[open-science] Fwd: Open data and Panton Principles

[Chris Rusbridge]

Speaking as someone who agreed such a restriction in the past, as the then Director of the Digital Curation Centre: we had an obligation to pursue "sustainability" as an explicit part of our funding conditions. On that basis, we decided that our default licence would be CC-BY-NC-SA. Our reasoning was that if there was money to be made from our resources, our sustainability obligation meant we had to try to be part of it. Putting a NC restriction doesn't mean "no commercial use, ever". It means "no commercial use unless you discuss with us the terms and conditions".

In the 5 years or so I was part of the DCC I think this only caused us a problem a couple of times. From memory once we agreed with no conditions (the use was pretty much equivalent to academic use), and once we agreed terms that would allow the author to earn significant royalties before a cut was due to us. I need hardly say we have as yet received nothing, as far as I know.

This is of course mostly in a text-based context. I'm not clear in my own mind in relation to data, on whether the barrier to re-use of any kind of licence (including BY and NC) can fully outweigh the need to strive for sustainability. However, I do remember investigations into Crown Copyright etc, well before the current openness regime, that suggested that only Ordnance Survey made any significant (5 figures or higher) annual returns on IP exploitation, as well as experiences from the eLib programme that misguided sustainability approaches led to potentially valuable resources being locked away. Which is all tending to make me think that commercially exploitable IPR in data will be comparatively rare, and therefore the default view SHOULD be for greater openness. 

It would help if there were a more automated approach to the data citation problem since then one could at least demonstrate impact more easily, even if not sustainability!

--
Chris Rusbridge
Consultant
Mobile: +44 791 7423828
Email: c.rusbridge at gmail.com




On 28 Jun 2010, at 14:49, Mr. Puneet Kishor wrote:

> 
> Libby Bishop wrote:
> 
>> Here at UKDA, we advocate free access to data for non-commercial use.
> 
> 
> Could you please elaborate your reasoning behind your decision to restrict use of data to non-commercial use (assuming the original depositor has not put any such condition, and assuming there are no privacy issues).
> 
> I continue to be puzzled and befuddled by open access advocates continuing to push and peddle non-commercial restrictions, as if non-commercial is virtuous. Why? Why the distrust and dislike of things commercial?
> 
> 
> -- 
> Puneet Kishor http://punkish.org
> Carbon Model http://carbonmodel.org
> Charter Member, Open Source Geospatial Foundation http://www.osgeo.org
> Science Commons Fellow, http://sciencecommons.org/about/whoweare/kishor
> Nelson Institute, UW-Madison http://www.nelson.wisc.edu
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Assertions are politics; backing up assertions with evidence is science
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