[CivicAccess-discuss] Open-Data Motion for Montreal

Thu Jan 13 00:40:21 EST 2011

I just don't see the functional difference here.  The fact that many more 
people will understand "public domain" works rather than some convoluted 
licence I think makes it useful to describe the concept at least.  As for 
"you have to do it through a licence", that's certainly not the case.  I 
have released many things into the "public domain" and there haven't been 
any lawyer police descend on me to condemn me for doing so, nor did it 
inhibit the usability or functionality of the process.

Personally my approach to law is that it shouldn't interfere with common 
sense things, and I'm pretty sure that's the point (except maybe from a 
lawyer's perspective who makes money off it).  If it's getting to the point 
that obsessing over whether you can release your own work to the public 
without a complicated licence agreement, then I'd personally say it's gone 
too far and not even bother with it.  In actuality, the person who created a 
work is not obligated to do anything, not required to provide a licence 
agreement and can just distribute their own stuff freely and say anything 
they want about it, including but not limited to describing it as being in 
the "public domain".

If it were ever to escalate into a complicated legal battle, then that's the 
point any of this might matter, but if that did happen and someone had been 
saying their work was in the "public domain", I think that would be a pretty 
clear common sense thing from the perspective of a judge, no?

Anyway, my point is, why complicate such a simple thing when it actually 
doesn't "have" to be?  Is there any advantage to complicating it?

cheers,
drew

-----Original Message----- 
From: Glen Newton
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2011 1:08 AM
To: civicaccess discuss
Subject: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] Open-Data Motion for Montreal

Drew,

I do not know how the present environment of 'rampant copyright
violation' would change how easy it would be to put something in the
public domain.

As I indicated earlier, you cannot put a newly created work into the
public domain in Canada.
You can, however, license it to that it is, for _almost_ all intents
and purposes, in the public domain. But the copyright holder still
holds the copyright. You are conflating these two things.

As opposed to 1) a work whose copyright has expired; or 2) A work in
the U.S. whose rights holder has explicitly placed the work in the
Public Domain. Both of these do not have any copyright associated with
them.

We're not worrying about it. We're just making it clear that if you
want to offer public domain-like rights to a work in Canada, then you
have to do it through a license.

