[cc-community] US Federal sites claiming copyright restrictions
Jon Phillips
jon at creativecommons.org
Tue Feb 12 03:39:40 EST 2008
Chris, have you tried to contact them about this? I've taken pretty bold
steps on contacting these orgs in the past and had great results...
Regardless, I'm happy to see more movement in this area of data mining
public data...
Jon
On Mon, 2008-02-11 at 19:50 -0600, Rich Vázquez wrote:
> I absolutely agree with the "shoulds" of the tone and that they
> should be more explicit to encourage the fact that it's open for
> usage. Frankly, I think this is influenced by:
> 1) The tone of the agency, and as we know some people have been
> stationed in agencies even though they have argued against what they
> stand for. Those who want to spread their mission the most tend to be
> the most open.
> 2) Possibly the tone of the person doing the actual content deployment
> and the hyper attitude towards copyright some webmaster and designers
> tend to have at times.
>
> It would be nice if along with requiring public domain access an
> explicit statement of access and openness was required as well.
>
> I think the VistaWeb system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VistA_Web)
> was originally released due to lawsuit or FOIA request, but once it
> was out it flourished. I think the owners didn't mind, but the lack
> of openness in their worldview was enough to hinder it for quite some
> time.
>
> On Feb 11, 2008 5:37 PM, Chris Watkins <chriswaterguy at appropedia.org>
> wrote:
> On Feb 12, 2008 10:19 AM, Rich Vázquez
> <rich.vazquez at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I believe the TVA statements protects the public from
> publishing or acting under the guise of TVA.
>
> For the trademarks, logos and service marks, that's fair
> enough, but the vague reference to copyrighted material gives
> the impression that anything on the site shouldn't be touched,
> without actually saying so.
>
>
> Some government agencies produce web sites with works
> created by others, especially images. Rights to
> photographs, etc. might be donated or purchased from
> individuals or non-profits which retain rights to the
> works.
>
> Yes - but other US federal sites I've seen deal with this in a
> much more open way - they have a clear statement to the effect
> that everything is public domain unless it's marked as
> copyright. E.g. http://www.usaid.gov/faqs.html#q15 - "Unless a
> copyright is indicated, information on this Web site is in the
> public domain and may be reproduced, published or otherwise
> used without USAID's permission."
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> --
> Rich Vázquez
>
>
> On Feb 11, 2008 5:14 PM, Chris Watkins
> <chriswaterguy at appropedia.org> wrote:
>
>
> Can anyone lend some insight or legal
> perspectives into sites such as the following
> two, which claim copyright even though they're
> US federal sites - an agency in one case, a
> federally owned corporation in the other.
>
> The EPA.gov site, which is federal and should
> be public domain (assuming it's the work of
> federal employee), states that "Commercial use
> of the documents available from this server
> may be protected under the U.S. and Foreign
> Copyright Laws". This is worded very vaguely,
> but I assume the only way it could make sense
> is if a third party held the copyright - in
> which case the permission to distribute or
> copy doesn't make sense. The full statement
> is:
>
> "Information presented on this WWW site is
> considered public information and may be
> distributed or copied. The U.S. Government
> retains a nonexclusive, royalty-free license
> to publish or reproduce these documents, or
> allow others to do so, for U.S. Government
> purposes. These documents may be freely
> distributed and used for non-commercial,
> scientific and educational purposes.
> Commercial use of the documents available from
> this server may be protected under the U.S.
> and Foreign Copyright Laws. Individual
> documents on this server may have different
> copyright conditions, and that will be noted
> in those documents."
>
>
> (This is for a regional sub-website of the
> EPA, as I could find no statement for the site
> as a whole. But I think the same principle
> applies.)
>
> Another confusing site is tva.gov - although
> TVA is a federally owned corporation, the
> notice at http://www.tva.gov/disclaim.htm
> states: 'All trademarks, logos, service marks,
> and copyrighted material contained on this Web
> site ("marks") are the property of TVA'. (A
> bit unclear - they don't specify what material
> actually is copyright, and no copyright
> notices were found, in a brief browse. )
>
> Both TVA and EPA have content we'd love to use
> on Appropedia (about sustainability and
> renewable energy) but obviously we can't do so
> if there's any uncertainty about whether it's
> public domain.
>
> Chris
>
> --
> Chris Watkins (a.k.a. Chriswaterguy)
>
> Founding admin at Appropedia.org, the wiki of:
> - International
> development
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> - Sustainability
> - Appropriate technology
> - Collaboration for
> practical solutions
>
> Founding director, Appropedia Foundation,
> 501(c)(3)
>
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>
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>
> --
> Chris Watkins (a.k.a. Chriswaterguy)
>
> Founding admin at Appropedia.org, the wiki of:
> - International development
> - Anti-poverty strategies
> - Sustainability
> - Appropriate technology
> - Collaboration for practical solutions
>
> Founding director, Appropedia Foundation, 501(c)(3)
>
> Buy online through http://appropedia.maatiam.com (Amazon, eBay
> and more) and a percentage of your purchase goes to Appropedia
> - at no extra cost to you.
>
> The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment. -
> Tim Wirth
>
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>
>
> --
> --
> Rich Vázquez
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--
Jon Phillips
jon at creativecommons.org
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im: kidproto
china phone: +86 1-360-282-8624
Business + Community Manager
Creative Commons
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