Talis license
Jon Voss
Does anyone on the list know much about the Talis license? Is there such a thing? This would be something you could use for data instead of some of the CC products. I’m certain I’ve read about it, but in doing some quick web research, I’m not coming up with much that hasn’t been replaced with something else.
Thanks! Jon
Jon Voss
LookBackMaps.Netp.415.593.5508Twitter:LookBackMaps
CivilWarData150.netLod-Lam.netThatCampBayArea.org
Jodi Schneider
Jon Voss
Thanks Jodi! That’s exactly the info I needed. Does anyone know examples of datasets using opendatacommons.org licenses? What are the pros and cons? These seem to address the major issue of copyrighting data or images that may not actually be copyrightable, while still requiring attribution for reuse.
Jon
Asaf Bartov
MacKenzie Smith
I’m pretty sure that just means the licenses from the Open Knowledge Foundation, which are essentially competitors to the CC licenses http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/
They have a license called ODbL http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/ that is sort of like the CC-BY-SA license and assumes data copyrightability (which it sort of is, in the UK where this project is based).
CC did an analysis of that license, and particularly is compatibility with CC’s license to support data interoperability, and found a lot of problems. If you’re interested, the analysis is here
http://sciencecommons.org/resources/readingroom/comments-on-odbl/
MacKenzie
john wilbanks
sorts of things that are copyrightable items themselves but sit inside
databases.
See http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/26283 for more and don't
believe any FUD to the contrary :-)
jtw
On 2/13/2011 3:06 AM, Asaf Bartov wrote:
> Curious: what's the concern about using CC licenses?
>
> Asaf
>
> On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 12:45 AM, Jon Voss<j...@lookbackmaps.net> wrote:
>
>> Thanks Jodi! That�s exactly the info I needed. Does anyone know examples
>> of datasets using opendatacommons.org licenses? What are the pros and
>> cons? These seem to address the major issue of copyrighting data or images
>> that may not actually be copyrightable, while still requiring attribution
>> for reuse.
>>
>>
>>
>> Jon
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* lod...@googlegroups.com [mailto:lod...@googlegroups.com] *On
>> Behalf Of *Jodi Schneider
>> *Sent:* Saturday, February 12, 2011 1:17 PM
>> *To:* lod...@googlegroups.com
>> *Subject:* Re: [LOD-LAM] Talis license
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi Jon,
>>
>>
>>
>> Talis funded the development of a 'Talis Community License' for data, now
>> *deprecated* (do not use):
>>
>> http://www.talis.com/tdn/tcl
>>
>>
>>
>> Probably you are thinking of PDDL, the Public Domain Dedication and
>> License, or possibly of one of the other Open Data Commons Licenses, see
>>
>> http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/
>>
>>
>>
>> Maybe others know more?
>>
>>
>>
>> -Jodi
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 8:33 PM, Jon Voss<j...@lookbackmaps.net> wrote:
>>
>> Does anyone on the list know much about the Talis license? Is there such a
>> thing? This would be something you could use for data instead of some of
>> the CC products. I�m certain I�ve read about it, but in doing some quick
>> web research, I�m not coming up with much that hasn�t been replaced with
>> something else.
>>
>>
>> Thanks! Jon
>>
>>
>>
>> Jon Voss
>>
>> LookBackMaps.Netp.415.593.5508Twitter:LookBackMaps
>>
>> CivilWarData150.netLod-Lam.netThatCampBayArea.org
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
--
John Wilbanks
VP for Science
Creative Commons
web: http://creativecommons.org/science
blog: http://scienceblogs.com/commonknowledge
twitter: @wilbanks
Jon Voss
I didn’t mean to suggest there was something wrong with the CC licenses, and the concern didn’t have to do with any particular license per se, but rather with institutions putting a copyright license on something that is not copyrightable, like factual metadata or images that are no longer under copyright. My impression is that many institutions are less worried about copyright than they are about attribution.
