Re: Open Data liability issues

Thanks.  I will get him on it.


Best Regards,

Steve

Motto: "Do First, Think, Do it Again"



From:
"Lee, Deirdre" <Deirdre.Lee@deri.org>
To:
"'DWBP WG'" <public-dwbp-wg@w3.org>
Date:
05/19/2014 12:04 PM
Subject:
Open Data liability issues



Hi, 
 
As a follow-up on this thread, I was at Joel Gurin’s talk in the ODI last 
Friday on ‘The value of open data to business’ [1] I asked him his views 
on whether the ‘as is’ clause of Open Licenses, i.e. not accepting 
liability is an obstacle for businesses reusing Open Data. He seemed a 
little surprised by the question, but acknowledged it was an interesting 
issue. Joel gave the example of Medicare recently releasing data about how 
much doctors are paid, which could lead to potential liability issues, 
however this isn’t an example of third-party reuse. He said he’d be 
interested in our findings.
 
As Joel works with a lot of Open Data companies with the Open Data 500 
project, and liability doesn’t seem to have registered as an issue for him 
signalled to me:
a)      We’re ahead of the game thinking about such issues J, or 
b)      Liability isn’t an issue for actual business re-users of Open 
Data! 
 
Cheers,
Deirdre
 
[1] 
https://soundcloud.com/theodi/friday-lunchtime-lecture-the-value-of-open-data-to-business-the-open-data-500-study 

 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Deirdre Lee
Research Associate
eGovernment Domain (DEG)
Insight-NUIG
IDA BusinessPark, Lower Dangan,
Galway, Ireland
 
deirdre.lee@deri.org
skype: deirdrelee
twitter: @deirdrelee
linkedin: ie.linkedin.com/in/leedeirdre/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
From: Makx Dekkers [mailto:mail@makxdekkers.com] 
Sent: 15 May 2014 09:11
To: 'DWBP WG'
Subject: RE: Two blog posts that may be of interest
 
To me, Steve’s observation about Governments not accepting responsibility 
is an important one. Even the UK Open Government Licence, which I think 
qualifies as an Open Licence, contains this statement:
 
Non warranty
 
The Information is licensed ‘as is’ and the Information Provider excludes 
all representations, warranties, obligations and liabilities in relation 
to the Information to the maximum extent permitted by law.
 
The Information Provider is not liable for any errors or omissions in the 
Information and shall not be liable for any loss, injury or damage of any 
kind caused by its use. The Information Provider does not guarantee the 
continued supply of the Information.
 
So: Provider excludes all representations, warranties, obligations and 
liabilities, Provider is not liable for any errors or omissions, Provider 
does not guarantee the continued supply …
 
I understand Steve’s conclusion that without some form of guarantee of 
quality and availability, businesses may think twice before building their 
products on such data.
 
There is a bit of a tension between the push of a part of the open data 
community to “publish early, even if data may be ‘dirty’” and a business 
community that needs quality guarantees.
 
Maybe something to include in BP guidelines? Something like: “If you 
publish data quickly without guarantees, you’re helping developers to 
experiment with the data and investigate innovative usage of the data; if 
on the other hand, you want to enable high-quality and sustainable 
products and services, you need to provide guarantees of quality and 
availability”.
 
Makx.
 
 
 
From: Steven Adler [mailto:adler1@us.ibm.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2014 9:28 PM
To: DWBP WG
Subject: Two blog posts that may be of interest
 
Hi Folks, 

Here are two perspectives on the business use of Open Data.  I think we 
can take up the first topic as a recommendation in our Best Practices 
work.   

The question is, should Open Data license terms be machine readable?  And 
if so, should we (and can we) define a standard vocabulary to make it so? 

https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140512164919-384693-open-data-is-not-open-for-business?trk=mp-reader-card 


https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140514120932-384693-business-needs-open-data?trk=mp-reader-card 


Looking forward to your comments.

Best Regards,

Steve

Motto: "Do First, Think, Do it Again"