[sc-announce] On the complexities of sharing scientific data -- Science Commons blog

Donna Wentworth dwentworth at creativecommons.org
Wed Jul 16 19:17:00 EDT 2008


On the complexities of sharing scientific data

July 16th, 2008<http://sciencecommons.org/weblog/archives/2008/07/16/on-the-complexities-of-sharing-scientific-data/>by
dwentworth

Ethan Zuckerman <http://ethanzuckerman.com/>, the Berkman
fellow<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/ezuckerman>who founded
Geekcorps <http://www.geekcorps.org/> and co-leads Global
Voices<http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/>with Rebecca
MacKinnon <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_MacKinnon>, has a nice
piece<http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008226.html>today on our
efforts to clear the legal hurdles blocking the integration of
scientific databases, highlighting research by Melanie Dulong de
Rosnay<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/mdulongderosnay>(see our
post<http://sciencecommons.org/weblog/archives/2008/07/16/weblog/archives/2008/07/14/melanie-dulong-de-rosnay-on-opening-access-to-science/>from
earlier this week).

Writes Zuckerman at *World Changing* <http://www.worldchanging.com/about/>:

Creative Commons <http://creativecommons.org/> is a clever use of the
copyright system intended to make it easier for people who want to, to share
their work with others. Jonathan
Coulton<http://potw.news.yahoo.com/s/potw/61785/how-to-become-a-rock-star>has
used Creative Commons to enable an army of remixers and
videomakers<http://youtube.com/results?search_query=jonathan+coulton&search_type=&aq=f>to
produce promotional materials for his songs and albums. Authors like
Dan
Gillmor <http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7036> and Cory
Doctorow<http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7036>have used
Creative Commons to let people download, translate and make audio
versions of their books. And Global
Voices<http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/>uses Creative Commons so
that blogs and news sites can use our content
without asking us for permission.

What about scientists?

[...]

Under US law, pretty much anything you write down is copyrighted. Scrawl an
original note on a napkin and it's protected until 70 years after your
death. Facts, however, are another matter - they can't be copyrighted. So
while trivial but creative scribblings are copyrighted, unless you choose to
release them into the public domain, the information painstakingly
discovered about the human genome - DNA sequences, for instance - aren't.
But the containers they're stored in - the databases they're held in - can
be copyrighted.

If I sound confused about this stuff, that's because I am.

[...]

This question of complexity is what Melanie's research has focused on. She
looked at the terms of use for roughly 200 databases necessary for work in
the life sciences. Evaluating the terms on all those databases, she
discovered that only 7 met her stringent definitions of Open Access to data
- these databases could be accessed without registration; they could be
downloaded for local use; they could be incorporated into other works; they
had clear, understandable terms of use. This last factor proved to be the
most challenging. She spent hours reading these terms with other experts in
the field and discovered that, a great deal of time, the experts disagreed
on what was permitted under a specific agreement.

The reason this is important, Melanie explains, is that scientific research
proceeds more quickly when researchers can share resources. But with
databases encumbered by different, confusing legal protections, it can
become a legal nightmare for researchers to do complex work building new
tools that combine information from two databases in a novel way, for
instance. And databases that are protected by access restrictions can be out
of reach to scientists in developing nations who might not have the
financial or technical resources to access them.

So how do you deal with the problem of conflicting terms of use for the
"containers" of scientific data?

As Zuckerman points out, we initially offered advice aimed at helping
database publishers figure out when it made sense to use Creative Commons
licenses. But it was evident that this wouldn't solve the problem.

After further research, Science Commons collaboratively
developed<http://network.nature.com/blogs/user/wilbanks/2007/12/17/open-access-data-boring-but-important>and
published the Protocol
for Implementing Open Access
Data<http://sciencecommons.org/weblog/archives/2008/07/16/projects/publishing/open-access-data-protocol/>,
through which we recommend explicitly returning the data to the public
domain, using legal tools like the CC0
waiver<http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CCZero>or the Open Data Commons
Public Domain Dedication and License (
ODC-PDDL<http://www.opendatacommons.org/odc-public-domain-dedication-and-licence/>
).

If you'd like to learn more about the protocol, we encourage you to check
out the FAQ <http://sciencecommons.org/resources/faq/database-protocol/>
or send
us an email <science at creativecommons.org>. We're happy to answer any
questions you may have.

................
Donna Wentworth
Communications Specialist
Science Commons
http://sciencecommons.org
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