[open-science] Openness and Licensing of (Open) Data

[Heather Morrison]

I agree that this is an excellent summary of the discussion, although  
my point about commercial entities has at least as much to do with  
business practices as it does with technical means of suppression.   
That is, if a free service is made available through toll access and  
then the free service is not maintained, the public domain becomes  
effectively captured.  Unless the capturing entity has an obligation  
to at least release the data they received from the public domain.   
That is sharealike.

The idea of scholars writing simple notes to go with data has a lot  
of appeal for me.  This brings scholars themselves into the  
discussion, and allow norms to evolve from the community.

Public domain (including commercial use) makes sense to me for data;  
but it may be that the concept of public domain needs to evolve.   
What if I want to give my work to the public domain, including  
responsible / fair commercial use, but excluding exploitative use  
(such as locking up the public domain)?

As an example of where I would be concerned about norms of giving  
away work for the public domain, including commercial work:  This  
would mean that scholars in developing countries would give away  
their data, and companies could make use of the data to create  
products to sell, whether information products based on adding value  
to the research through data-mining, or products such as new drugs,  
etc.  This would be exploitative, and could potentially increase the  
economic divide.

I am sure exactly what the best approach to a solution is here.   
Norms for data that reflect a fair / responsible public domain - or  
is it the laws that regulate businesses that should require some  
elements of fairness / responsibility (or the triple bottom line)?

Any opinion expressed in this e-mail is that of the author alone, and  
does not represent the opinion or policy of BC Electronic Library  
Network or Simon Fraser University Library.

Heather Morrison, MLIS
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com

On 6-Feb-09, at 8:45 AM, Yishay Mor wrote:

> thanks. excellent summary. just one clarification:
> If I put my data on the web, with a note attached saying: "you are  
> free to use this data in any way you please." that, for me, is a  
> license. A very open, simple, public domain license. If I use data  
> from any source, I want to know the terms under which I am allowed  
> to use it. That's why I want to see a license statement.
> I'm happy to see commercial exploitation of my work, as long as it  
> doesn't prohibit future non-commercial use, or future commercial  
> use for that matter.
>
> ___________________________
>  Yishay Mor, Researcher, London Knowledge Lab
>   http://www.lkl.ac.uk/people/mor.html
>   http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=yishaym%40gmail.com
>   +44-20-78378888 x5737
>
>
> 2009/2/6 Neylon <cameron.neylon at stfc.ac.uk>
> Yishay, I am afraid it isn¹t short but I¹ve tried to summarise:
> http://blog.openwetware.org/scienceintheopen/2009/02/06/licenses- 
> and-protoco
> ls-for-open-science-the-debate-continues/
>
> This is an important discussion that has been going on in disparate  
> places,
> but primarily at the moment is on the Open Science mailing list  
> maintained
> by the OKF. To try and keep things together and because Yishay Mor  
> asked, I
> thought I would try to summarize the current state of the debate.
>
> The key aim here is to find a form of practice that will enhance data
> availability, and protect it into the future.
>
> There is general agreement that there is a need for some sort of  
> declaration
> associated with making data available. Clarity is important and the  
> minimum
> here would be a clear statement of intention.
>
> Where there is disagreement is over what form this should take. Rufus
> Pollock started by giving the reasons why this should be a formal  
> license.
> Rufus believes that a license provides certainty and clarity in a  
> way that a
> protocol, statement of principles, or expression of community  
> standards can
> not.  I, along with Bill Hooker and John Wilbanks [links are to  
> posts on
> mailing list], expressed a concern that actually the use of legal  
> language,
> and the notion of ³ownership² of this by lawyers rather than  
> scientists
> would have profound negative results. Andy Powell points out that  
> this did
> not seem to occur either in the Open Source movement or with much  
> of the
> open content community. But I believe he also hits the nail on the  
> head with
> the possible reason:
>
> "I suppose the difference is that software space was already  
> burdened with
> heavily protective licences and that the introduction of open  
> licences was
> perceived as a step in the right direction, at least by those who  
> like that
> kind of thing."
>
> Scientific data has a history of being assumed to be in public  
> domain (see
> the lack of any license at PDB or Genbank or most other databases)  
> so there
> isn¹t the same sense of pushing back from an existing strong IP or  
> licensing
> regime. However I think there is broad agreement that this protocol or
> statement would look a lot like a license and would aim to have the  
> legal
> effect of at least providing clarity over the rights of users to copy,
> re-purpose, and fork the objects in question.
>
> Michael Nielsen and John Wilbanks have expressed a concern about the
> potential for license proliferation and incompatibility. Michael  
> cites the
> example of Apache, Mozilla, and GPL2 licenses. This feeds into the  
> issue of
> the acceptability, or desirability of share-alike provisions which  
> is an
> area of significant division. Heather Morrison raises the issue of  
> dealing
> with commercial entities who may take data and use technical means to
> effectively take it out of the public domain, citing the takeover  
> of OAIster
> by OCLC as a potential example.
>
> This is a real area of contention I think because some of us  
> (including me)
> would see this in quite a positive light (data being used  
> effectively in a
> commercial setting is better than it not being used at all) as long  
> as the
> data is still both legally and technically in the public domain.  
> Indeed this
> is at the core of the power of a public domain declaration. The  
> issue of
> finding the resources that support the preservation of research  
> objects in
> the (accessible) public domain is a separate one but in my view if  
> we don¹t
> embrace the idea that money can and should be made off data placed  
> in the
> public domain then we are going to be in big trouble sooner or  
> later because
> the money will simply run out.
>
> On the flip side of the argument is a strong tradition of arguing  
> that viral
> licensing and share alike provisions protect the rights and personal
> investment of individuals and small players against larger commercial
> entities. Many of the people who support open data belong to this  
> tradition,
> often for very good historical reasons. I personally don¹t disagree  
> with the
> argument on a logical level, but I think for scientific data we  
> need to
> provide clear paths for commercial exploitation because using  
> science to do
> useful things costs a lot of money. If you want people want to  
> invest in
> using the outputs of publicly funded research you need to provide  
> them with
> the certainty that they can legitimately use that data within their  
> current
> business practice. I think it is also clear that those of us who  
> take this
> line need to come up with a clear and convincing way of expressing  
> this
> argument because it is at the centre of the objection to  
> ³protection² via
> licenses and share alike provisions.
>
> Finally Yishay brings us back to the main point. Something to keep  
> focussed
> on:
>
> "I may be off the mark, but I would argue that there¹s a general  
> principle
> to consider here. I hold that any data collected by public money  
> should be
> made freely available to the public, for any use that contributes  
> to the
> public good. Strikes me as a no-brainer, but of course - we have a  
> long way
> to go. If we accept this principle, the licensing follows."
>
> Obviously I don¹t agree with the last sentence - I would say that  
> dedication
> to the public domain follows - but the principle I think is  
> something we can
> agree that we are aiming for.
>
>
> On 6/2/09 12:00, "Yishay Mor" <yishaym at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I may be off the mark, but I would argue that there's a general  
> principle to
> > consider here. I hold that any data collected by public money  
> should be made
> > freely available to the public, for any use that contributes to  
> the public
> > good. Strikes me as a no-brainer, but of course - we have a long  
> way to go. If
> > we accept this principle, the licensing follows.
>
>
> --
> Scanned by iCritical.
>
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