My understanding is that the CC-BY 3.0 license (and other version 3.0 CC licenses) have some kind of out clause in case you copyright something that isn’t actually copyrightable.
As we gather data for Civil War Data 150, we’re looking for looking at the options for licensing metadata for various institutions, and obviously we want to encourage the most open license possible.
My wife, who has worked with musicians for nearly 20 years, keeps asking me why there isn’t a PD-BY license. Perhaps this is the Flickr equivalent of “No Known Copyright,” but it seems that the bottom line is that without copyright, you have no legal avenue to require attribution or anything else.
Perhaps this is a major benefit that Linked Data may offer, that we may ascribe and embed attribution within the metadata that travels with the use downstream?
Jon
john wilbanks
reports of a lot of people hearing that CC licenses don't work on
databases, and we're trying to work to correct that impression :-)
It's very important to disentangle some legal issues here.
First, attribution /= citation. Attribution is a loaded term of art that
exists where a copyright license demands it - that's what it means in
free software and free culture. If someone doesn't give attribution,
then that someone is infringing on the copyright. But when you're
dealing with public domain, there is no infringement even if there is
blatant appropriation. Citation, trackback, linking, these are all
non-legal, normative or technical systems to achieve a similar goal.
Thus, there is no PD BY, but there is CC0 and norms requesting citation,
or public domain mark plus norms, which are each easy to do and even
have metadata versions.
Here's a draft of the norms:
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Public_Domain_Norms
Second, the CC licenses and uncopyrightable stuff. If you try to apply a
CC license to something that isn't copyrightable, it doesn't enclose
that stuff (this is in contrast to an approach that uses a contract in
addition to an IPR license, for example).
It's important to distinguish this from scientific data, which is
primarily "factual" and publicly funded, for which we take a strong
position in favor of the public domain. The blog post I linked to
earlier goes into more detail on this distinction.
jtw
--
Adrian Stevenson
I think this has probably been covered adequately, but in case it helps, Leigh Dodds from Talis, our technology partners on the Locah Project (http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/locah/) pointed me to this http://www.opendefinition.org/licenses/#Data which also states that the Talis Community License has been deprecated in favour of ODC licenses. This may also be of interest http://www.talis.com/platform/cc/.
We're looking at deciding between 'Creative Commons CC0' and Open Data 'Commons Public Dedication and License' for the Locah project data right now, so I'd be very interested on views re. any pros and cons of each.
Cheers
Adrian
__________________________________
Adrian Stevenson
LOCAH Project Manager
UKOLN
University of Bath
Bath
BA2 7AY
UK
Tel: +44 (0) 161 445 4934
a.ste...@ukoln.ac.uk
http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/locah/
http://twitter.com/locahproject
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
Kalfatovic, Martin
As library materials are catalogued by public organisations and librarians are active promoters of the principles of open access, one would expect library data to be freely available to all. Yet this is not the case. Why then do so few libraries make their data available free of charge? This article reviews the diverging, often restrictive policies and the interests (commercial and strategic) at stake. It presents a panorama of the current situation, the actors and interests involved. It addresses the legal aspects and the obstacles and it shows how data produced by libraries can be made freely available to other knowledge organisations while retaining and developing the collective organisations and services built by library networks over the years.
The aim of the 'free the data movement' is to share and reuse bibliographic data in a new ecosystem where all the actors are involved, both users and providers, not just librarians.
http://liber.library.uu.nl/publish/issues/2010-3_4/index.html?000512
------------------------------------------------------------------
Martin R. Kalfatovic
Assistant Director, Digital Services Division
Smithsonian Institution Libraries
email: kalfa...@si.edu
tel: 202.633.1705
twitter.com/silibraries | smithsonianlibraries.si.edu | research.si.edu | biodiversitylibrary.org
Adrian Pohl
I got a bit late to this group and wasn't approved until now. That's
the reason my message comes a little late to the discussion.
