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

Thu Jan 13 09:04:46 UTC 2011

Hi All

This is a great discussion, I only wish there were better ways to capture
these things and present summaries. I just want to make two points:

First is that there is a diversity of opinion on what the important
principles are but those differences are primarily grounded in risk
assessment. In particular Rufus, John, Michael, and myself have subtly
different views on whether requirements for share-alike, attribution, pose
risks to the ability of people to re-use and redistribute derivative works
efficiently and how important these are in balance with concerns of free
loading (i.e. taking open content, commercialising and not giving back) as
well as the best pathway for persuading people to share more than they are
at the moment. 

I think we would all agree that in a perfect world everything would be in
the public domain and people would share constructively and contribute back
without needing any legal sticks to beat them. The world however is not
perfect, both people and legal systems are flawed. Our different views
essentially revolve around which of those flaws are more important to tackle
first and what the most important risks are to hedge against.

The second comment I¹d made, echoing what I wrote in the answer on Quora and
what Rufus has written is that one place where we agree is that
non-commercial terms are a key critical area where we need to make progress.
Persuading the wider community to give up all rights is going to be really
tough. But making a strong united case against non-commercial terms seems to
me more tractable. So my advice (and my answer at quora) is fundamentally
one of pragmatic politics. The immediate battle we need to win is the one on
non-commercial terms so in my view that is the best place to expend energy.

Cheers

Cameron

On 12/01/2011 23:15, "Marius Kempe" <m.kempe at qmul.ac.uk> wrote:

>  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._government
>> for 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 Foundation¹s general position is one of supporting
>>> open data where ³open² 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 ³open² 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 ³stronger² 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 ³strongly recommended² 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
>> 
> 
> 
> 
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