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 Submission by Open Knowledge Ireland to the
Public Consultation on Open Data Licences
Authors Dr. Ingo Keck Denis Parfenov Attribution This submission is based in part (Summary, Recommendation) on the submission by Wikimedia Community Ireland to the same public consultation. 1 Web https://openknowledge.ie/ Copyright This work is licensed under a​
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence​
. Summary
Open Knowledge Ireland (OK Ireland) is the local chapter of Open Knowledge in Ireland. Open Knowledge is a network of non for profit organisations around the world focussed on access ​
to key information and the ability to use it to understand and shape lives; where powerful institutions are comprehensible and accountable; and where vital research information that can help us tackle challenges such as poverty and climate change is available to all. OK Ireland is very pleased at the Government’s decision to invite views on an open data licences for Ireland and the decision to review the Public Sector Information (PSI) licence2 . 1
2
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https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaie/attachments/20150316/0826ee10/attachment­0001.pdf ​
http://www.per.gov.ie/open­data­licensing/ The Government is obliged to reform their PSI licence by the Directive 2013/37/EU till the end of 2015. This directive forces the Irish Government to include a right of re­use in their PSI licence and to make the data openly available at no or marginal costs.3 We recommend that Ireland release public data and information under the Creative Commons’ Attribution (CC­BY) licence4 . We recommend this licence apply to all material published by the state or public bodies and all material that is released under freedom of information rules. We recommend that other restrictions on reuse, such as the Rule of Coverage of the Houses of the Oireacthas, be lifted too. Works and data in the public domain should be marked with the Public Domain Mark from Creative Commons 5 in a clear and obvious way. Directive 2013/37/EU
Directive 2013/37/EU6 from 26 June 2013 requires the Irish Government to implement radical changes in the Irish PSRI licence till the end of 2015. Right Of Re-Use
The new directive contains a right for re­use of public sector information. This right of re­use should be as unrestricted as possible, according to the directive. The directive actually only states two possible exceptions where appropriate: acknowledgment of source and acknowledgment of any modifications to the document. Restrictions On Selection Of Licences
The directive and the related guidelines7 clearly state that a common, standardised and open8 licence should be used and that national adaptations should only be done where they are strictly necessary by law. Works from the public domain should contain a clear indication of their status as being in the public domain, e.g. by using the Public Domain Mark from Creative Commons9 . The creative commons licences are explicitly mentioned in this context as examples that should be used to provide a common licence space in the European Union. Recommendation
Attribution Is Useful
We recognise that there is a strong movement for public works to be dedicated to the public domain. Nevertheless, we recommend that the Government choose the CC­BY licence over a public domain dedication (CC­0) because it is useful to know the original 3
http://openknowledge.ie/european­commission­follows­advice­by­open­knowledge­and­creative­commo
ns/ 4
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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 5
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http://creativecommons.org/about/pdm 6
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http://eur­lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2013:175:0001:0008:EN:PDF 7
https://ec.europa.eu/digital­agenda/en/news/commission­notice­guidelines­recommended­standard­lice
nces­datasets­and­charging­re­use 8
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http://opendefinition.org/ 9
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http://creativecommons.org/about/pdm 1 source of data and information. Without the requirement to maintain attribution, valuable information about the source of material can get lost across re­uses. Additionally, we argue that it is fair to properly attribute the source of material, including state and public bodies where applicable. Choose a Creative Commons’ licence
We very strongly recommend that the Government chooses a Creative Commons’ licence (or Creative Commons’ public domain dedication) over other lesser­known licences. This is because the Creative Commons’ suite of licences are internationally well known, easily understood and have well­understood inter­compatibility with other popular licences. As such, releasing public data and information under a Creative Commons’ licence will mean the greatest possible certainty for re­users of public data and information. Choosing a less well­known licence or a unique/modified licence would add unnecessary burden for everyone with little or no benefit for anyone. For example, the popularity of Creative Commons’ licence means that public data and information could easily be imported and properly licensed on services such as the Wikimedia Commons or commercial websites, such as Flickr or YouTube. Choosing a unique licence or a lesser­well known licence would add unnecessary confusion, increase potential for incompatibility in licensing, and not take advantage of the economies of scale that a well­adopted licence, like Creative Commons’ suite of licences, can offer. Additionally, in many people’s minds, the Creative Commons’ licences are synonymous with the movement for open data. For Ireland to adopt a Creative Commons’ licence would be a strong signal that Ireland was adopting a central and well­established position in the movement for open data. We recommend very strongly against the Government choosing the Creative Commons’ Attribution­ShareAlike (CC­BY­SA) or another “copyleft” licence because of the additional constraints it puts on re­users of content. Examples can easily be thought of where re­users may want to blend data from public and private sources and release a combined dataset under a closed licence. Similarly, we very strongly recommend against preventing commercial re­use of public data and information. To do so, like placing a “sharealike” restriction on public data, would limit the potential for the knowledge economy in all its forms to maximise re­use of public data and information for the public good. 2