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Open Data Licensing: More than meets the eye

Mashael Khayyat

Trinity College Dublin & King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah

khayyatm@tcd.ie

Frank Bannister

Trinity College Dublin

Frank.Bannister@tcd.ie

Abstract

In discussions of open government data (hereafter simply open data or OGD) the question of how

such data should be licensed or whether they need to be licensed at all has to date received only

limited attention – at least in the academic literature. A common assumption, at least in the public

sphere, is that a large fraction of the data collected by governments can and should be released free

of any constraints or restrictions for all to access and do with as they will. However, even for data

that do not fall within the ambit of the security of the state it is far from obvious that this must be

so; different forms of formal licensing may be appropriate and necessary in many cases. A

libertarian approach to OGD is just one of a number of licensing options.

A common assumption, at least in the public sphere, is that a large proportion of the data collected

and held by governments can and should be released free of any constraints or restrictions for all

citizens, communities and organizations to access and use as they wish. However, even for data that

does not fall within the ambit of personal privacy, the security of the state or is otherwise sensitive,

it is far from obvious that this should be so; different forms of formal licensing may be appropriate in

some cases and necessary in others. A libertarian, free-for-all approach to open government data is

just one of a number of licensing options from which governments can choose.

This paper will explore the various dimensions of open data licensing. Starting from a definition of

what a licence is, it will first look at the debate(s) that have surrounded licensing in the worlds of the

open systems, freeware, shareware and open source. It will then examine and critique a number of

existing or proposed open data licences including various international and national licencing

frameworks. The Creative Commons and Open Database (ODbL) Licenses will be critically examined

and possible problems with the concepts underlying various licences will be explored. The question

of what may be suitable for standard public licenses and what may require bespoke or customised

licensing will be analysed. Other questions to be investigated will be the policing and conformance

as well as the implications of modern analytics and the mashing up of large data sets from different

sources.

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1. Introduction

The modest, but growing, body of research into the barriers to the release of data collected and held

by governments consistently includes a discussion of legal issues. There are several obstacles which

fall under this general heading including existing legislative requirements such as data protection

acts, intellectual property rights, risks of consequential harm, commercial sensitivities, concerns

about modern data analysis technology and individual privacy rights (Barry & Bannister 2014;

Janssen 2012; Bertot et al 2010). Some scholars and theorists argue that, in such a legally complex

situation, a well-designed licensing regime is not only necessary, it is critical to the success of open

data initiatives. Creating a legal environment in which citizens, communities and corporates can use

such data with clarity and confidence about their rights and obligations is essential if societies are to

make the most of these data. Its absence is likely to hinder creativity and the economic, social and

political benefits that are widely expected to ensue (Korn and Oppenheim 2011). According to Korn

and Oppenheim an understanding of open data licensing is important for establishing “which and

how” data can be re-used. It is not only important to understand the legal issues that may arise in

the context of licensing open data, but also the different types of licences that are available and the

implications that they carry with them.

This paper examines open government data licensing and explores a number of its dimensions. Its

objectives are to highlight the complexities surrounding this topic, to examine some of these and to

critique the current approach to open government data (OGD) licensing. This paper is organised as

follows. Section two looks at the background to open licencing starting with a brief review of the

Open Source movement and the approach to open licensing of software. Section three examines

current OGD/open data (OD) licences and different approaches to licencing. Section four is a

critique of the concept of OGD and includes some reflections on how the question of OGD licensing

might evolve. Section five is a brief conclusion and contains some recommendations for future

research.

2.0 Background

2.1 The Open Software Movement and Copyleft

In the world of information and communications technology (ICT) the term ‘licence’ is traditionally

associated with software though licensing is also used for other type of intellectual property such as

methodologies. Within the Information Systems (IS) literature and community there has been and

continues to be much discussion about the relative merits and demerits of open software and open

source. Over several decades, the Open Source movement has proposed or developed a number of

business models which are designed to offer users various forms of freedom to modify software and

pass it on, partially encumbered or unencumbered, to others. The foundational principle of the

movement is that software should be free in the sense of free of restrictions on use and modification

rather than free of charge (which is separate issue). Unsurprisingly, some complicated legal

problems can arise once one starts exploring the question of software licences in any dept

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Non-proprietary software comes in a number of flavours. One key distinction is whether or not the

source code is available. Freeware is the term generally applied to applications which anybody can

use for free and without a licence, but which the user cannot modify or sell on a third party. Many

PC games and utilities, for example, fall into this category. Some smartphone Apps broadly fall into

this category. Another variation is shareware where the user needs a licence or permit and there

may or may not be a charge for use. More complicated problems arise when source code is made

available. This means that the user can modify the code, but while the original source code may be

free, a user may feel entitled to charge for his modifications. Thus a developer may take some open

source code, modify it and charge for the enhanced product. The latter may not matter provided he

supplies the source code of his modification to other users to do what they want without further

conditions or cost even though this will limit his ability to make money from his enhancement.

Developers have sometimes tried to circumvent this problem by embedding proprietary code or by

attaching proprietary add-ons to open source code. Others have tried to ‘claim jump’ and hijack the

free source code. This problem has led to what is called the Open Source Definition which sets out a

number of criteria for open source software namely:

There must be free redistribution. No royalties or fees;

Distribution must include the source code;

Derived works are allowed. Modifications must be permitted;

The integrity of the author's source code must be maintained;

There can be no discrimination against persons or groups;

There can be no discrimination against fields of endeavour;

Distribution of licence. One licence covers all;

A licence must not be specific (tied) to a product ;

A licence must not restrict other software;

A license must be technology-neutral.

