A 30 minute set of slides, building on the previous set from the LDOW 2007 panel. This was put together at XTech's request to fill a gap in the programme last-minute.

1. “ shared
innovation
Licensing Open Data
Rob Styles
Programme Manager, Data Services
rob.styles@talis.com
“ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/)

2. IANAL
(I am not a lawyer)

3. Why?

4. Because…

5. http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottkinmartin/494529011/in/set-72157594572859127

6. http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottkinmartin/493505175/in/set-72157594572859127

7. http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottkinmartin/494450662/in/set-72157594572859127

8. “ Because I did not explicitly indicate a
license, I declared an implicit copyright
without explaining how others could use
my code. Since the code is unlicensed, I
could theoretically assert copyright at any
time and demand that people stop using
my code.
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000833.html

9. Because…

10. “ Utopian or Distopian service – does it
depend who runs the service?
Gavin Bell, What is your provenance? http://2007.xtech.org/public/schedule/detail/207

11. Poster for the 1932 film of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

12. Licensing data to keep it open is more
important than licensing it to keep it closed.
CDDB became Gracenote.
Ordnance Survey map data.

13. http://kscakes.com/LolCats/Detail.aspx/i-is-slapping-you-face-i-is-steeling-you-data/

14. Because…

15. “ In a competitive market where there are
several competitors making similar
products, a firm has no choice but to
accept the market price.
Bill Buxton, WWW2007 Keynote, The World Narrow Web

16. “ Effective price point is ultimately set by the lowest cost producer
“ Even if producer’s business model, viewed on its own, is not viable
“ Unviable producer, if it survives long enough, can drag down price
points for those that do have otherwise viable models
“ Especially potent in markets where the COGS are negligible
“ Thus, with digital content the impact would be expected to be most
visible
Bill Buxton, WWW2007 Keynote, The World Narrow Web

17. http://www.flickr.com/photos/brassman/122236326/

18. How?

19. What?

20. What?
• Content
• Data
• Metadata
– Just the same as Data, for the purpose of licensing

21. Content
• Creative works
• Protected by Copyright
• All Rights Reserved

22. Creative Commons
• Extension of copyright law
• Simple way of saying quot;Some Rights Reservedquot;
• Code is special case for licensing, due to complexity of
possible infringement
• Use specialist licenses, GPL, LGPL, Apache, MIT, Berkeley

23. Copyright applies to
• Computing and the internet
• Photographs
• TV and Films
• Art
• Written work
• Music
• Theatre
• Spoken word
“ http://www.ipo.gov.uk/copy.htm

24. Broadly, you can’t Copyright…
• Facts
• Things that are readily observable
• Names, Titles, Short Phrases
• Things that you didn’t create yourself
– Yourself
– In Employment
– Under Contract

25. Data
• Compilation Rights, Copyright
– Anthologies, Compilation CDs
– Creativity in the act of selecting
– Copyright is in the selection, not the items selected.
– Items selected retain their own rights.
– Excludes databases simply sorted quot;alphabeticallyquot;
– Excludes databases that try to be complete
– Completeness is not a creative criteria

26. Data
• Databases
– Database Right in Europe
– No US Equivalent, Feist Publications vs Rural Telecom
– So called quot;sui generisquot;, quot;of the same typequot;
– Also called quot;sweat-of-the-browquot; protection
– Protects the investment made by the producer of the database
– Only databases with a connection to EU or EEA get protection

27. “ You can't use a license based on a right
you don't have
Wendy Seltzer, WWW2007, Banff (while in the bar)

30. Talis Community License
• Trying to provide simplicity with TCL
• Equivalent to a “Database Commons”
• Prevents data from being locked away
• http://www.talis.com/tdn/tcl

31. Further Reading
Digital copyright : law and practice, Simon Stokes
– http://cenote.talis.com/isbn/1841135143
Charlotte Waelde
– http://edina.ac.uk/projects/grade/
gradeDigitalRightsIssues.pdf

32. What next?
• http://www.talis.com/tdn/forum/81
• http://www.talis.com/tdn/tcl
• Check the sites you run
• Check the sites you contribute to

33. “ shared
innovation
Licensing Open Data
Rob Styles
Programme Manager, Data Services
rob.styles@talis.com
“ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/)