It's hard to bully when you have no leverage. I don't have a vote here. But the truth about the public domain is the truth, no matter how hard anyone wants to believe otherwise.
I'm not a lawyer, indeed. I have however spent ten years in this space working as a pivot point between coders, scientists, funders, business people, and lawyers though. I have a little background. And I spent most of the last three years of my life investigating exactly how data licensing works in science and more generally on the web. Thanks to the CC world, I had access to some pretty smart people. I came to the conclusion that the PD is the only solution. Everything else is putting lipstick on a pig - it's still a pig. And data is still the public domain, regardless of the contract you attach to it. You should feel free to disregard that conclusion if you disagree, though others including those lawyers involved in CC, at both the staff and board level, have agreed. As they say on the internets, YMMV. And again, I'm here to take flames like this, not browbeat. I simply want to make sure that if this community goes forward with a contractual restriction that attempts to impose share-alike or non-commercial, it does so in full knowledge of how hard that will be to maintain in a court of law. I frankly don't think I was being emotional - it doesn't matter much to me as an individual in the end if this community chooses share-alike. My battles daily are in the life sciences, in the world of genes and proteins, not in GSM data. And I care a lot emotionally about the impact of bad licensing on the likelihood of finding a disease. There, I am proud of my emotions. Here I'm just trying to engage in a community because Jordan asked me to do so, and because I see a community trying to make a decision. "CC has more money than God" - well, SC doesn't. We will hopefully, someday soon - I'd like to make market wage, myself. But that's a different story, and doesn't really seem relevant. I'm speaking for myself here, but I don't make decisions at work based on the goal of making money - I make them based on the goal of promoting the commons. But the commons is built on the public domain first, not the license - the license is only necessary to the extent that the public domain is encroached upon by bad law and bad practice. I'd like to see communities build themselves on strong legal bases. I'd like to see the public domain be the first recourse for data providers. I think that's a world I want to live in. But I don't have a vote, and I don't deserve one - I'm a noob here, and this is your community. As I said, I'll stay here and respond as long as you folks want. Thanks for listening. jtw SteveC wrote: > John > > If we're being frank, it appears CC have been bullying everyone with > this PD stuff. > > I'll let Jordan respond to your points (and I hope he has time), but > it's clear that you fundamentally disagree on whether the ODL actually > works or not, and you do it in a rather strange and emotional way given > that your bio[1] seems to show no legal qualifications (please forgive > me if I've misread something). > > You guys have more money than God, and I think you want to own this > space, and I think you're trying to stop dissent from your Vision. > > For now, as Jordan is an actual lawyer, I'm going to continue voting ODL. > > Best > > Steve > > [1] - http://creativecommons.org/about/people#34 > > > On 19 Feb 2008, at 23:54, John Wilbanks wrote: > >> Hi everyone. My name is John Wilbanks. I am the VP for Science Commons >> at Creative Commons, and I'm the one who wrote the Protocol for >> Implementing Open Access to Data. >> >> I've been lurking here for a couple of weeks. I don't like showing up >> and posting without getting a sense of the community. But I think it's >> important to join this debate and get your responses...I'll stay here on >> this list, I'll take questions, and I'll take flames. I'm glad you're >> having this debate. It's a good debate. And I'm stoking the fires of it >> with this post - but I think you deserve my honest sense on this, and >> not a mumbling political post. >> >> I am speaking here as an individual who endured 18 months of research >> into open data as part of CC, but not on behalf of CC the organization. >> >>>> The issue was quite simple. We need to have a license that better >>>> protects the OSM data >> >> I'm going to be a little provocative here and say that your data is >> already unprotected, and you cannot slap a license on it and protect it. >> This sounds to me like someone deciding to put a license on the United >> States Constitution. You're welcome to try that - but that license will >> not change the underlying legal status of the Constitution, which is the >> public domain. >> >> That means I'm free to ignore any kind of share-alike you apply to your >> data. I've got a download of the OSM data dump. I can repost it, right >> now, as public domain. You can perhaps try to sue me - though I'm pretty >> sure I would win. But you absolutely couldn't sue anyone who came along >> and downloaded my copy and then reposted that same data as public >> domain. There's no copyright on your data, and that means that only the >> people who sign your deal are bound to it, not anyone who gets it from >> the people who sign your deal. Unlike the copyright on a song, which >> travels along with the song no matter what, the share-alike is >> restricted to the parties of the contract. It's called privity - see >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privity_of_contract >> >> That's why the ODC was something that CC didn't support. It holds out a >> promise of power that is illusory. Privity + no IPRs = easy to repost as >> public domain. >> >>> Do we? What's the threat? How has it been assessed? >> >> The threat comes from people who are worried about data "Capture" - but >> it is wrong to think that the law is a magic wand here. GPL style >> approaches only work in the presence of copyrights. They simply don't >> have the power in data. The real answer is: if you put your data online, >> it's essentially in the public domain. >> >> Bad people know this and will exploit it. That's what you don't want to >> allow. But simply posting the data gives the bad people a lot of power. >> The nice people are going to obey your rules and be constricted by them, >> but not the bad people. >> >> I would encourage you to think not about the threat, about those who >> will take the data and not recontribute, or who will sell the data, than >> about the good people. Given that the data is already in the public >> domain, whatever license you choose, how will you instead *reward* those >> who think it's worth being a good citizen? That can be done with moral >> statements of normative behaviors and a trademark for OSM - only those >> who behave get to use it and advertise themselves as OSM compliant. >> >> It's a far healthier strategy in many ways than relentlessly trying to >> stamp out perceived violators. One can imagine a data owner beginning to >> empathize with the RIAA, who see violations everywhere and in so doing, >> loses focus of the opportunities for good outcomes. >> >>>> OSM never started out as a PD project so why would we think that it >>>> would be better to recommend it go PD now? >> >> Because that's the legal status of the project. My copy of your data is >> in the public domain. It doesn't matter what the wiki license says - >> that license only protects copyrighted things. You can choose to use >> contracts to entangle users, like the ODC does, but it will only block >> the good guys. The bad guys can work around that in less time than it >> takes to download your data. >> >> jtw >> ps - Jordan Hatcher, who drafted both the ODC and the PDDL, is a >> remarkable attorney and far more knowledgeable on the details of the >> contracts than I am. I'm proud to call him a colleague. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> legal-talk mailing list >> legal-talk@openstreetmap.org >> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/legal-talk >> > _______________________________________________ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/legal-talk
