Thanks for all the ideas.

I am having another crack at it and see where I get...

Cheers

Paul

On 15 July 2010 11:09, Julian Todd <[email protected]> wrote:

> I have made an annotation.
>
> Basically, read the reuse public sector information, and make requests
> on the basis of it to establish whether they have done their homework
> properly.
>
> They clearly have not if they are assigning conditions on the reuse of
> data which they are not charging for.
>
> Julian.
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 4:58 PM, Francis Davey <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On 13 July 2010 16:27, Francis Irving <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> Legally, the ICO is right.
> >>
> >
> > I haven't looked at the request in detail, but that seems correct to me.
> >
> >> If an authority already makes information available by another means,
> >> whatever license or charge it makes, it doesn't have to release it to
> >> you under FOI.
> >
> > The FOI is, in this respect, more restrictive than the EIR. The FOI
> > requires that the information be "reasonably accessible" - where
> > "reasonably" will exclude placing information at the bottom of locked
> > filing cabinets (etc) but can include the payment of a fee. The "free"
> > in "Freedom of Information" doesn't mean "without charge".
> >
> > The similar caveat in the EIR (section 6) requires that the
> > information be "publicly available and easily accessible to the
> > applicant" (so an objective/subjective approach), which is I think a
> > little tougher. The EIR also contains a positive duty in section 4 to
> > "progressively make the information available to the public by
> > electronic means which are easily accessible ; and  take reasonable
> > steps to organize the information relevant to its functions with a
> > view to the active and systematic dissemination to the public of the
> > information.".
> >
> > If this is information falls within the EIR then you might be able to
> > argue that the section 4 duty is not being complied with because it is
> > awkward to access, but not because it is released under a licence.
> >
> >>
> >> Moreover, release under FOI itself gives you no special rights to do
> >> anything with the data at all (e.g. redistribute). Any such rights
> >> would, in theory, have to be separately granted.
> >
> > Yes. And this is clearly barking. If everyone in the UK can, as of
> > right, obtain the same information under FOI for free, preventing its
> > republication without charge by a third party seems just exactly the
> > kind of silly legalism we should not have in the 21st century. If
> > there's an intention to commercially exploit information - there are
> > exceptions to cover that case - otherwise it should all be out there
> > and reusable by everyone.
> >
> > My Society is, I hope, using its influence to move us towards such a
> > situation. We do what we can.
> >
> > Things are much better elsewhere. Earlier this year I gave a talk
> > (ironically about copyright in images of pictures held in public
> > libraries) and wanted various pictures to illustrate my talk. I was
> > forced to do a lot of work to find images that were either free of
> > copyright or for which I was able to obtain a free licence, but one
> > image I used was contained in a German postage stamp which was free to
> > reuse. Some places seem to take the role of the state more seriously
> > than others.
> >
> > [good suggestions by Francis I snipped].
> >
> > --
> > Francis Davey
> >
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