(Open Source Initiative 2014). Not all of these apply, or can be adapted to apply, to data, but some

can. An attempt to create a similar set of principles for open data is discussed in section four.

An obvious question about open source is this: in such a world how does a software developer make

a living? Various attempts have been made to address this problem and as a result there are

currently over 100 free and/or open source licences available - including one from the EU namely

the European Union Public Licence (Joinup 2014; SchmThe most important and influential of these

licences is probably the General Public Licence (GPL) which incorporates the concept of copyleft.

Under a GPL licence, a developer who modifies open source code cannot impose any conditions on a

user’s use further modification of the modified product although he can charge for the modifications

that he has made (Free Software Foundation 2014).

A full discussion of this is beyond the scope of this paper. This summary is presented because

several of the problems and issues in open data have parallels in open source software though there

are other issues that arise with data, but which are not a problem with software and vice versa.

Nonetheless, given that the open source movement has been around for several decades there are

likely to be useful lessons which can be drawn from the accumulated knowledge in this field. As will

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be seen, the principle of copyleft has been adapted and applied to data in the Creative Commons

Licence.

2.2 The Legislative Context

There is a number of critical laws surrounding the data that governments use and the way that

government are allowed to use such data. Even without considering other factors (of which there

are many – see below) existing legislation has multiple implications when it comes to licensing both

software and data. Central to any discussion of data licensing are two types of act: data protection

acts and freedom of information (FoI) acts, though other legislation and quasi legislation (such as

privacy rights and official secrets acts) also bear on licence design. Of these, the most important are

data protection acts (DPAs)

Most developed countries now have a DPA. The first DPA was enacted in the in the German state of

Hesse in 1970 (Privacy International 2014). Since that time almost every country in the developed

world has enacted some form of this legislation (DLA Piper 2013). The primary purpose of such acts

has been to protect the personal data of individual citizens (Korn and Oppenheim 2011). But

governments hold far more than citizens’ personal details or matters related to state security. They

hold large volumes of data which are commercially valuable and in particular which have embedded

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). Korn and Oppenheim note that IPR can encompass several

subsidiary rights including copyright, database rights, moral rights, and other rights. For the

purposes of this paper the most important of these are copyright and database rights. The latter will

be considered first.

A database structure might enjoy copyright which protects the author’s or designer’s rights in their

creation. As a consequence, individual data items such as records and metadata may require

copyright protection to protect a creator’s IPR. Such rights are also necessary to protect creators or

designers from what Korn and Oppenheim describe as “derogatory treatment”, i.e. amending data

or quoting it out of context in a way that could mislead others and potentially damage the

reputation of the data creator or provider. Korn and Oppenheim state that there are three levels of

rights regarding database rights:

Database rights,

Dataset rights and

Data rights

These rights can arise where an individual or corporate has put substantial investment, be that in the

form of financial and/or human and/or technical resources, into the construction of a database or

the assembly of data in such a database. A complex database design might be considered to be a

form of intellectual property and legal protection of this may be justifiable. Korn and Oppenheim

stress that when it comes to databases, datasets and data the question of IPR is usually complex and

recommend taking legal advice about a database license before using others’ data is essential to

avoid legal risks. Miller, Styles and Heath (2008) claim that without “a legally recognised database

right”, communities will lack the authority to publish data or products, services or even findings

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derived from such data. Their solution to this problem is to use a ‘Share-Alike’ agreement for any

open data. This concept is discussed further below.

The question of IPR in databases and data is a particularly difficult one for government. There are

several reasons for this. As Nicol, Caruso and Archambault (2013, p.6) note:

“Governments produce and own large datasets [and] most national open data policies primarily

target these datasets”.

Government datasets include personal data, corporate data, military intelligence, patent

applications, criminal records, employee performance records and so on. It is not just the volume of

data that governments hold that matters; it is the sheer variety. Governments also have much

duplicated data typically scattered across multiple agencies and departments. Such data may be

inconsistent and lack integrity. Government agencies range from those concerned with the security

of the state to those whose job it is to foster enterprise or deal with serious social problems. And so

on. It all makes for a demanding legal challenge when it comes to determining the rules, terms and

conditions for data release.

2.3 Licensing and Open Data Policy

The need for comprehensive open data access policies was formally recognised in 2004 by the

Ministers of Science and Technology of the thirty members of the Organisation for Economic Co-

operation and Development (OECD) countries as well as those of China, Israel, Russia, and South

Africa. Discussions of open data policy generally contain references to licencing as one of the steps

involved in policy formulation. Schutzberg (2014) states that one of the key objectives of open data

policy statements is to set out under what license conditions data are to be made available. Open

data stakeholders (local, state, regional, federal and private entities) may choose to develop and

implement open data policies. He lists some components that are commonly found in open data

policy statements:

1. Which data are to be made open and which are not;

2. When past and future data are to be available;

3. Where the data can be obtained/accessed;

4. In what format(s) the data are to be available;

5. Under what license(s) the data are to be available; and

6. The cost (if any) for reproduction or use the data or any software associated with it.

Kaufman and Wagner (2012) also consider licensing as an integral aspect of open data processing.

They consider a licence as one of seven steps necessary to open and maintain data, namely:

1. Find […] data;

2. Convert data;

3. Test […] output;

4. Write up a license agreement;

5. Publish and publicize;

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6. Update and modify as needed; and

7. create and maintain a dialogue”

(Kaufman and Wagner 2012 as cited in Wimmer et al., 2013, p.77).

