[open-science] [SCHOLCOMM] Libre open access, copyright, patent law, and, other intellectual property matters

[Puneet Kishor]

On Mar 21, 2012, at 9:48 AM, john wilbanks wrote:

> We must think *strategically* and not *academically*.


You betcha. I am involved in a project whose primary product is a collaboratively created database of "things." We are grappling with how to "license" this data. My recommendation is to put it all in the public domain (CC0), but one important db contributor feels that anything more open than a NC-BY equiv will be a non-starter with at least one other important db contributor. Rats!

Well, we can mark each contributor's contributions with their preferred license, and send the license back with every db query, and think our job is done.

Except, we have now passed the burden on to the users, and lumped everyone from a casual user, enthusiast, scholar, a 99 cent mobile app developer and evil-multinational-data-aggregator-reseller all into one big hairball. Because, now when you search for the records using a spatial extent, you are going to get back some records that are going to BY, others, BY-NC, a few others do-whatever-you-want, and god only knows what else.

If I can't convince the team to go CC0 (I will try, but my chances of succeeding are low to none), I need a license that allows me to make distinctions between different users, thereby making it very easy for potential users to understand what they can do with the data.

But, the bigger point is -- I *am* the bloody publisher in this case (whereby "I" I mean, the team of scientists I am working with), and I wish there were some rules to stop me from adding these restrictions. Just saying "nope, you can't restrict your data use" would be so much easier than to try and convince them.

Seriously, sometimes the most difficult players in the game are the scientists themselves. 


> 
> It isn't helpful to frame the text mining debate in copyright terms. Text mining is a contractual problem, not a copyright problem, but because publishers insist on layering text mining prohibitions on top of copyright licenses, they have conflated the two in a way that libre open access can untangle.
> 
> Here's an example of how elsevier does this, but they're hardly alone.
> http://www.mpdl.mpg.de/nutzbed/MPG_Elsevier.pdf
> 
> Either they have to stop bundling prohibitions on text mining with licenses, stop using DRM to enforce prohibitions, and stop chilling bulk downloading by text miners without threatening lawsuits (which then we can use your arguments to defend, in court, against their army of lawyers, using our massive financial advantage as an open movement against a bunch of multinational corporations with arms-dealing resources), or we need libre OA to include text mining as a strategic goal of the overall OA movement.
> 
> For me the choice is pretty clear. Expecting publishers to unbundle text mining from their licensing agreements and eliminate DRM is magical thinking, and the primary legal use arguments for text mining are only good as defenses *after* one has been sued, not prospective rights one can claim to prevent injunction. See lessig: fair use is the right to call a lawyer and nothing more.
> 
> We need explicit rights to text mine that obviate the language publishers use to prevent it. Leveraging copyright law to prevent them from adding those preventions is better strategy than planning to beat back the copyright cartel in court, IMHO.
> 
> IANAL, YMMV, etc.
> 
> jtw
> 
>> 2012/3/20 Heather Morrison<hgmorris at sfu.ca>:
>>> A post on libre open access, copyright, patent law, and other intellectual
>>> property matters. In brief, I argue that text and data mining materials on
>>> the open web does not require special permissions. This has implications for
>>> understanding what needs to happen to make libre open access a reality.
>>> http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.ca/2012/03/copyright-for-expression-of-ideas.html
>>> 
>>> Comments welcome.
> 


--
Puneet Kishor