pcplantdb

[Chad Knepp <pyg@galatea.org>]

Richard Morris writes:
 > Peter Edmond wrote:
 > > My solicitor has highlighted a number of major issues within your
 > > licencing of the pfaf database. The current setup appears to be
 > > inconsistent for the following reasons:
 > > 
 > > 1. Once one person has bought a copy of it, the Creative Commons (CC)
 > > license allows that person to distribute it for free.

Wait, if you cannot sell it, how can someone buy it?  This doesn't
make sense.

 > > 2. Bizarrely, the CC licence does forbid you for selling the database,
 > > but it does *not* forbid you from charging for the 'duplication' of the
 > > database.

Most licenses (inc. GPL) allow charging for distribution/publication
of media containing the material in question... including
download/bandwidth costs.  See re: 4 as well.

 > > 3. The CC licence does not forbid someone for charging others for access
 > > to the database once you have provided it to them, as this is
 > > effectively 'performing' or presenting the work.

Not sure about this, but I think I disagree based on my understanding
of the NC clause.  Commercial endeavours are not the same as
distribution and are restricted in the NC CC license.  I'm pretty sure
charging for access would be construed as a commercial element.

 > > 4. There is also some potential inconsistencies with your 'commercial'
 > > licence, in that a nursery could under the CC licence print out any
 > > element of the database for its customers, and even charge for the
 > > printed sheets (based on the fact that they are charging for the paper
 > > and the distribution/performance costs associated with the sheet.

Yes, totally... what's the problem?  The point of allowing for a
publisher to recoup costs is to encourage distribution.  If a customer
doesn't want to buy the published version, they can still get it for
free from another source (download).  It is almost always the case
that companies distributing media of OSS do so at very close to actual
cost (or they'd go out of business).  Look at cheapbytes.com for example.

 > > Can I ask how the current licensing setup came to exist? What are you
 > > trying to achieve with the licencing?

Trying to grow a database beyond the total possible contributions of a
small organization.

 > > If you can get some idea of these two question, then I may be able to
 > > assist with getting your 'marketing/organisation' setup with this sorted
 > > out.
 > > 
 > > Incidentally, my personal view is that you distribute the 'core'
 > > database only, with a link to your website (which should contain
 > > pictures and the ability to 'evolve'). That way any attempt to duplicate
 > > your database becomes impossible. In addition you provide the central
 > > core to the whole database and reap the advertising revenue, whilst
 > > still retaining your 'friendly CC-like principles'. That way, you can
 > > distribute the 'core' database free (under a CC-like licence), and what
 > > will happen is that every distribution will act as free advertising that
 > > will increase your advertising revenue.
 > > 
 > > My feeling is that your current approach to this is not tenable. If
 > > Microsoft like this, then there is nothing to stop them throwing their
 > > skill (and legal-setup at this), and they'd be capable of obliterating
 > > your revenue in months. This aspect of the organisation is probably its
 > > greatest asset if used properly! The fact that 'big' organisations are
 > > taking interest in this already sounds warning bells to me, and I'd
 > > remove the current downloadability and change it to 'email for
 > > information', and get a programming team to change the structure to
 > > something similar to what I have suggested. Obviously, this is a
 > > significant change of direction, and would require your organasation to
 > > discuss and agree.

I think I come from a pretty different place than Peter regarding
Intellectual Property and the morality of selling information.  I
don't think that attention from Microsoft can do anything but help.
In fact, we (or you) would probably have to do some additional work in
order to make the results compatible with their search engine.

 > > Regards
 > > 
 > > Peter
 > > 
 > Peter,
 >      Thanks for some very insightful comments.
 > 
 > The history of the current CC license.
 > 
 > The original license information was:
 > 
 >  >>>>>>>>>
 > All the information in the website is Copyright (c) 1992-2002 Plants For 
 > A Future and Ken Fern.
 > 
 > We do retain the copyright of this information. You are free to use it 
 > in any way you see fit, subject to the following conditions:-
 > 
 > 1) You do not sell it. You are free to use the information in further 
 > research, to apply it to the practical use of growing and utilizing the 
 > plants, or to use it in any other way that you see fit, so long as the 
 > information contained in the database is not sold by you.
 > 
 > 2) When passing on any information contained in this database, by 
 > whatever means, you acknowledge the contribution of 'Plants for a 
 > Future' and include this copyright notice.
 > 
 > 3) We ask that any information you hold about economic, or useful plants 
 > is shared with us so that we may improve the database.
 >  >>>>>>>>>
 > 
 > This reflected a policy of making this information freely available, for 
 > the good of all.
 > 
 > The CC-license was seen as a way for making this a bit more legally 
 > binding as it reflects the 3 points above, and it comes from a well 
 > respected source which gives it a bit more legal clout.
 > 
 > It was also chosen to make the permaculture.info project workable. Such 
 > open source license creates the right sort of environment for atracting 
 > other contributions.
 > 
 > The CC-license is more restrictive than the other major open 
 > documentation licences, wikipedia uses the
 > GNU Free Documentation License
 > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License
 > which does not have a non-commercial clause at all.
 > The other major open licences are
 > http://opencontent.org/opl.shtml and http://opencontent.org/openpub/
 > but these are now deprecated in favor of Crative Commons.
 > 
 > The share-alike part of the license is actually quite a strong 
 > disincentive for people abusing the dataset. Beacuse this is a viral 
 > license condition then it means that a third party using the dataset and 
 > combining it with other data need to use the same license. Something 
 > which most commercial companies would not be prepared to do.
 > 
 > This has worked for me releasing code under GPL. I've followed a 
 > dual-license approach with one license, GPL, for the hackers of this 
 > world and another for commercial orginisations. Remarkably people have 
 > paid for the code.
 > 
 > To my knowledge there been one group gardenbed.com who did rip off the 
 > database, they did give credit, but had advertising and required free 
 > registration. They now appear to be offline.
 > 
 > A big feather in our cap was getting the data into
 > Traditional Ecological Knowledge Prior Art Database (T.E.K.* P.A.D.)
 > http://ip.aaas.org/tekindex.nsf/TEKPAD?OpenFrameSet.
 > 
 > Rich
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