On 2/24/11 7:32 AM, Steffen Neumann wrote:
> I am looking for suggestions for licenses for MassBank.
>
> www.massbank.jp (and msbi.ipb-halle.de/MassBank) is a federated database
> of mass spectra from various contributors. We don't require
> any contributor agreements, and simply collect what we're given.
>
> Currently, neither the database as a whole nor individual records
> have a license statement, which I'd like to remedy asap.
>
> Each contributor might have some opinion about licenses
> for his/her own records, so I'd like to not impose anything,
> rather suggest one (or few) plausible options.

I'm with Peter on this one: You have to pick one license and go with it.  
"Microlicensing" (a great term) will be a disaster.  I'd suggest that you start 
a discussion with your contributers, try to find a consensus, and go with the 
one that you think will get the most acceptance.  You'll probably lose some 
spectra, but the benefits of a single, clear license policy will outweigh the 
loss.

On top of that, you might be able to make the case that by contributing in the 
first place, people were giving their spectra into the public domain.  Was 
there any doubt that the library was intended to be widely distributed?  It 
would be hard for someone to argue that they gave you a bunch of spectra but 
didn't want you to distribute them freely.

Craig

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