[open-science] Should scientific text be put in the public domain rather than licensed with CC-BY?

[Marius Kempe]

 On 12 January 2011 11:12, Marius Kempe <m.kempe at qmul.ac.uk> wrote:

> Hence why I'm bringing up the public domain vs CC-BY - if the community
> agrees that the public domain is as appropriate for writing as for data,
> such a website should advise scientists to use the public domain in the
> first instance and fall back on copyright licenses which meet the Open
> Definition if they can't or won't use the public domain.


Sorry, and I should clarify - if the community agrees that the public domain
is as appropriate for writing as for data _in the case of publicly funded
science_ (as Rufus pointed out above).


On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 11:12 PM, Marius Kempe <m.kempe at qmul.ac.uk> wrote:

> Thanks everyone for the input!
>
> Michael has put the argument for using the public domain to avoid
> attribution stacking problems far more eloquently than I could have.
>
> Michael and Tania: I believe the law you are talking about it is USC Title
> 17 Section 105, which specifies that "Copyright protection under this
> title is not available for any work of the United States Government" -
> http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/105.html - see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_work_by_the_U.S._governmentfor details.
>
>
> Rufus, and all: Would you support a statement similar to the Panton
> Principles but with a broader scope, directly addressing scientific text and
> other communication mediums (audio/video of lectures, seminars) and pointing
> to statements such as the Panton Principles, Open Biblio, and the Unlicense
> for the other products of research? It seems to me that this would be very
> helpful for the majority of scholars, who may have heard of open access
> journals but haven't delved into the world of open science and the attendant
> legal and technical issues; a clear statement and guidelines on why and how
> to share scientific work, endorsed by the relevant organizations, might well
> make them feel more comfortable 'opening up'.
>
> Hence why I'm bringing up the public domain vs CC-BY - if the community
> agrees that the public domain is as appropriate for writing as for data,
> such a website should advise scientists to use the public domain in the
> first instance and fall back on copyright licenses which meet the Open
> Definition if they can't or won't use the public domain.
>
> Best,
> Marius
>
> PS. I hope it's been clear that I use 'attribution' and 'citation' with the
> same intended meanings as John Wilbanks outlined - attribution for the legal
> requirement that is part of copyright and moral rights, and citation for the
> non-legal standard of naming scholars when using or reproducing their work
> or ideas.
>
> On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 6:30 PM, Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org>wrote:
>
>> On 12 January 2011 13:51, Marius Kempe <m.kempe at qmul.ac.uk> wrote:
>> > The other point that I feel is worth making is that many of the reasons
>> that
>> > the Panton Principles and Open Biblio give for using the public domain
>> apply
>> > equally to scientific texts - why should open scientists advocate a
>> > confusing two-tiered system of public domain for data and bibliographic
>> > records but copyright licensing for papers and books?
>>
>> [Only just catching up with this thread]
>>
>> It's important to remember that the Panton Principles specifically
>> cite centrality of reuse and the *publicly funded* nature of work as a
>> reason for the PD-only approach. I should also point out that PP first
>> and foremost advocate 'open' data (as in http://opendefinition.org/)
>> with the PD recommendation being a further recommendation on top of
>> that. At least IMO (and I'm more of a social scientist than a
>> scientist) I really don't see much issue with Attribution in the
>> scientific area for data or publication.
>>
>> As I wrote in a follow in a post last year:
>> <
>> http://blog.okfn.org/2010/03/25/comments-on-the-panton-principles-and-data-licensing/
>> >
>>
>> <quote>
>> The Open Knowledge Foundation’s general position is one of supporting
>> open data where “open” data includes data made available under
>> licenses with attribution and share-alike clauses, though
>> non-commercial restrictions are definitely not permitted (see
>> http://www.opendefinition.org/ for precise details). The reason for
>> excluding non-commercial is simple: share-alike is compatible with a
>> commons open to everyone but non-commercial is not.
>>
>> Panton Principles 1-3 are, in essence, saying make data “open” in the
>> sense of http://www.opendefinition.org/. Principle 4 goes beyond this
>> to specifically recommend public-domain only for data related to
>> published science, especially where the work is publicly funded.
>>
>> The rationale for this “stronger” position, at least for me, was that
>> a) science has existing (very) strong norms for attribution (and, to a
>> lesser extent, share-alike) b) science has strong up-front funding
>> support from society which reduces some of the risks that share-alike
>> addresses.
>>
>> That said, I should emphasize that, in my view at least, the key
>> feature is that the data be made open — public domain
>> dedication/licensing is “strongly recommended” but if you end up with
>> an attribution or even share-alike type license that is still far, far
>> better than not making the data available at all, or licensing it
>> under non-commercial or other conditions.
>> </quote>
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Rufus
>>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/open-science/attachments/20110112/e9a6fc1c/attachment-0001.html>