On Oct 1, 2009, at 7:59 AM, Jonathan Gray wrote: > Hi all, > > I recently blogged about the MashupAustralia competition, which was > announced yesterday: > > > http://blog.okfn.org/2009/10/01/australian-government-releases-open-data-for-mashupaustralia-competition/ > > The competition is putting out lots of open data to encourage innovate > re-uses - which is great news! > > Lots of the data is being released under CC-BY.
I read this yesterday and cringed. "Oh no! another contractual quest for recognition!" > On the competition > home page, Cameron Neylon raises the question of whether this is > appropriate for data, sparking off debate with Mia Garlick, organiser > of competition and ex-Creative Commons counsel: > > > http://gov2.net.au/blog/2009/09/30/your-invitation-to-mashupaustralia/#comment-1818 > > Her basic argument seems to me to be that CC licenses are not "mere > (copyright) licenses" but are also contracts - in which case CC-BY > offers legal protection. Its seems that the rationale for doing this > is that government departments want attribution. > > Would be great to have thoughts and opinions of people here! Give a person a hammer, and all data starts looking like an opportunity to get attribution. For ages now we have been creating knowledge in academia and giving it away, expecting, but not contractually requiring recognition. The norms of our disciplines have ensured that ripping off someone else's work without giving due credit gets censure that is worse than any contractual penalty could ever be. Ask yourself -- what would you rather? loss of face or some penalty that your contract provides for? Let's look at it another way -- if you have CC-BY data, and I take it but don't give you any attribution (because I am just a prick and don't want to give you attribution, and because norms wash off me like water off a duck), what is it exactly that you are going to do to me? Come after me with what? If your data are really worth any money, sure, bind it in a contract and wrap it in a license and track it with a beacon to make sure you get your pound of flesh. But otherwise, it is just pointless. Let's not even get into the issue that contracts apply only between the two parties that agree to the contract. So, if you agree to the contract with the original data provider, and then give the data to me without any contract, heck, I am bound by no contract at all. Isn't it just better to let the normative processes of our disciplines, our society and tradition, guide our actions? (am posting it on the MashUps comments page as well). -- Puneet Kishor http://www.punkish.org Carbon Model http://carbonmodel.org Charter Member, Open Source Geospatial Foundation http://www.osgeo.org Science Commons Fellow, http://sciencecommons.org/about/whoweare/kishor Nelson Institute, UW-Madison http://www.nelson.wisc.edu ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Assertions are politics; backing up assertions with evidence is science ======================================================================= _______________________________________________ okfn-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.okfn.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/okfn-discuss
