Was Re: OASPA's ironic demonstration of the inadequacy of CC-BY for data mining

On 2013-03-12, at 4:28 PM, Hans Pfeiffenberger wrote:

[snip]

My overall point is that one cannot assume that what seems appropriate or 
sensible will be seen as legal or unproblematic by lawyers. And nobody can 
justify building an infrastructure or even a common practise on shaky ground. 
So a simple, unambigous and (hopefully) internationally identical legal 
environment is indispensable for research and information infrastructures. One 
of the outstanding features of CC is that it is providing such an environment 
for text - except for the NC clause, which is wide open for doubt about its 
meaning.

Comment

The Creative Commons licenses (all of them) are very useful tools for 
scholarship and open access. However, there is no CC license that provides a 
"simple, unambigous and identical legal environment". 

For example, the CC-BY inclined RCUK policy says: 

3.1. (i) "Search for and re-use the content of published papers both manually 
and using automated tools (such as those for text and data mining) provided 
that any such re-use is subject to full and proper attribution"…
from: 
http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/documents/documents/RCUKOpenAccessPolicyandRevisedguidance.pdf

While Hans' message says: "Indeed, facts are not copyrightable - at least in 
Germany ;-)) - and thus a CC-License (except perhaps CC0) or any other license 
based on copyright (or German Urheberrecht) would be mostly pointless. (For a 
comparison of the situation in some jurisdictions, see 
http://www.knowledge-exchange.info/Default.aspx?ID=461; there seems be be a 
"risk" that some data might be copyrightable under UK or Danish law.)".

Here we see two interpretations: a CC-BY license places an obligation for "full 
and proper attribution" versus a CC-License for data and text mining results 
"would be mostly pointless".

This is not clear and unambiguous. Rather this lack of clarify is just one 
indication that it would be wise to conduct some thorough analysis to determine 
whether the strong moral rights associated with CC-BY (which likely go beyond 
the moral rights of automatic copyright or "all rights reserved" in many 
jurisdictions) can insert barriers to re-use of works, before considering a 
recommendation of any particular CC license as a default for OA.

best,

Heather Morrison, PhD
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com




_______________________________________________
GOAL mailing list
[email protected]
http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal

Reply via email to