I actually was quite irritated when Creative Commons stated in the
blog post[1] John already mentioned that CC licenses were in fact
appropriate for data and databases. As I am active in the Open
Knowledge Foundation (OKFN) which in the past recommended NOT to use
CC licenses for data and databases and as I recently co-authored the
Principles on Open Bibliographic Data[1] which also recommend to avoid
CC licenses (except CC0) for data this announcement was simply
disturbing.
So I asked on a OKFN mailing list where this different views on the
topic come from. Rufus Pollock answered[3] and said:
> It was CC (or parts of CC
> itself) that had the whole: "Don't use CC licenses for data(bases)"
> (other than CCZero). There has clearly been a policy change within CC
> here (a good thing IMO).
>
> There is an FAQ on Open Data Commons site:
>
> <http://www.opendatacommons.org/faq/licenses/#why-not-use-a-creative-commons-or-freeopen-source-software-license-for-databases>
I searched a bit further for CC statements about CC licenses and
databases and indeed, if you take a look at the CC FAQ "Databases and
Creative Commons"[4] it reads:
"Creative Commons does not recommend using Creative Commons licenses
for informational databases, such as educational or scientific
databases."
So, obviously it was CC itself that spread what is now called "FUD"
about CC and data(bases) and it's odd that you now so vehemently state
the contrary. Also, as most LOD-LAM databases probably may be
classified as "informational databases" it actually makes it a hard
question which license to use.
To be clear, I also believe that this policy change is a good thing. I
am looking forward for CC licenses which are appropriate for data and
databases and especially also license European database rights. But
for now I must say, living and publishing data in Europe I wouldn't
use CC licenses (other than CC0 which we use for hbz data[5]) for data
until the 4.0 versions are released...
Adrian
[1] http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/26283
[2] http://openbiblio.net/principles
[3] http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/od-discuss/2011-February/000031.html
[4] http://sciencecommons.org/resources/faq/databases
[5] https://wiki1.hbz-nrw.de/display/SEM/Recently+published+Open+Data+exports
john wilbanks
Thanks for your thoughtful and passionate post. I'll try to unpack the
position a little more here, and welcome more give and take.
There is an enormous difference between *not recommending* the CC
licenses for certain uses, and whether or not the CC licenses *work* for
those uses. I'd still rather see a world in which all rights are
permitted for data. But the reality of whether or not the licenses
function for databases is what we're talking about here, and that is the
FUD that I am working to clear up. The licenses do work for data and
databases, to the extent that there is creativity in the data and
databases, just as they do anywhere else that copyright attaches.
We did not go out and attack Metaweb for using CC BY on their database.
Nor do we go out and attack the Australian or New Zealand governments
using CC licenses on their public sector information, or the
Encyclopedia of Life, or any of the many data users of CC licenses. We
support those users, as we attempt to support all of our users.
There are however people who are calling those folks and telling them
that CC licenses "don't work for data", even though we've been clear
with with many of those people on several occasions that what they're
saying isn't quite right.
And trust me, the CC users they are telling this to call us and ask
almost immediately when they get those calls, the vast majority of which
are triggered by those who don't want an open world. Arguments we made
in science on attribution stacking were used to attack the idea of open
data entirely, by people who knew better, to name just one case.
We do try to work with scientific groups to make sure that science data
stays as close to the PD as possible, on which I am happy to work with
the OKF (indeed, we wrote the Panton Principles together to harmonize
our beliefs on that front).
We've done a lot of organizational integration over the last year. We've
taken down the silos that kept science and education apart from the core
of CC, and that has been really good for us. But the existence of those
silos, and their removal, has created some confusion in the community,
especially in data - and in the blog post I cited, we take
responsibility for that. Science was always the most vocal silo on this
topic. But the normative position we've taken about science data should
not have been, and should not be, conflated with the legal applicability
of CC licenses on copyrightable data and databases.
