On 11 May, Kristina Alexanderson held a meeting at Goto10 and Creative commons on the occasion of the guidance they had just released. I was there and gained a lot of good insights and had several thoughts confirmed. Creative Commons is behind the set of terms most often used to state what you may do with open data. In the first instance you should use CC0, and in the second instance CC-BY.
CC0 is not a licence in the legal sense, and that is very important to remember as it affects how it can be used. More on that below. CC0 places no restrictions on how the information may be used.
CC-BY is a licence and requires you to state who the author of the shared work is, where practically possible and reasonable. This is appropriate, for example, for moral rights. You can, however, state that there is no need to say who the author is, but this is not legally binding.
Here are a number of questions and answers from the meeting:
- Is CC suitable for information/open data? What about ODbL (Open Database Licence), which was developed specifically for information/data?
CC0 was developed specifically for datasets/information sets. ODbL is no longer needed. - Can you put CC on material you do not hold the copyright to (if it is in the public domain)?
If there is no copyright, you should not apply a restrictive licence; all CC licences include attribution and are therefore restrictive. You would then be claiming a right you do not have. If you apply CC0 (which is not a licence), you are not applying a licence, and that means no restriction. That is fine even if you do not hold the copyright. This is logical and exciting! - What is the difference between CC0 and PDM (Public Domain Mark)?
PDM is for when copyright has expired, CC0 for when copyright exists but you want to give everything away. - On the NC condition, the public sector, publicly owned companies and consultants who get paid
“Commercial” often covers companies owned by the public sector but rarely government agencies and public organisations. It is the use that determines whether it is commercial or not. A graphic designer paid for printed material for a non-profit association is fine under NC, provided the association’s use is non-commercial. - What applies to logos in material with CC – do you have to state an exception?
If the logo has been registered with the Patent- och registreringsverket (Swedish Patent and Registration Office) (design protection or trademark protection), it does not become free for others to use through a CC marking. It is not copyright that governs the protection of the logo, so it is not affected by a licence/terms for copyright such as CC.
On point 2, there is a bit more to say. Often when I talk to clients and others about licences, they express a wish to put a single licence (often CC-BY) on all information they share, for simpler internal handling. The problem is that you can only put a licence on information you hold the copyright to. You cannot apply a licence if you do not hold the copyright; it is like giving away something you do not own. The beauty of it is that (as long as there are no moral rights) you can apply CC0 (since it is not a licence) both to material you hold the copyright to and to material that is not subject to copyright (the copyright may have expired, or there may never have been any copyright to begin with). If you use CC0, which is the main recommendation for open data, databases, for example, can be shared without any copyright-related problems.
Large parts of what you might publish as open data then become easier to assess from a copyright perspective. You do, however, still have assessments relating to confidentiality and personal data left to carry out.