[cc-community] New Science Commons protocol and the Open Data Commons legal tools
Jordan S Hatcher
jordan at opencontentlawyer.com
Tue Dec 18 03:41:06 EST 2007
Thanks for the comments Gavin. They are much appreciated.
On 17 Dec 2007, at 13:36, Gavin Baker wrote:
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>
> The Protocol mentions the "the Science Commons Open Access Data
> trademarks (icons and phrases) and metadata". Do these exist yet?
> May I
> suggest incorporating the Open Access icon developed by PLoS, seen
> here:
> <http://www.plos.org/images/banners/b_soa_mar_01.gif> I'm sure PLoS
> would license the icon for the endeavor, and it would help maintain
> visual identity for the OA "brand", including a specific association
> between OA literature and OA data.
>
Science Commons will have to comment on that, but I imagine from a
branding (and really a legal) standpoint that you want a separate
mark for compliance with this protocol. This is because being "open
access" is a little ill-defined among users and proponents and that
there is a difference with this protocol -- being so open you no
longer have formal legal rights over the data -- and other open
access elements -- like publishing under a CC-BY-NC-ND licence or
simply having a copy of your article available on the internet.
Having a separate mark makes it clearer exactly what is meant.
>
> I couldn't find a summary of the license behavior. May I suggest
> this as
> a summary (please correct any inaccuracies)?
>
> The ODC PDDL is a license for data, data sets and databases. It
> creates
> an equivalent of public domain status in jurisdictions where data or
> databases have some protection in law, and makes explicit the public
> domain status in jurisdictions with no legal protection. It explicitly
> waives any exclusive privileges or claims of the author. As such, it
> does not impose (or attempt to impose) any conditions on the recipient
> of the data or database covered by the license, including any
> requirements to attribution, remuneration, or reciprocation and any
> limitations on use.
Thanks!
>
> Also, the Science Commons Protocol seems to require the waiver of any
> potentially applicable rights (unfair competition laws and contractual
> restrictions are examples named). I don't seem to spot this in the ODC
> PDDL. Am I wrong?
Contractual restrictions are covered in 4.1
4.1 No other contractual conditions. The Rightsholder makes this Work
available to You without any other contractual obligations, either
express or implied. Any Community Norms statement associated with the
Work is not a contract and does not form part of this Document.
The short answer to the unfair competition issue is that after my
initial research it looks like that most (if not all) unfair
competition claims would be negated by using this document and making
the data publicly available.
It is first and foremost important that once the data is placed into
the public domain that the provider of the data is not in a worse
position than anyone else that comes upon the data. The unfair
competition claims that wouldn't be covered by the above I think
should probably stay in place in order to protect the position of the
data creator.
Part of the problem is that "unfair competition" in US law
(presumably what was intended by Science Commons) is a REALLY broad
term for quite a few distinctly different rights of action. Happy to
go into this further, but this analysis will be in the forthcoming
legal FAQ.
Thanks!
~Jordan
_____
Mr. Jordan S Hatcher, JD, LLM
jordan at opencontentlawyer dot com
OC Blog: http://opencontentlawyer.com
IP/IT Blog: http://twitchgamer.net
Open Data Commons
http://www.opencontentlawyer.com/open-data/
Usage of Creative Commons by cultural heritage organisations
http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/studies/cc2007
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