Another example of the presence of licencing in an open data framework can be found in the Ten

Open Data Building blocks proposed by Davies (2012) (see table 1). Davies, despite comments he

has made elsewhere (see below), would appear to acknolwedge that it is important to have an

‘explicit licence’ although in line with his general fairly libertarian approach he emphasises the

importance of using licences that have the fewest constraints though with acknowledgment of the

source of the data.

Open data building block

Brief explanation

1.Leadership and bureaucratic support

“a top level mandate” from Senior politicians, and an “engaged and well resourced ‘middle layer’ of skilled government bureaucrats” are essential to secure the release of open data (Hogge 2010).

2. Datasets Datasets are at the core of open data Open datasets need to be accessible(usually online), technically Open(in a non-proprietary format),and legally open (Eaves 2009).

3. Licences A range of copyright and intellectual property laws can cover Datasets. It is important to have an explicit license because without it, re- users will not know their legal permissions and rights of dealing with data such as sharing data, combining data with other data, building a commercial service off the back of a dataset. At the same time, open data advocates stress on the importance of facilitates licenses that have least constraints with acknowledgment of the source of the data.

4. Data standards Describes what a dataset can contain such as the fields of it, how they commonly represented, and what conventions should be used for sharing dates, locations, categories and other common elements.

5. Data portals A data portal provides access to open datasets, hosting meta-data that Describes them, and allowing visitors to search for Relevant datasets.

6. Interpretations, interfaces and applications

Third parties can provide their own interpretations or analysis in static reports and publications; they can build interfaces and visualisations of data to show trends and patterns in it; and they can create Interactive applications that provide Useful functionality.

7. Outreach and engagement

Just putting data online is not enough to get it used. Outreach, community building and engagement is required. The five stars of open data engagement explains that an open data initiative should: be demand driven; put data in context; support conversations around data; build capacity, skills and networks; and lead to collaboration on data as a common resource

8. Capacity building Capacity building often needs to Take place on both supply and use sides of an open Data initiative

9. Feedback loops Establish channels through which they can accept and work with feedback, either enhancing the data they hold, or taking action on the basis of feedback.

10. Policy and legislative lock-in

Develop a statutory footing by creating ‘right to data’ legislation, or writing open data clearly into contracts and policies.

Table.1: Ten Building Blocks of an Open Data Initiative (Davies 2012)

All three of these discussions include licensing as a key component in the development of open data

policies though views on the nature of those licences may not coincide. This leads to the question of

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whether there should be (or even if is it possible to devise) a single open data licence in the same

way that the Open Source movement has tried to do for software or will a number of different types

of licence be required?

2.4 Defining “Licence”

According to the UK Licensing Framework:

“A licence is a legal document giving permission to use information” and it is considered as “a

mechanism that gives people and organisations permission to re-use information and other material

that is protected by copyright or database right. A licence should also provide clarity as to what

users and re-users are permitted to do and whether there are any restrictions on the extent of that

permission” (UK Government Licensing Framework, 2013, p.20, p.10)1.

Under the UK Licensing Framework, licences must set out clear conditions of use. For example users

must not use the information/data to mislead others, misrepresent the data or suggest that any use

that they make of the data is endorsed by a public sector body (and in particular the data source).

Davies (2012, p2)2 defines a license as setting out:

“… explicitly what someone who accesses a dataset can do with it […]and without an explicit license,

a user does not know if they have the legal permissions to share data further, to combine it with

other data, or to build a commercial service off the back of a dataset”

In a subsequent paper Davis et al (2013, p15) add that:

“Open Knowledge Definition (OKD) presents a stringent definition of an open license as one that

requires, at most, attribution of the dataset source” [emphasis added].

Davies (2010) argues that “open” in this context means that the user is free to use, re-use and

distribute the data, but with two important caveats: first the data source is always attributed and

second that the any new information created from the original data is shared with others. This has

parallels with the concept of copyleft. These precepts, like those of copyleft, may not appeal to

some users. Unsurprisingly, Davis et al note that in practice many datasets do not meet the strong

conditions of the Open Knowledge Definition.

A further nuance, noted by Davies et al, is that simple, permissive licenses are preferred because

incompatible licenses may make it difficult to combine datasets – a key requirement for mashups or

data analytics. Having presented this as a problem, Davies et al do not elaborate on what he means

by incompatible or permissive licenses or give any examples of where this has happened; he simply

uses it to underline what he considers to be the importance of permissive licenses.

1 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/information-management/uk-government-licensing-

framework.pdf 2 http://www.opendataimpacts.net/2012/08/ten-building-blocks-of-an-open-data-initiative/

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The concept of permissive licencing is also discussed by Miller, Styles and Heath (2008, p4) who

present the case for this type of licence:

”…permissive licensing of data for the web means that we can all begin to move forward in lowering

the walls of our silos, releasing data to play its part in the Data Web”.

However, they do not provide any technical explanation of what permissiveness means, confining

their discussion to metaphor.

In the above discussions, an open data licence is considered to be a legal document (however brief)

containing explicit rules as to what can and cannot be done with datasets. It may be noted that,

besides Kaufman and Wagner’s steps, other importance aspects may need to be considered in

opening and maintaining data, for example publicity or public notification so that citizens are aware

of open data, what data are available and how such data can be used. In addition, they argue, it is

important to foster public innovation by encouraging creative use of these data with prizes and/or

awards.

