After previous discussion in the legal-talk and talk-au lists, I made further approaches to the Australian Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet regarding access to data published on data.gov.au including the PSMA Administrative Boundaries.
Today I received a reply. The full letter is reproduced below. In particular, note the statement that "we can confirm that CC BY 4.0 allows OpenStreetMap to apply its own licence (in this case, ODbL) to its product. We can also confirm that attribution on the OpenStreetMap contributors page would be sufficient to meet the attribution requirements of the licence." While I don't seek to extrapolate this statement to all CC BY 4.0 licensed data from other sources, it seems clear that this statement from the authorised person in Australia's Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, would be sufficient for us to use the relevant Australian Government data in OSM. With OSM supported by such a statement, I find it difficult to see how the Australian Government (or anyone else) could later try to say we do not have the necessary permission to use the data. In my correspondence to the Government, I referred to the Contributors page of the wiki, and I would reasonably take the response to refer to this page. I had previously undertaken that any response from the Australian authorities would be submitted to the legal-talk list for consideration. I will defer posting to talk-au list until I have feedback from legal-talk. _______________________________________________________ Australian Government Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet Ref: EC16-002146 Mr Michael Cleary OpenStreetMap ...... (private address removed) Dear Sir Thank you for your letter of 21 November 2016 regarding the publishing of government data on OpenStreetMap. The Secretary has asked me to reply on his behalf. Public data policy matters fall within my responsibilities. The current policy on licensing for government data is covered by the Guidelines on Licensing Public Sector Information for Australian Government Entities, which is published by the Department of Communication and the Arts. This policy states that public sector information should be released free of charge under a Creative Commons 'BY' 4.0 licence (CC BY 4.0). The CC BY 4.0 licence is an open licence that is intended to enable the use, reuse and commercialisation of open government data. Consistent with this policy, the PSMA Administrative Boundaries have been published under this licensing framework. Due to the large number of datasets on data.gov.au and. in some instances, obligations on the government due to its licensing arrangements with its data suppliers, we are unable to amend the licence terms, or provide exemptions on an individual basis. However, we can confirm that CC BY 4.0 allows OpenStreetMap to apply its own licence (in this case, ODbL) to its product. We can also confirm that attribution on the OpenStreetMap contributors page would be sufficient to meet the attrtibution requirements of the licence. We understand that licence terms can be complex and legalistic. There are several processes underway across government to improve data accessibility and address any barriers to use. The Productivity Commission's draft report on its Inquiry into Data Availability and Use discusses how public sector licensing arrangements can have limitations on the use of government data. Specifically, chapter three discusses issues relevant to your request. The draft report can be downloaded from http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/current/data-access/draft. The Final Report is due for release in March next year, and the Government will respond in due course to the recommendations put forward. The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet is also undertaking public consultation to gather information on the datasets Australians want access to, and any issues they face in using them, including licensing. I encourage you to contribute to this consultation through the online survey at http://thesource.dss.gov.au/unlocking-australias-high-value-data/survey_tools/unlocking-australias-high-value-data-survey/ I hope this information has been of assistance. Yours sincerely Steven Kennedy 22 December 2016 _______________________________________________ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
