RE: Schema usage and licensing

We are not re-publishing the schema libraries. We are referencing them. CC attribution isn’t applicable.

From: Richard Wallis [mailto:richard.wallis@dataliberate.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2016 10:07 AM
To: Robert Kost <rkost@thematix.com>
Cc: public-schemaorg@w3.org; Tati Chevron <tati@gotati.com>
Subject: Re: Schema usage and licensing

I am no legal expert but I have had experience of similar discussions in another domain.

I believe that at the level of code (html, RDFa, Microdata, JSON-LD) the use of the canonical URIs for Schema.org terms - e.g.  vocab=“http://schema.org/”, itemtype=“http://schema.org/Book”,  “@context”: “http://schema.org” - is sufficient attribution in the terms of the licence.

If you wanted to print all the Schema.org terms and their definitions in a physical book, it would be different, where there would be the expectation of an attribution paragraph on an early page.

~Richard.


Richard Wallis
Founder, Data Liberate
http://dataliberate.com

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/richardwallis

Twitter: @rjw

On 10 February 2016 at 14:43, Robert Kost <rkost@thematix.com<mailto:rkost@thematix.com>> wrote:
Hi Tati -

Concerning #2, in my opinion, one needs to distinguish between the Schema.org subject matter (i.e., the Schema taxonomy itself) and the material to which it is applied (your website).  The CC license relates to the “the Work,” which is defined as:

"Work" means the copyrightable work of authorship offered under the terms of this License.


So, you don’t bring your website into the orbit of the Work (Schema.org) simply by virtue of using it.  If you were to publish your own extensions that incorporate or derive from Schema, it might fall under this license.

Your item #1 is potentially more troubling.  The CC site summarizes this requirement:

If supplied, you must provide the name of the creator and attribution
parties, a copyright notice, a license notice, a disclaimer notice, and a
 link to the material.


Is this “supplied” at Schema.org?  Interesting that “schema.org<http://schema.org>” and its uses are self-referential URIs.






On 2/8/16, 5:31 AM, "Tati Chevron" <tati@gotati.com<mailto:tati@gotati.com>> wrote:

>Hi,
>
>Could somebody clarify exactly how the licensing agreement described at
>schema.org<http://schema.org> is supposed to apply to websites making use of this standard?
>
>The schema.org<http://schema.org> terms of service note that, [the rights are],
>"...licensed to third parties under the Creative Commons
>Attribution-ShareAlike License (version 3.0)".
>
>I assume that the intent is to allow unrestricted usage of valid schema
>markup, but protect the published standard.
>
>However, my understanding is that a strict interpretation of this
>licensing requirement would:
>
>1. Require any website making use of the schema vocabulary to include an
>attribution to schema.org<http://schema.org>.
>
>2. Cause the content of any website making use of the published schema
>vocabulary to fall under the same license.
>
>So far, despite much interest in including such semantic markup in all
>of my projects, I've completely avoided the standard described at
>schema.org<http://schema.org> for these reasons.
>
>Is this an open, un-encumbered standard or should I develop my own?
>
>Thanks.
>
>--
>Tati Chevron.
>http://www.gotati.com/

>
>