The state of open licensing in 2017
Danny Lämmerhirt - June 8, 2017 in Global Open Data Index, Open Definition, Open Government Data, Open Knowledge
- When data is public domain it is recommended to use the CC0 Public Domain license for clarity.
- When the data falls under the scope of copyright it is recommended to use an existing Open license such as CC-BY to improve interoperability.
The state of open licensing in 2017
Initial results from the GODI 2016/17 show roughly that only 38 percent of the eligible datasets were openly licensed (this value may change slightly after the final publication on June 15). The other licenses include many use restrictions including use limitations to non-commercial purposes, restrictions on reuse and/or modifications of the data. Where data is openly licensed, best practices are hardly ever followed In the majority of cases, our research team found governments apply general terms of use instead of specific licenses for the data. Open government licenses and Creative Commons licenses were seldom used. As outlined above, this is problematic. Using customized licenses or terms of use may impose additional requirements such as:- Require specific attribution statements desired by the publisher
- Add clauses that make it unclear how data can be reused and modified.
- Adapt licenses to local legislation
Recommendations for data publishers
Based on our finding we prepared 10 recommendations that policymakers and other government officials should take into account:- Does the data and/or dataset fall under the scope of IP protection? Often government data does not fall under copyright protection and should not be presented as such. Governments should be aware and clear about the scope of intellectual property (IP) protection.
- Use standardized open licenses. Open licenses are easily understandable and should be the first choice. The Open Definition provides conformant licenses that are interoperable with one another.
- In some cases, governments might want to use a customized open government license. These should be as open as possible with the least restrictions necessary and compatible (see point 2). To guarantee a license is compatible, the best practice is to submit the license for approval under the Open Definition.
- Exactly pinpoint within the license what data it refers to and provide a timestamp when the data has been provided.
- Clearly, publish open licensing details next to the data. The license should be clearly attached to the data and be both human and machine-readable. It also helps to have a license notice ‘in’ the data.
- Maintain the links to licenses so that users can access license terms at all times.
- Highlight the license version and provide context how data can be used.
- Whenever possible, avoid restrictive clauses that are not included in standard licenses.
- Re-evaluate the web design and avoid confusing and contradictory copyright notices in website footers, as well as disclaimers and terms of use.
- When government data is in the public domain by default, make clear to end users what that means for them.