-Glen

On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 11:42 PM, Drew Mcpherson <drew at bine.ca> wrote:
> I’m surprised you guys are actually debating the suggestion that it would 
> be
> difficult to put something into the public domain and allow it to be 
> copied
> in the age of rampant copyright violation where people freely and 
> blatantly
> trade obviously copyrighted works.  If someone actually wanted to release 
> a
> work to be copied freely that was of value, I’m quite certain there would 
> be
> NO problems whatsoever with this.  Seriously, what’s the issue?
>
> There are no possible legal issues since the only person with a possible
> cause of action would be the one who was releasing the works.  The only
> possible catch I could foresee in any way shape or form would be someone 
> who
> pretends to release something into the public domain and tricks people 
> into
> copying it so that they can file a lawsuit against them, but I’m pretty 
> sure
> that would be abuse of process and VERY severely frowned upon to the point
> that the person doing so would likely have a backlash of punitive damages
> from the courts.
>
> So why even worry about it?
>
> cheers,
> drew
>
>
> From: David Eaves
> Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2011 10:58 PM
> To: civicaccess-discuss at civicaccess.ca
> Subject: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] Open-Data Motion for Montreal
>
> Just to echo on Michael's comment, I don't know if you can make something
> public domain however, this is the wrong discussion. What we do know is 
> that
> data (and facts) cannot be copyrighted so to apply copyright to data is
> itself a problem (and cannot be legally upheld). What can be copyrighted 
> is
> the data structure, and here waiving all rights is the right way forward.
> However, it some ways it doesn't matter since it is the data we are after.
> The bigger challenge isn't the copyright issues, it's the license (should
> the city choose to exercise one.
>
> In relation to putting things in the public domain I am not 100% but it 
> may
> be true that, as Michael has suggested, that placing new works in the 
> public
> domain is problematic. Drew - this is why CC created the public domain
> registry, so that people could add items to which copyright had definitely
> expired. MAybe you can add new works to it, but that isn't clear to me.
>
> cheers,
> dave
>
> On 11-01-12 9:12 AM, Michael Mulley wrote:
>
> My understanding from people who know more than I do -- Kent Mewhort to
> thread? -- is that, while works whose copyright has expired are in the
> public domain, explicitly placing a new work in the public domain is
> problematic in Canada. Instead, the best practice is to retain copyright 
> but
> attach a permissive, irrevocable license.
>
> Suggestions for the Montreal motion:
>
> 1. For the (c) point, explicitly specify ODC-By or something functionally
> equivalent (I'm not sure a French translation of ODC-By exists yet) as the
> license. Licensing is something many cities have gotten wrong; city 
> lawyers
> will be risk-averse and restriction-friendly; it's far better for us to
> specify a precise set of terms than offer loose guidelines, which almost
> inevitably end up producing license terms which are egregious (the common
> Canadian "we can make you stop using data you've already downloaded, at 
> any
> time, for any reason") or bizarre (Ottawa's insistence that, if you use
> their data, you comply with all industry standards).
>
> 2. For the (a) point, I'd argue that "open standards", to the degree that 
> it
> means anything, isn't a battle we want to be fighting. Far more important 
> is
> machine-processable, which you cover in the principles earlier. PDF is an
> open standard, but of course not the kind of data we want. Meanwhile, ESRI
> shapefiles are proprietary, and I'd be thrilled if Montreal released any 
> of
> its geospatial data in that format.
>
> On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 11:19 AM, Drew Mcpherson <drew at bine.ca> wrote:
>>
>> Did you just say there is no Canadian public domain?
>>
>> That kind of goes against everything I've learned in school and industry
>> and what about this:
>>
>> For Immediate Release
>> March 3, 2006
>> Toronto, ON – Access Copyright, The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency
>> and Creative Commons
>> Canada, in partnership with Creative Commons Corporation in the US, today
>> announced the
>> development of a Canadian public domain registry. The ground- breaking
>> project – the most
>> comprehensive of its kind in Canada – will create an online, globally
>> searchable catalogue of published
>> works that are in the Canadian public domain.
>>
>>
>> Respectfully submitted,
>> Drew Mcpherson
>>
>> -----Original Message----- From: Glen Newton
>> Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2011 11:29 AM
>> To: civicaccess discuss
>> Subject: Re: [CivicAccess-discuss] Open-Data Motion for Montreal
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 7:04 PM, Jonathan Brun <jbrun at jonathanbrun.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> License-free Data is not subject to any copyright, patent, trademark or
>>> trade secret
>>> regulation. Reasonable privacy, security and privilege restrictions may
>>> be allowed
>>
>>> c. That the data offered on the index are unlicensed, allowing for free
>>> re-use by
>>> third parties, in a prevailing open standard format, and not copyrighted
>>> except
>>> if otherwise prevented by legal considerations.
>>
>> Jonathan,
>>
>> In Canada, there is no legal concept 'Public Domain'.
>> And I believe that you cannot remove the copyright from something,
>> even if you own it (but you can transfer it).
>> You can state (i.e. license) that you allow all and any uses by all
>> and any persons, for _most_ intents and purposes making it very Public
>> Domain-like.
>> But I believe the copyright remains.
>>
>> For example, there has been some mention in this group of how Surrey,
>> BC is taking the lead with how open its data release is (I agree that
>> Surrey is in the lead and is where all Canadian cities should be).
