[open-humanities] Intro to list from Simon Worthignton, Mute

Mon Oct 17 06:36:33 UTC 2011

> >
> > And Europeana are still fighting the good fight for free data:
> >
> > https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/29133
> 
> [Off-topic whinge, sorry] Does this mean that Europeana will soon
> allow anyone to use their API? I could never quite understand why it
> was private:
> 
> http://version1.europeana.eu/web/api/faq
> 
> "Q: Why are the Europeana API Terms of Use so restrictive?
> A: Europeana API Terms of Use are based on the current data agreements
> with our data providers. Those agreements explicitly exclude
> commercial use. Therefore we have to limit the API use to the
> Europeana thematic network partners..."
> 
> Couldn't they just have made it open with a non-commercial use
> condition? I wrote to ask but never got a reply.
> 
> I'm glad to hear they are fighting the good fight.

Whe I understood it right (my PhD Supervisor is Stefan Gradmann, one of
the leading figures in Europeana) Europeana is in between a conflict of
interest between the content providers (Archives , Museums and so on) on
the one hand and how they want to license the content (how the funder,
the European Union wants Europeana to license the content). The first
group is strongly against commercial use and one has to take their
concerns seriously. Europeana by it self wants assign CC0 (you can read
it also in many Europeana publications). There are two background
conditions why the position of the content providers is strong: on the
one hand Europeana is a metadata portal meanig that the content always
remain at the servers of the providers on the other hand different from
the perspective of sciences in humanities metadata is often seen as a
scientific publication by its own and therefor is often protected. From
my point of view it's not quiet clear how far Europeana will convince
its partners to adapt CC0 but it definietly wants to.

b.niels

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