3. An Overview of Data Licensing Approaches.

3.1 Some Open Data Licences

According to Hatcher and Waelde (2007) (cited in Davies 2012) open data providers may “create a

customized” licensing framework or “use one of the standard” open database licenses. According to

Miller, Styles and Heath (2008), the Talis Community License released the first public open data

license in 2006. Korn and Oppenheim (2011) list the following ‘standard’ licences:

1. Creative Commons Attribution;

2. Creative Commons Zero (CC0);

3. Public Domain and Dedication Licence (PDDL);

4. Open Data Commons Attribution Licence (ODC);

5. Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike (but limited interoperability);

6. Open Government Licence (OGL).

Shutzberg (2014) adds to the list above a number of open data licenses from public authorities in the

UK. In practice the emergence of many such localised licences seems probable.

Like Hatcher and Waelde, Korn and Oppenheim note that there are both standard licence and

bespoke licences. They suggest that while bespoke licences facilitate the use and potential reuse of

data, standard licences lead to better interoperability and increased user awareness of the licence

terms which in turn leads to better compliance. They also claim that bespoke licences are not

common; most licences are standard.

3.2 Two Important Open Data Licences

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Two important general purpose licenses are the Open Database Licence (ODbL) and the Creative

Commons licence(s). The ODbL is published by the Open Knowledge Foundation. The ODbL is

particularly well suited for countries in the European Union because these countries have specific

rights that cover databases and the ODbL specifically addresses these rights. While databases can

contain different content such as text, images and videos, the ODbL does not cover contents of each

component of the database; instead it governs the rights over the database. In is therefore only a

half-solution as users have to licence the content of the database separately. ODbL specifies that:

“…any subsequent use of the database must provide attribution, an unrestricted version of the new

product must always be accessible, and any new products made using ODbL material must be

distributed using the same terms. It is the most restrictive of all ODC licenses.”3

Arguably the most important standard open data licence offered to date is the Creative Common

(CC) licence. The CC licence is the brainchild of the American academic Lawrence Lessig and uses

the same principles as copyleft. According to Chignard (2013, p2):

“Lawrence Lessig, […] is the founder of Creative Commons licenses, based on the idea of copyleft and

free dissemination of knowledge.”

Chignard claims that the CC Licence is the most widely used licence for open data and one which:

“…provides authors with a way of formalizing their legal right to offer, in effect, open access to their

work”.

According to creativecommons.org4, The Creative Commons copyright licenses and toolset provides

individuals, companies and institutions a standardized way of granting copyright permissions to use

their creative work. Data made available under the Creative Commons licenses can be distributed,

copied, edited, remixed, and built upon, all within the boundaries of copyright law.

The licence has a three layer structure illustrated in figure 1.

Figure.1 the three layers design of CC license

3 http://guides.uflib.ufl.edu/content.php?pid=32772&sid=3760010

4 https://creativecommons.org

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The top layer is the Legal Code within which the licence is valid. The second layer is the Commons

Deed, which is sometimes referred to as the “human readable” version of the license. A feature of a

CC license is that presents information in a format that ordinary citizens can read and understand.

Most publishers and re-users (creators, educators, scientists, etc.) have no legal training and hiring

professional legal expertise is expensive – especially for individuals and voluntary or community

groups. Lastly, in order to make the Web recognize when a work is available under a Creative

Commons license, a Machine Readable version of the licence is in a third layer.

Implementing a CC Licence requires the two steps shown in figure 2. The licence has a number of

options for data use (see figure 3). One of these options is, in effect, a data equivalent of copyleft

(and even uses the backward C symbol of copyleft)

Figure.2: Steps in publishing data under Creative Commons (CC) Licence.

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The meaning of the six options for licensing under the Creative Commons5 in figure 2 are

Attribution (CC BY). This is the most open of the licence variants. Provided the user acknowledges

the source of the data (s)he can do anything that (s)he wishes with it including adding to the data,

manipulating it and offering any derivations of it for sales. Note that this, like other CC licences,

does not stipulate any requirement for this to be free of charge.

Attribution – No Derivs (CC BY-ND). This permits the user to redistribute the data, but not to add to,

modify or manipulate it. They can charge or use it for commercial purposes provided the source

provider is credited.

Attribution-Non Commercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA): Under this licences users can do what they

want provided they acknowledge the data provide and pass their work on to others under the same

(CC BY-NC-SA) licence.

Attribution- ShareAlike (CC BY-SA). This is the equivalent of copyleft, i.e. users may do what they

want with the data provided that they credit the provider as the source of the original data and pass

any of their own work or added data on free on the same terms as they were given the data.

Attribution-Non Commercial (CC BY-NC): This allows the user to manipulate and add to the original

data and pass this on on a non-commercial basis. Whilst the new version must acknowledge the

original; it does not have to be licensed on the same terms.

Attribution-Non Commercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND). This is the most restrictive of the six CC

licence forms. It allows third parties to access the original data and use it with acknowledgement as

well as to share it, but they are not allowed change it or use it commercially.

A user using one of these licences is required show the type of licence with any product or service

they base on it.

Finally there is the so called Creative Commons Zero (CC0) licence. This licence has no restrictions or

requirements whatsoever, not even to attribute the source. Effectively the data suppliers waive all

of their rights (or as many as they can). Note that this is not one of the six categories offered under

the CC licence regime above.

3.3 Some European Open Data Licensing Models

Different countries have adopted different approaches to licencing. Bunakov and Jeffery (2013)

show the national Public Sector Information (PSI) portals of eight countries. This is summarised in

table 3. Each country has its own regulations for data re-use.

