Consultation

One important issue (already noted above in para 39) is that Creative Commons licences (such as CC-BY etc) are not appropriate for data. Data licensing is a nightmare area which is why Science Commons (a project of Creative Commons) recommends placing data explicitly in the public domain. Where data is mixed with copyrightable material or database rights exist there is immense potential for confusion and a consequent reduction in re-use.

So the first step to answering Question 15 is to define carefully what parts of public sector information are data and which are not and to then consider how best to handle the data and the grey areas. My personal opinion aligns with that of Science Commons; that it is best to place the whole set of data and any associated material clearly in the public domain through an appropriate waiver like ccZero but this is a controversial area.

Looking forward my opinion is that it is more valuable to think about discoverability than asset lists. More and more in the future people will be arriving at these assets via search and ultimately by automated search mechanisms. Lists are an important part of this but markup and search optimization are also key.

I would be inclined to title this “Intellectual Property” rather than copyright. Or even just “Publisher Rights”. IP is much more than copyright, especially when the discussion is about data, to which copyright does not apply. There is also an important role for the consideration of moral rights in works or collections, both in their legally enforceable (libel etc), and community norms (e.g. citation and attribution) forms.