Re: LOD Data Sets, Licensing, and AWS

2009/6/24 Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com>:
> My comments are still fundamentally about my preference for CC-BY-SA.  Hence
> the transcopyright reference :-)

Unfortunately your preference doesn't actually it make it legally
applicable to data and databases. The problem, as I see it,  at the
moment is that this is what the majority of people are doing: using a
CC license to capture their desire or intent with respect to
licensing, rights waivers, attribution, intended uses, etc. The
disconnect is between what people want to do with the license, and
what's actually supported in law.

> I want Linked Data to have its GPL equivalent; a license scheme that:
>
> 1.  protects the rights of data contributors;
> 2.  easy to express;
> 3.  easy to adhere to;
> 4.  easy to enforce.

Then the best way to do this is to engage with the communities that
are attempting to do exactly that: the open data commons and creative
commons. We shouldn't be encouraging people to do the wrong thing and
use licenses and waivers that don't actually do what they want them to
do. The science commons protocol is a good example of best practices
w.r.t data licensing that are being agreed to within a specific
community; one that has a a long standing culture of citation and
attribution.

IMHO much of the advice and reasoning that has gone into the
definition and publishing of the science commons protocol is
applicable to the the web of data as a whole. Convergence on a commons
-- which can still support and encourage attribution through community
norms -- is a Good Thing.

> As I stated during one of the Semtech 2009 sessions. HTTP URIs provide a
> closed loop re. the above. When you visit my data space you leave your
> fingerprints in my HTTP logs. I can follow the log back to your resources to
> see if you are conforming with my terms. I can compare the data in your
> resource against my and sniff out if you are attributing your data sources
> (what you got from me) correctly.
>
> If all the major media companies grok the above, there will be far less
> resistance to publishing linked data since they will actually have better
> comprehension of its inherent virtues and positive impact on their bottom
> line.

I'm not sure that understanding the value of a unique uri for every
resource, and the benefits of a larger surface area of their website,
is the primary barrier to entry for those companies. One might build
similar arguments around SEO and APIs. IMO, the understanding has to
come through the network effects created by opening up the data for
widest possible reuse. Clear and liberal licensing is a part of that.

Cheers,

L.

-- 
Leigh Dodds
Programme Manager, Talis Platform
Talis
leigh.dodds@talis.com
http://www.talis.com

Received on Wednesday, 24 June 2009 16:05:39 UTC