5 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/

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Table 3: European governmental data portals Licences (Bunakov and Jeffery 2013)

This table hides what are more complicated and nuanced licencing regimes in a number of countries.

For example the French Licence Ourverte includes a number of features than can accompany

Creative Commons categories (figure 4). Each white box in figure represents a granular regulation

component within open data licence.

Figure 4: Regulation components of the French governmental portal for open licence Bunakov and

Jeffery (2013)

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As noted above the UK (like the Netherlands) uses a framework (see figure 6)

Figure 5: UK Government Licensing framework

Source: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/information-management/uk-government-

licensing-framework.pdf (page 24)

Germany offers multiple licences for different modes of data reuse. German governmental agencies

options to choose the most appropriate licence for each case of data publishing.

Ireland is not included in Bunakov and Jeffery’s analysis. In Ireland a National Cross Industry

Working Group (2012) recommended open data providers have a licence model that clarifies the

financial side of the licence. They also recommended that an ad hoc open data licence be created

specifically for Ireland.

3.4 Conformant and Non Conformant Licences.

The Open Definition Organization6 categorises licenses into Conformant and Non-Conformant.

Conformant means that they conform to the principles set forth in the Open Definition. Conformant

Licenses are classified as Recommended, Non-reusable, Little Used, Discontinued or Deprecated as

shown in Tables 4, 5, and 67. Table 7 shows a list of non-conformant licences and table 8

discontinued licences.

6 opendefinition.org/licenses/

7 http://opendefinition.org/licenses/

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Licence

Domain By SA Comments

Creative Commons CCZero (CC0) Content, Data

N N Dedicate to the Public Domain (all rights waived)

Open Data Commons Public Domain Dedication and Licence (PDDL)

Data N N Dedicate to the Public Domain (all rights waived

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY-4.0)

Content, Data

Y N

Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY)

Content Y N All versions 1.0-3.0, including jurisdiction “ports”

Open Data Commons Attribution License (ODC-BY)

Data Y N Attribution for data(bases)

Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 (CC-BY-SA-4.0)

Content, Data

Y Y

Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (CC-BY-SA) -

Content Y Y All versions 2.0-3.0, including jurisdiction “ports”; version 1.0 is little used and not recommended because it is incompatible with future versions.

Open Data Commons Open Database License (ODbL)

Data Y Y Attribution-ShareAlike for data(bases)

Free Art License (FAL)

Content Y Y

Table 4: Conformant Recommended Licenses

Licence

Domain By SA Comments

UK Open Government Licence 2.0 (OGL-UK-2.0)

Content, Data

Y N For use by UK government licensors; re-uses of OGL-UK-2.0 material may be released under CC-BY or ODC-BY. Note version 1.0 is not approved as conformant

Open Government Licence – Canada 2.0 (OGL-Canada-2.0)

Content, Data

Y N For use by Canada government licensors. Note version 1.0 is not approved as conformant

Table 5: Conformant Non-reusable or Little Used Licenses

Licence

Domain By SA Comments

GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL

Y Y Only conformant subject to certain provisos

MirOS License

Code, Data

Y N Little used

Talis Community License

Data ? ? Deprecated in favour of ODC licenses

Against DRM

Content Y Y Little used

Design Science License

Data Y Y Little used

EFF Open Audio License

Content Y Y Deprecated in favour of CC-BY-SA

Table 6: Conformant but Deprecated Licenses

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License name Comments

Creative Commons No-Derivatives Licenses

Creative Commons No-Derivatives (by-nd-*) violates principle 3., “Reuse”, as they do not allow works, in part or in whole, to be re-used in derivative works.

Creative Commons Non-Commercial

Creative Commons Non-commercial licenses (by-nc-*) do not support the Open Knowledge Definition principle 8, “No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor”, as they exclude usage in commercial activities.

Project Gutenberg License

Used on Gutenberg’s ebooks of public domain texts. It is non-open because it restricts commercial use. Note that the license only applies if the user continues to use the Gutenberg name – if you remove the licensing information and any reference to Project Gutenberg then the resulting text is open.

Table 7: Non-conformant Licenses

License name Comments

Creative Commons Developing Nations License

The license has been discontinued. Creative Commons developing nations license does not support principle “7. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups”.

Open Publication License

Discontinued in favour of Creative Commons. In late 2004 the site was overhauled and turned into a portal to open academic content. In August 2007, David Wiley, the author of open content launched the draft Open Education License. License is not conformant if either options A or B are added to the main body of the license. Option A prohibits ‘substantive modification’ and option B prohibits commercial use of printed copies.

UK PSI (Public Sector Information) Click-Use Licence

Formerly used for a variety of material produced by UK central and local government. This license is not open.

Table 8: Discontinued Licenses

Table 9 summarises the position in relation to a number of important licences drawn from Korn and

Oppenheim (2011, p6) and Halonen (2013, p.61).

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Licence Type

Who can use the resource and under what terms?

Can the licensed data be modified? Suitability for data, datasets and databases

Creative Commons:

Attribution (CC-BY) Anyone YES, but you must attribute. You must also ensure that you do not impose any restrictions on the whole of the work licensed beyond the terms of this licence.

Not specifically geared towards data, datasets and databases, but can be used with minimal amounts of data (to avoid attribution stacking) and as long as only an “insubstantial” amount of any databases or datasets are reused.

Attribution Share Alike (BY-SA)

Anyone YES, but you must attribute and if you use or reuse the data etc., you must use the CC BY SA end user licence for onward licensing.

As above. Share Alike requirement can impact negatively on interoperability of data and prevent linked open data.

Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)

Anyone – for non-commercial purposes only

YES, but you must attribute. As above. Although NC restriction does not pose immediate problems, but ambiguity of what constitutes non-commercial may be problematic. There may also be interoperability problems with linking to data licensed under more permissive terms.

Attribution No Derivatives (BY-ND)

Anyone NO and you must attribute. As above. Reuse and repurposing of data, datasets and databases not permitted.

Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike (BY-NC-SA)

Anyone – for non-commercial purposes only

YES, but you must attribute and if you use or reuse the data etc., you must use the CC BY SA end user licence for onward licensing.

As above. Share Alike requirement can impact negatively on interoperability of data and prevent linked open data. Although NC restriction does not pose immediate problems, but ambiguity of what constitutes non-commercial may be problematic. There may also be interoperability problems with linking to data licensed under more permissive terms.

Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives (BY-NC-ND)

Anyone – for non-commercial purposes only

NO and you must attribute

As above. Reuse and repurposing of data, datasets and databases not permitted. Although NC restriction does not pose immediate problems, but ambiguity of what constitutes non-commercial may be problematic. There may also be interoperability problems with linking to data licensed under more permissive terms.

Creative Commons Zero

Anyone YES, with no restrictions whatsoever. Ideal.

Open Data Commons Open Database Licence

Anyone YES but you must attribute any public use of the database, or works produced from the database, in the manner specified in the ODbL. For any use or redistribution of the database, or works produced from it, you must make clear to others the license of the database and keep intact any notices on the original database. Share-Alike: If you publicly use any adapted version of this database, or works produced from an adapted database, you must also offer that adapted database under the ODbL.

Ideal – although there may be some attribution requirements, leading to possible attribution stacking and also interoperability issues associated with the Share Alike requirement.

Open Data Commons Attribution Licence

Anyone (applies to data, datasets and databases)

Yes – but you must attribute any public use of the database, or works produced from the database, in the manner specified in the ODbL. For any use or redistribution of the database, or works produced from it, you must draw third parties’ attention to the original licence of the database and keep intact any notices on the original database.

Ideal – although there may be some attribution requirements, leading to possible attribution stacking.

Public Domain and Dedication Licence

Anyone (applies to databases)

YES, with no restrictions whatsoever Ideal.

Open Government Licence

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Anyone (applies to content, data, databases and source code)

YES, but you must attribute. Can be used with minimal amounts of data (to avoid attribution stacking).

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4. Reflections and Critique

4.1 Principles versus practicalities

In December 2007 a group of open government advocates held a meeting in Sebastopol, California

to discuss OGD. From this emerged a set of eight principles (as well as some sub principles which are

not reproduced here). They argued that open government data should be:

1. Complete. All public data that is not subject to valid privacy, security or privilege limitations

should be available.

2. Primary. Data should be made available at as low a level of detail as is available, not just in

aggregated or summary form.

3. Timely: Data should be released as quickly as possible.

4. Accessible: Data should be available to as wide a range of users as possible and for as wide a

range of purposes as possible;

5. Machine processable:

6. Non-discriminatory: There should be no requirement to register or provide personal

information in order to obtain data.

7. Non-proprietary: It should not be possible for anybody to acquire any kind of proprietary

right or technical control over public data

8. License-free: Data should not be subject to any copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret

regulation.

The group proposed that reasonable privacy, security and privilege restrictions “can be allowed”, but

they did not pursue the implications of this in any detail. This is quite a libertarian manifesto and

while it raises some difficult questions, it provides a useful baseline against which to discuss issues in

OGD licensing.

4.2 Ownership rights in data?

Copyright in data is a complicated matter. Schutzberg (2014) declares that, unlike the Open Source

initiative which keeps a list of licenses that follow open source principles, there is no equivalent

process involved for open data licences. According to Miller, Styles and Heath (2008, p2):

“Copyright protection applies to acts of creativity and categorically does not extend either to

databases [or] to those non-creative parts of their content.”

(emphasis added). They go on to argue that data should be open by default and that there is no

need for copyright because copyright and related forms of protection are only for creative work.

Unfortunately this assertion is misleading and incorrect. First the law recognises a sui generis right

for databases which is specifically designed to recognise the cost of compiling such a database. In

the EU, this right falls under Directive 96/9/EU of the European Parliament and Council. Secondly,

certain types of data may be copyright. Under Article three of the EU directive, databases which:

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"…by reason of the selection or arrangement of their contents, constitute the author's own

intellectual creation"

are protected by copyright. So while it may not be possible to copyright a number, it is quite

possible to copyright a photograph.

This raises potential difficulties for OGD licences. Consider a situation where a professional

photographer takes a picture of a building for use in (say) a state publication on historic public

buildings. Does the photographer or the state retain copyright in that picture? Arguably the answer

could be yes. What then is the position if this photograph is embedded in some other document

containing data which is clearly not copyright (such as viewing hours for the building in question)?

How does one deal with copyright in this situation? This problem is not insoluble, but solutions may

be messy or expensive to implement.

While, therefore, it can be argued that where the data is simply collected either directly (as in a

census or survey) or as a by-product of another process (such as making a passport application)

there is little or no creativity involved and therefore no copyright this may not be true when other

forms of data, such as sound and pictures or video, are concerned. As Davies, Perini, and Alonso

(2013, p.15) note, combining different data sets can create much value out of open data and that

this in turn may create:

“…significant challenges in determining the legal status of derivative datasets”.

In short, this is a complex area and it is far from clear that current licence regimes deal with it

adequately.