>> However, in this forum Sam Vekemans 2010.11.16 said: "...to "Open
>> Data"  meaning truly useful content, where no restrictions are in
>> place.   (ie.  Surrey, BC making their data Public Domain)". While I
>> completely agree with his sentiment, technically (amd legally) Surrey
>> did not put its data into the 'Public Domain', nor did they relinquish
>> copyright. Instead, they adopted a license (Public Domain Dedication
>> and License v1.0 http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/pddl/1.0/ )
>> that allows almost unlimited use, by anyone, of the data Surrey is
>> releasing under this license.
>>
>> From the license: "...this waiver and licence tries to the fullest
>> extent possible to eliminate or fully license any rights that cover
>> this database and data."
>>
>> So there is a license, and copyright is retained.
>>
>> This license recognizes that some jurisdictions do not have 'Public
>> Domain' and has a clause to take this into account:
>>
>> "3.2 Waiver of rights and claims in Copyright and Database Rights when
>> Section 3.1 dedication inapplicable. If the dedication in Section 3.1
>> does not apply in the relevant jurisdiction under Section 6.4, the
>> Rightsholder waives any rights and claims that the Rightsholder may
>> have or acquire in the future over the Work in:
>> a. Copyright; and
>> b. Database Rights.
>> To the extent possible in the relevant jurisdiction, the above waiver
>> of rights and claims applies worldwide and includes media and formats
>> now known or created in the future. The Rightsholder agrees not to
>> assert the above rights and waives the right to enforce them over the
>> Work."
>>
>> So the Rightsholder still has these rights, but promises not to assert
>> or enforce them. Again, still a license, and no 'removal' of copyright
>> takes place.
>>
>> My suggestion to replace the clauses in Jonathan's text either by
>> adopting some broad language talking about using a liberal,
>> non-exclusive, non-restrictive license (possibly with examples) or go
>> straight to suggesting the PDDL.
>>
>> I am sure the city of Montreal lawyers will not like to have a clause
>> that asks the city to do something that is not legally possible in
>> Canada. :-)
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Glen :-)
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 7:04 PM, Jonathan Brun <jbrun at jonathanbrun.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Bonjour à tous,
>>> Montreal Ouvert is working to produce an "ideal" motion for open-data in
>>> the
>>> city of Montreal. The motion is inspired by the great initiatives in
>>> Vancouver and Ottawa. We would very much appreciate your comments,
>>> alternative wording and other advice, especially around your respective
>>> areas of expertise.
>>> This version remains a rough copy.
>>> The document is presently in English to facilitate commenting by various
>>> parties across Canada, it will be circulated on Civic Access for a 
>>> second
>>> round of comments and then translated in French.
>>> Deadline for 1st round of comments: Sunday, January 16th, 2010 at 11PM
>>> EST
>>> Please be sure to sign with your name.
>>> Warm regards,
>>> Jean-Noé, Jonathan, Michael, & Sebastien
>>> MontrealOuvert.net
>>> Motion pour les données ouvertes à la Ville de Montréal
>>> Here we have a medium-lenth "WHEREAS Montreal has mandated X, Y, Z,...",
>>> but
>>> we are really looking for comments on the following:
>>> AND WITH THE PRINCIPLES OF OPEN DATA BEING THE FOLLOWING;
>>> To guide City staff in determining what and how data is released, the
>>> following principles of Open Data provide good guidelines and are
>>> recommended by Montréal Ouvert.  Originally created in 2007 through a
>>> workshop of concerned organizations, many jurisdictions have used them 
>>> to
>>> guide their Open Data initiatives:
>>> Complete All public data is made available. Public data is data that is
>>> not
>>> subject to legal or otherwise valid privacy, security or privilege
>>> limitations.
>>> Primary Data is as collected at the source, with the highest possible
>>> level
>>> of granularity, not in aggregate or modified forms.
>>> Timely Data is made available as quickly as necessary to preserve the
>>> value
>>> of the data.
>>> Accessible Data is available to the widest range of users for the widest
>>> range of purposes.
>>> Machine processable Data is reasonably structured to allow automated
>>> processing.
>>> Non-discriminatory Data is available to anyone, with no requirement of
>>> registration.
>>> Non-proprietary Data is available in a format over which no entity has
>>> exclusive control.
>>> License-free Data is not subject to any copyright, patent, trademark or
>>> trade secret regulation. Reasonable privacy, security and privilege
>>> restrictions may be allowed.”
>>> (Source: http://resource.org/8_principles.html)
>>>
>>> La ville de Montréal "endorses the following":
>>> a. That city data produced and collected by the City of Montreal is
>>> declared
>>> "open"
>>> Open and Accessible Data - the City of Montreal will freely share with
>>> citizens, businesses and other jurisdictions the greatest amount of data
>>> possible while respecting privacy and security concerns;
>>> Open Standards - the City of Montreal will move as quickly as possible 
>>> to
>>> adopt prevailing open standards for data, documents, maps, and other
>>> formats
>>> of media;
>>> b. That the city puts in place an index of all open datasets in machine
>>> readable formats.
>>> c. That the data offered on the index are unlicensed, allowing for free
>>> re-use by third parties, in a prevailing open standard format, and not
>>> copyrighted except if otherwise prevented by legal considerations.
>>>
>>> BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED THAT the XXX be tasked with developing an action
>>> plan
>>> for implementation of the above.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> CivicAccess-discuss mailing list
>>> CivicAccess-discuss at civicaccess.ca
>>> http://lists.pwd.ca/mailman/listinfo/civicaccess-discuss
>>>
>>
>>
>>
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