Comments on: Open Data Licensing, An Unnatural Thought http://blogs.talis.com/nodalities/2007/07/open_data_licensing_an_unnatur.php From Semantic Web to Web of Data Mon, 23 May 2011 13:28:45 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Chris Rusbridge http://blogs.talis.com/nodalities/2007/07/open_data_licensing_an_unnatur.php/comment-page-1#comment-155 Chris Rusbridge Thu, 19 Jul 2007 17:49:48 +0000 http://blogs.talis.com/nodalities/archives/2007/07/open-data-licensing-an-unnatural-thought.php#comment-155 Rob, this is very interesting and I will return to it, and your licence, later. The thing that really worries me, though, is this unnatural thought: in order to have a licence (even an open one), you must have an exclusive right of some kind. Copyright is good for this; copyright owner has an exclusive right to allow various activities, which can then be licensed, including Creative Commons licences to specify how you want your open access to work (and in that case worked on in multiple jurisdictions). The Database right may be less good, allowing less exclusive control, and more right of extraction for a lawful user. So if you try to open the database under a licence, you may find people can legally do things you don't want them to do. You might need to close access and use a contract to stop them; NOT what we are trying to achieve! Also not a lawyer... Rob, this is very interesting and I will return to it, and your licence, later. The thing that really worries me, though, is this unnatural thought: in order to have a licence (even an open one), you must have an exclusive right of some kind. Copyright is good for this; copyright owner has an exclusive right to allow various activities, which can then be licensed, including Creative Commons licences to specify how you want your open access to work (and in that case worked on in multiple jurisdictions). The Database right may be less good, allowing less exclusive control, and more right of extraction for a lawful user. So if you try to open the database under a licence, you may find people can legally do things you don’t want them to do. You might need to close access and use a contract to stop them; NOT what we are trying to achieve!

Also not a lawyer…

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