Re: data.gov.* memo

I agree with you Kevin! The situation certainly seems to be more
complicated with public cultural heritage organisations, and with
anything else where material is being contributed by a third party -
such as scientific research.

I propose we add a general statement about making the legal status of
data (and content) explicit - and preferably explicitly open (as in
opendefinition.org) where appropriate.

Jonathan

On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 2:57 PM, Novak, Kevin<KevinNovak@aia.org> wrote:
> All,
>
>
>
> It is a complex issue even for US government. Not so much for the general
> agencies given Suzanne’s comments.
>
>
>
> The Library of Congress, Smithsonian, NEH, National Gallery of Art, National
> Park Service and a few others have “collections” of material that have been
> digitized and made available on the web. Many resulting from agreements with
> trustees and custodians that have donated the materials to the institutions
> for some level of access. The challenge was and is ensuring that the
> materials are rights protected and it is made clear that they do not fall
> under the normal regulations. Negotiating these agreements is quite an
> experience and always challenging when you don’t have a good policy basis to
> start with. Although this isn’t specifically a “data” issue under the
> current data.gov and UK efforts, it is indeed a growing issue for agencies
> dealing with culturally significant materials that aren’t necessarily
> government produced and the desire to have the materials located on
> government websites.
>
>
>
> Kevin
>
>
>
> Kevin Novak
>
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>
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> From: Acar, Suzanne [mailto:Suzanne.Acar@ic.fbi.gov]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 8:44 AM
> To: 'daniel@citizencontact.com'; 'jonathan.gray@okfn.org'
> Cc: 'josema@w3.org'; 'public-egov-ig@w3.org';
> 'John.Sheridan@nationalarchives.gov.uk'; Novak, Kevin
> Subject: Re: data.gov.* memo
>
>
>
> Very interesting, Daniel. Will take a closer look.
> Also, thank you Jonathan for the clarifiacation on your statement.
>
> Cheer
> Suzanne
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Daniel Bennett <daniel@citizencontact.com>
> To: Jonathan Gray <jonathan.gray@okfn.org>
> Cc: Acar, Suzanne; josema@w3.org <josema@w3.org>; public-egov-ig@w3.org
> <public-egov-ig@w3.org>; John.Sheridan@nationalarchives.gov.uk
> <John.Sheridan@nationalarchives.gov.uk>; kevinnovak@aia.org
> <kevinnovak@aia.org>
> Sent: Tue Jun 16 08:44:28 2009
> Subject: Re: data.gov.* memo
>
> Awhile ago, when some of the bills were starting to be introduced in XML,
> the Congress decided to add in some Dublin Core metadata so that issues such
> as rights would be made clear. See below.
>
> And then there is the presumption that anyone or organization that publishes
> raw data in an open and without real applications is intending for the data
> to be either used in place or copied. This is like having an RSS newsfeed
> and then claiming that the RSS newsfeed itself is copyrighted.
>
> And then there is the issue of how data is used on the Internet with search
> engines essentially having a complete copy of almost everything internally
> in order to allow for search.   Hmmmmmm.
>
>
> <metadata xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">
>
> <dublinCore>
>
> <dc:title>111 HR 11 IH: Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of
>
> </dc:title>
>
> <dc:publisher>U.S. House of Representatives</dc:publisher>
>
> <dc:date>2009-01-06</dc:date>
>
> <dc:format>text/xml</dc:format>
>
> <dc:language>EN</dc:language>
>
> <dc:rights>Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, this
> file is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public
> domain.</dc:rights>
>
> </dublinCore>
>
> </metadata>
>
>  Daniel
>
>
>
> Jonathan Gray wrote:
>
> On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 2:13 PM, Acar, Suzanne<Suzanne.Acar@ic.fbi.gov>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> US data.gov published a policy statement on the site.  Copyright statement
> was not needed because government data once released for sharing is public
> domain.
>
>
>
>
>
> While this is true for US Federal government material - this is
>
> unfortunately not so clear outside the US.
>
>
>
> In my experience of looking at the situation with data across Europe,
>
> many government sites do not explicitly state what can and can't be
>
> re-used. The EU PSI Directive broadly encourages member states to make
>
> material available for re-use - but this is still being implemented,
>
> and some feel there is ambiguity about its scope and strength. Also
>
> its always helpful to know where rights are held by third parties!
>
>
>
>
>
>



-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://www.okfn.org

Received on Tuesday, 16 June 2009 13:06:20 UTC