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Open Data Licensing Consultation Response: Digital Repository of Ireland
The Digital Repository of Ireland and Licensing
The Digital Repository of Ireland is a national trusted digital repository for the humanities and social
sciences. It provides digital infrastructure that links together and preserves the rich and varied cultural,
historical, and qualitative social science data held by Irish Institutions, and a central access point and
multimedia tools to research and interact with archived data.
DRI is working with its stakeholder community to build national voluntary guidelines for digital
preservation of cultural and social data, which we hope will achieve wide-scale adoption and form the
basis of a national policy for digital preservation. One of our overall aims is to preserve and provide
access to online cultural heritage due to the educational, social and economic benefits it stimulates.
DRI’s stakeholders include publicly funded bodies including libraries, archives, museums and galleries,
whose data will explicitly fall under the 2013 PSI Directive when it is transposed into Irish law in 2015.
Data in this context may include born digital or digitised printed materials, manuscripts, publications,
oral history and folklore recordings, images (paintings, drawings, prints, posters and photographs),
maps, sheet music and music recordings, video recordings, ephemera, social science or qualitative data
and research data. The guidelines which the DRI has developed in consultation with these stakeholders
for the publication of their data online covers topics including preservation file formats, data citation,
metadata creation and rights and licensing.
The DRI’s response to this consultation document has been prepared from the perspective of an existing
online repository with knowledge and experience of the licensing issues faced by cultural heritage
institutions when publishing their data openly.
Specific feedback
1. What licences are public bodies currently using? (e.g. PSI, Open, etc.). Any views on the general
applicability of a preferred Open Data licence to PSI?
In the GLAM sector (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums), the DRI’s experience has been that data
tends not be published with a licence for reuse, although generally organisations will allow reuse if a
user requests it. DRI supports and encourages the application of Creative Commons and Open Database
Licences to the data held in the Repository, but acknowledges that it may not be possible for a depositor
to do this. DRI stakeholders in general appear to be familiar with Creative Commons licences.
2. CC0 requires waiving of certain rights (including Attribution, although it can be specifically
requested, eg, https://open.fda.gov/terms/). Is this acceptable to public bodies?
DRI had considered a requirement for CC0 metadata as a prerequisite for deposit, and received
mixed feedback from its stakeholders on this. In cultural heritage, metadata is often considered to
have an intrinsic value and stakeholders would prefer to be attributed (and that attribution be
mandatory rather than optional, for example by using a CC-BY licence). DRI believes that a
mandatory CC0 designation for the data itself may not be appropriate for the public bodies it has
worked with.
3. If public bodies need to retain copyright of datasets, can this be done through the CC-BY
licence?
The CC-BY licence allows the retention of copyright by the owner so the application of a licence should
not affect copyright status. In the case where a public body generates income via its data it may not be
viable to make a CC-BY licence mandatory for the data however, even though copyright is retained.
4. Are we clear on the copyright owner of data generated by Public Bodies in all cases? Does it
always belong to the body/department which created the data? Are there always stringent
contracts in place to ensure that copyright cannot rest with an external creator such as a
contractor?
In the case of GLAMs, it is often the case that the data is not created by the custodial organisation and
the organisation in many cases is not the copyright owner.
In the case of a physical object which is in the public domain and has been digitised, there may arguably
be new copyrights created by the organisation which digitised it, but it is not necessarily the case that a
digital copy is a “creative work” which is covered by copyright legislation.
Digitisation work may also be undertaken by an external bureau, so it would be the responsibility of the
individual public body to ensure that any contracts explicitly transfer the copyright of the digital object
from an external contractor to them.
5. What process/governance will be in place to ensure that data being published on data.gov.ie
can actually be published under an Open Data licence? e.g. to ensure the data is appropriately
anonymised if necessary (and complies with data protection) or is not breaking previous copyright
rules?
It would be desirable to have guidance for Public bodies on establishing or clearing copyright before
applying a licence and publishing data online. Copyright legislation is complex and public bodies may not
have expertise in-house to assess the copyright status or appropriate standards for anonymisation,
without support.
6. Can multiple licence formats be used, depending on the complexities of each dataset? For
example, if a Third Party has contributed copyright material. Can an institution release some data
under an Open Data licence, with non-Open Data linked via the Open Data portal, but under another
appropriate licence? Or, should only datasets associated with the recommended Open Licence be
included on data.gov.ie?
This depends on the aims of data.gov.ie. It is less user friendly for people wishing to reuse the data if
multiple licences are available, but it would likely increase the amount of humanities or social
science data which could be published.
7. Can CC0 be used for all the metadata published on data.gov.ie, with a different licence being
used, if necessary, for the actual dataset on the public body’s website?
This may be more appropriate for DRI stakeholders. Heritage organisations may not be able to
publish their data (as opposed to metadata) as CC0 for copyright reasons.
10. What are the implications for data generated for cross-border projects (eg, Ireland-Britain, if
different licensing arrangements are in place?
In such a case there would need to be an agreement by the creators on the licence that should be
applied and which country’s national aggregator should publish it. In the case of an open or
standardised licence there should be no issue with data being published by multiple aggregators. Crossborder projects may also need to consider any restrictions placed on them by their funding agencies
which may relate to date publication and licensing.
11. Are you aware of any legal impediments to using an Open Licence for specific datasets?
The most likely legal impediment in the case of GLAMs may be where copyright is not owned by the
public body, and a licence should not be applied.
Finally, please provide your views on two proposed licensing statements:
12. Content published through the national open data portal, data.gov.ie, is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence unless otherwise stated. Content
on or linked through the portal which is not covered by the CC-BY licence is clearly marked with the
appropriate licence or copyright statement. Such an approach allows for a tiered approach to the
openness of the data. If CC-BY is not used, the public body should explain why.
13. Unless otherwise noted, the content, data, documentation, code, and related materials on
data.gov.ie is available with a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal dedication. This dedication
waives all rights to the work worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighbouring
rights, to the extent allowed by law. You can copy, modify, distribute, and perform the work, even
for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. This dedication implies no warranties about
the work. There is no liability for any uses of the work, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable
law.
Some data on data.gov.ie may not be covered by the CC0 dedication, such as copies of copyrightable
works made available to the public bodies by private entities. Such works may made available under the
provisions of extant Copyright legislation and any relevant EU Directives. Therefore, your rights to use
those works may be similarly limited. Works where CC0 do not apply will be clearly marked by a warning
in the relevant documentation (for example: “This data is not in the public domain. Third party copy
rights may apply.”).
DRI considers the CC-BY licence to be the most appropriate for its stakeholders, and would recommend
that it is provided as a licensing option on data.gov.ie.