4.3 Should all OGD be free?

This leads directly to the question of whether OGD should be free of charge. The various open data

licences discussed in section three are primarily concerned with ownership rights and about rights of

usage and acknowledgement rather than payment. Ownership of data can have a number of

meanings. One meaning is that the data is, in some sense, owned by the public. If somebody goes

to trouble and expense to compile data that is in the public sphere (to take a trivial example, the

number of non-pay car parking spaces available in different locations in a city) does that person

‘own’ these data? Current law suggests that they have some property rights in this situation. If a

private individual or organization collects such data, it is under no obligation to give it away for free;

many companies collect and sell such publically available data on a routine basis. The company

cannot not claim copyright in the base data, anybody else is free to collect the same data, but it can

claim property rights in the compiled data. If, on the other hand, the state collects the data then,

the argument runs, since the costs of collecting these data have been borne by the taxpayer the

taxpayer owns it and is entitled to free access to it.

This is a common argument, but can be questioned on the grounds that there are plenty of examples

of taxpayer funded resources, ranging from tolled roads to national parks, for which those who

actually use or directly benefit from those resources pay a charge, even if the charge is a small

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fraction of the full economic cost of provision. Where a resource or service that benefits a specific

subgroup of society is funded by general taxation, then it may well be appropriate that the

beneficiaries makes an additional contribution to that cost. In the case of OGD, suppose a

commercial organisation can use government collected parking space data to generate a profit (say

by creating an App identifying where such spaces are available); this will not be of much benefit

taxpayers who do not own cars. Why then, should the government not try to recompense all

taxpayers by making those who may benefit from using the data pay to use it?

4.4 Privacy risks?

At first glance, the question of privacy would appear to have no implications for licensing of OGD as

such. Private data should not be released in the first place so issues of personal privacy should not

arise or need subsequent legal protection. Of course there is the question of determining what data

should be released, but that upstream of licensing. Once again, practice is not this clear cut.

Public ownership of data was discussed above. A second type of data ownership is personal. How

much of a citizen’s data is legitimately in the public domain even (where possible) in an anonymised

form? Name and address may be public information, but what about social security or personal

identity number? What about personal tax returns, health records, details about minor infractions

of the law, social welfare receipts, driving license information, passport number? As noted, in

general both principles and licences do not deal with the question of privacy on the presumption

that private data will not or should be not be released in the first place and therefore need not be

protected in licences. But, as recent events have demonstrated, seemingly ‘non private’ data can be

exploited to target individuals for commercial purposes by companies as such as Google and

Facebook (and they are the visible face of this industry; there are far less visible and more worrying

entities at work in the data mining business) and in so doing have impacted adversely on what

people perceive as their privacy.

This capability comes from data analytics and the power of modern technology driven inference. As

a result, from a privacy perspective, it is no longer valid to assume that once data is anonymised or

even when it is aggregated, that individuals are safe from threats to their privacy. As increasing

amounts of data are combined from multiple public and private sector sources, deanonymisation

become a greater risk. The risks from this are not just that citizens are targeted with unsolicited

‘personalised’ advertisements, but of more ominous impacts like higher insurance premiums,

difficulties in obtaining credit and other forms of discrimination.

4.5 Legal risks to the taxpayer?

One of the characteristics of FoI as a form of OGD has been its use to embarrass politicians and

public servants (Worthy 2010; Grimmelikhuijsen 2010). While this might be considered healthy in a

democracy, it suggests that there may also be risks to the taxpayer arising from OGD. One source

might be incorrect data. Consider an example where a government agencies dealing with social

welfare has a data on a computer that says a particular citizen is believed to be a fraud risk, but that

these data are incorrect. As long as such data is confidential and restricted to (say) case officers,

there is limited legal risk to the state if only because it is unlikely that the citizen concerned will ever

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find this out. However, were such data to get into the public domain it would constitute libel and a

citizen might justifiably sue the state. A further problem is downstream impacts. According to

Davies , Perini, and Alonso (2013, p.15) combining different data sets can create much value of open

data, yet it is argued that can create:

“significant challenges in determining the legal status of derivative datasets”.

Unless licences are well designed and bullet proof, it is not difficult to envisage the state becoming

embroiled in legal disputes about rights and ownership.

4.6 Problems with Existing Licences?

Science Commons and Creative Commons8 make a number of criticisms of existing licences. They

state that there are many objectives of sharing data including:

Reducing unnecessary transaction costs,

Simplifying legal tools and

Providing clarity and certainty of (provider and re-user) rights

They go on to suggest that the Open Database License (ODbL) fails to attain these objectives for

sharing data publicly for several reasons including:

“ODbL fails to promote legal predictability and certainty over the use of databases.

ODbL is complex and difficult for non-lawyer to understand and apply.

ODbL can result in high transaction costs on the data sharing community.

ODbL imposes contractual obligations even in the absence of Copyright.”

They propose using other licences including the CC0 which they consider to be more consistent and

simple than ODbL. In addition, they suggest using other public domain dedications or copyright

waiver. An obvious question is whether governments would (or even could) grant a copyright

waiver for such data.

Furthermore, although, Open Government Licence covers many aspects of re-using data, it does not

cover several other critical aspects including9:

“Personal data in the Information;

Information that has neither been published nor disclosed under information access legislation

(including the Freedom of Information Acts for the UK and Scotland) by or with the consent of the

Information Provider;

Departmental or public sector organisation logos, crests and the Royal Arms except where they

form an integral part of a document or dataset;

Military insignia;

8 http://sciencecommons.org/resources/readingroom/comments-on-odbl/ accessed on 03/03/2014

9 ibid

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Third party rights the Information Provider is not authorised to license;

Other intellectual property rights, including patents, trademarks, and design rights; and identity

documents such as the British Passport”

A more extreme view is expressed by Miller, Styles and Heath (2008) who express doubts about the

potential benefits of open data licensing at all. They suspect that licensing could hinder the process

of opening up data and may even discourage the re use of data.

