
>>
>>         Antti Eskola
>>
>>
>>      Yes, that's right. In fact I don't think it's necessary for the
>>     licence to say it should only be used for legal purposes -- it's
>>     redundant, a bit like having a sign on a shop which say 'You may
>>     only enter here if you promise not to steal from us'
>>
>>     Chris
>>     -- 
>>     -------------------------------------------------------
>>     OpenCorporates :: The Open Database for the Corporate World
>>     http://opencorporates.com
>>     OpenlyLocal :: Making Local Government More Transparent
>>     http://openlylocal.com
>>     Blog: http://countculture.wordpress.com
>>     Twitter: http://twitter.com/CountCulture
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>
>     ___________________________________
>     *Toby Mendel*
>     *Executive Director*
>     **
>     *Centre for Law and Democracy*
>     toby at law-democracy.org <mailto:toby at law-democracy.org>
>     Tel:  +1 902 431-3688
>     Fax: +1 902 431-3689
>     www.law-democracy.org <http://www.law-democracy.org>
>
>
>
>
>
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>    

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