Last, to the extent you hear the meme that the CC licenses don't work on
data, please let us know. We can't overcome that kind of thing if we
don't know about.
jtw
Jodi Schneider
The licenses do work for data and databases, to the extent that there is creativity in the data and databases, just as they do anywhere else that copyright attaches.
john wilbanks
Thanks for your note.
Please note that I am speaking for me here, not making official
organizational statements - we have a new org structure, a new CEO (see
https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/25751), new offices, and new
staff lawyers. So we're in some flux, and that's one reason that our
formal statements on data haven't been updated recently.
I can tell you that the legal team at CC has been working on an
incredibly detailed set of FAQs on data for months now. It's a
complicated topic, and full of the sorts of subtleties that have caused
the confusion you point out in your post. Copyright has long fingers,
and reaches pretty deeply into data and databases. It's not clear where
that reach stops or starts, and that's the issue that is making us take
our time. We want to understand it as well as we can before we start
issuing new statements.
As a steward of heavily used licenses, we have an obligation not to have
a "release early and often" approach to the law - if someone uses a
public license - any public license - and it doesn't work, or works in a
way contrary to their expectations, that's bad for *all public
licenses*. One thing we've learned is that those who prefer a closed,
app-store, or walled garden approach to the world will take any
ammunition they can get and use it against the commons.
Now, let me address the issue of "recommended". Data isn't the only
place we make recommendations. In the area of open access to the
literature, we "recommend" only CC BY. It's the only license that meets
the Budapest Declaration, which is the one that is the most free. Even
share alike goes against Budapest, which states that the only role for
copyright is to guarantee attribution. That normative stance has been
very successful - according to the Study on OA Publishing (SOAP - see
http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.5260), 72% of the OA articles they
investigated were under a CC license, and of those, 82% under CC BY.
We're doing something similar in educational resources. The Cape Town
Declaration calls for CC BY, and we push for CC BY there. The recent US
Trade Adjustment is putting $2B US into the development of open
educational resources, and all of those resources have to be under CC BY.
Recommendations can be very powerful.
But this doesn't mean that the other licenses don't *work* as copyright
licenses if you use them. They're just not creating resources that are
as legally interoperable as if CC BY had been used. But they're still
choices that put content onto the web, that can be copied, that is open
content. It might, or might not, pass one of the various definitions out
there (free software, open source software, free cultural works, open
knowledge). But it's a limited set of choices, and at a minimum, allows
for non commercial copies to be made.
Both of the recommendations I note above came in spaces, as did data,
that were specifically created to be separate from the core Creative
Commons brand and operations. Both Science Commons and ccLearn are now
integrated into CC, but formerly each was a basically independent
organization inside CC, with its own Board, staff counsel, pro bono
counsel, and fundraising obligations. We were chartered to go out and be
normative.
CC isn't, and science and education are now fully part of CC. CC is
chartered to create options for creators and owners. A limited set of
options, one that prevents license proliferation and minimizes the
impact of license choices on interoperability. There is some
incompatibility built into the CC regime, but that's the reality of
giving some choices. At a minimum, we've found that the path from BY NC
ND to BY is far easier than from a closed license to an open license.
The normative positions science and education take on use of BY licenses
to facilitate interoperability, and that science has taken on public
domain for public science data, are just that - normative. These
positions don't render the rest of the suite legally unusable for
journal articles, educational materials, or databases. And we'd
certainly rather see people using a CC license of any stripe for journal
articles, educational materials, or databases, than a closed license.
Using a CC license also guarantees an upgrade path to 4.0, in which I
expect we'll be taking a long hard look at how we can make the legal
suite even more effective for data.
Again, please let me know if you hear the meme that CC licenses don't
work for data. Whether it's knowingly deployed by those pushing for a
closed world of data, or unknowingly by those in the open community
because of our own organizational issues, it's a meme we want to push
back on.
jtw
--
john wilbanks
Apologies. The correct citation to the SOAP article with OA data is at
http://arxiv.org/abs/1010.0506
jtw