4.7 Problems of Licence Design?

Ubaldi (2012, p37) comments that:

“FOI and PSI legislation as well as clear licensing guidelines are a cornerstone of OGD”

He emphasises three important prerequisites in order to be able to publish open data namely:

The presence of a Freedom of Information concept;

Good Public Sector Information legislation and

Clear guidelines of open data licenses

Tin practice the first two of the above may not always be there and the third is easier to state than

to deliver. For example licences may need to be tailored to different types of user. A licence for

business or commercial use might be different from that for research use or use by non-profits or

state agencies. Even the geographical nature of data usage might be dealt with differently, in terms

of global, international, national and local usage. Sharing data in a small community is different

from sharing data between countries. Consequently, different terms and conditions may apply to

both types of user and geographical location of usage. There are already political debates about

storage of data outside of the jurisdiction in which users reside (Kandukuri et al 2009; Kertesz and

Varadi 2014). Can a licence be enforced once data has been moved to a different polity?

Developing a unified legal framework for open datasets is seen as an important issue to resolve as

data increasingly travels across and is stored beyond national boundaries in jurisdictions where

different rules rights may apply. Halonen (2012) argues that there is a need for internationalisation

of open data, in which licensing is a major determinant. She argues that data must be licensed

under a licence that recognizes the users’ rights to take advantage of data in a range of ways

including commercial data/right/purpose though her arguments for this are rhetorical and

normative.

4.8 Policing Compliance

Finally, having established a licencing regime, the regime needs, like any other regulatory system, to

be policed. Problems that might arise are complaints about misuse or misleading use of data,

privacy breaches, disputes over the right to charge for added value, disputes over copyright and

possibly even more arcane matters such as the right to be forgotten (which, as is currently becoming

evident, in itself opens a whole host of legal issues the consequences of which are still being worked

out).

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It is possible, though it seems improbable, that governments will simply be able to release data

subject to a licence and then walk away. In addition to offices for Data Protection and FoI,

government are likely find that they need an Open Government Data Commissioner and

accompanying bureaucracy. This remains to be seen. The importance of licences may also vary

based on the re-use of data and this may need regulatory control. For example, if a company plans

to redistribute the data, then arbitrators may need to be involved to make sure that the

authorization is given to re-use the data. In contrast, less concern regarding the licence will be

accrued if a citizen plan to re-use published data because the citizens may assume the provision of

the data online gives them right to re-use published data. However, in both cases, the need of clear

and simple licence is important even where the data are already available publicly.

5 Summary and Some Concluding Thoughts

The purpose of this paper has been to unpack some of the issues surrounding OGD licensing. The

libertarian view that public data, bar some exceptions for security, privacy, etc., should open and

free, in both senses of the latter, is, as has been shown, is faced with many potential legal pitfalls

and may not be politically realistic. The problems can be summarised under eight broad headings:

First: what data is to be released? As noted, this would not appear initially to be a licencing

problem. However the question of what happens when data that was thought to be sanitised

from a security, privacy or commercial sensitivity perspective turns out not to be so? Can

licences anticipate and contain such risks?

Second: there is the question of return for the taxpayer on money invested in data acquisition.

Should the beneficiary pay?

Third: directly related to the preceding point there is the question of acquired property rights. If

private companies can acquire this right, states can.

Fourth: contrary to popular perception, copyright can exist in OGD particularly in the form of

visual material, but also potentially in other forms of data and meta data.

Fifth: there is the question of consequential legal problems for the state arising from data

release and whether licences can be designed which can forestall this (and it is far from evident

that this is the case).

Sixth: there is the problem of control of the use data once it moves beyond the jurisdiction of

the issuing government.

Seventh: there are questions of differential licencing for different types of user and the problems

of containing restricted licences.

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Finally there is the matter of establishing a regulatory infrastructure to manage and police this

process.

The rising demand for OGD is not primarily about transparency – it is about releasing and creating

value. Already there is a rapidly growing number of products and services available which are based

on such data. Human ingenuity and creativity being what it is, there are undoubtedly numerous

good things that will emerge from the release of such data in years to come. In such circumstances,

it is easy to understand why so many people believe that licences only get in the way. This

examination suggests that festine lente might be a better motto. There are several benefits of

licensing, not the least of which is providing users with a certainty about where they stand. There is

also the lurking worry about Donald Rumsfeld’s famous ‘unknown unknowns’: the possible

consequences of analytics, data mining, mash ups, machine learning and other emergent

technologies.

One of the most closely guarded secrets of the modern era is how to construct a nuclear weapon. In

1976 a 21 year old student names John Phillips, while still an undergraduate student at Princeton

and working from published materials including textbooks, produced an outline design for a world-

war two type nuclear bomb (Rein 1976). There is some controversy as to whether Phillips’ design

would have worked, though some nuclear engineers thought that it could have been used to

construct an operational weapon. This was done long before the invention of the Web and in an

area where massive state security and protection of critical data was involved. The moral is that one

can never be sure what data will yield to the intelligent mind. Consequently, when it comes to OGD

licensing it might be well to remember the words of former US president Theodore Roosevelt that

governments should “speak softly, but carry a big stick”.

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