Great points Dan, thank you<div><br></div><div>* some sort of licensing IS generally necessary for data and<br>text mining.</div><div><br></div><div>* The Open Database Licence also appears to assert "that digital material</div>
<div class="im">must be made available in a readily machine-interpretable form"</div><div class="im"><br></div><div class="im">Perhaps academic works and the Open Access movement might find such a clause desirable in preferred/recommended OA publishing licenses? I certainly think this would be useful - to prevent cynical publishers from providing only less useful 'obfuscated' copies (i.e. all text provided as an image, NOT copy/pasteable) of works as 'open access' (in name but not in spirit), made available to grudgingly satisfy funder requirements for OA. </div>
<div class="im"><br></div><div class="im">It's an unlikely scenario, and the publisher would face huge backlash if they did such a thing but if it's theoretically possible perhaps the scenario should be considered and legislated against...? Whether the appropriate mechanism for preventing this is licensing or some other instrument I don't know.</div>
<div class="im"><br></div><div class="im"><br></div><div class="im"><br></div><div class="im"><br></div><div class="im"><br></div><div class="im"><br></div><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 10 October 2012 09:14, Dan Stowell <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dan.stowell@eecs.qmul.ac.uk" target="_blank">dan.stowell@eecs.qmul.ac.uk</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Hi all,<br>
<br>
Some points re this discussion:<br>
<div class="im"><br>
Helen wrote:<br>
> 1. CC-BY is not necessary for data and text-mining. Internet search engines such as google and social media companies do extensive data and text mining, and they do not limit themselves to CC-BY material. This is true even in the EU, so is not prevented by the EU's support for copyright of data. To illustrate: if data and text-mining is not permissible without CC-BY, then Google must shut down, immediately.<br>
<br>
</div>This point is a bit weird. Firstly, just because Google is doing<br>
something and getting away with it, doesn't mean a lone academic can be<br>
confident of doing something similar and getting away with it. I was<br>
always amazed by how brazenly Youtube set up its service *before* making<br>
agreements with the major media companies, when I would have assumed<br>
they would have been sued out of existence.<br>
<br>
Secondly, some sort of licensing IS generally necessary for data and<br>
text mining. Just because it's not CC doesn't mean it's not a licence.<br>
For example Google Books reuses content, on the basis of explicit<br>
agreements which were apparently made with deposit libraries and<br>
publishers (I don't know the detail of that one). Facebook uses explicit<br>
licensing that its users sign up to. Twitter does the same, and third<br>
parties who mine Twitter any more than a tiny amount have to agree to<br>
specific terms. Etc etc.<br>
<br>
Some sort of enabling licence is clearly necessary, and of course for<br>
data-mining we wish for a licence that "pre-approves" our actions so<br>
that we don't have to conduct a million negotiations before we analyse<br>
an aggregated dataset.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
<br>
Ross wrote:<br>
> WRT to your point 2 "CC-BY is not sufficient for data and text-mining" (nor<br>
> is *any* applicable licence AFAIK - I know of no licence that asserts that<br>
> digital material must be made available in a readily machine-interpretable<br>
> form in the licence)<br>
<br>
</div>Actually the GPL is a very good example. It is for software, and the GPL<br>
authors don't recommend it be used for texts, but it offers a<br>
delightfully clear requirement that "the preferred form of the work for<br>
making modifications" is made available. In the world of software, this<br>
is the source code, but if applied to data it's clear that it would<br>
militate against providing data tables as images.<br>
<br>
When I first heard of CC licenses I was surprised that they didn't use<br>
some form of words like this. It doesn't seem to "care" whether<br>
downstream users get the perfect original or a low-quality JPEG. Since<br>
then, I've come to decide that this relatively slack aspect of CC<br>
licences was very good for cultural works and so forth.<br>
<br>
But for the purposes of academic data reuse, perhaps this is the more<br>
pertinent part of Helen's criticism.<br>
<br>
The Open Database Licence also appears to assert "that digital material<br>
<div class="im">must be made available in a readily machine-interpretable form"<br>
</div><<a href="http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/summary/" target="_blank">http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/summary/</a>> though I'm less<br>
familiar with that (see the "Keep open" part of the summary).<br>
<br>
Best<br>
Dan<br>
<div class="im"><br>
<br>
P.S. One very minor additional point - Ross wrote:<br>
> practically the SA clause means that other content that doesn't<br>
> have that *exact* licence (CC-BY-NC-SA) cannot be remixed with content<br>
under this licence<br>
<br>
</div>Be careful: the way you phrased it is not quite true. You can combine<br>
CC-BY or CC-BY-NC content into a CC-BY-NC-SA work, for example. The<br>
resulting work must be CC-BY-NC-SA in that case.<br>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
<br>
--<br>
Dan Stowell<br>
Postdoctoral Research Assistant<br>
Centre for Digital Music<br>
Queen Mary, University of London<br>
Mile End Road, London E1 4NS<br>
<a href="http://www.elec.qmul.ac.uk/digitalmusic/people/dans.htm" target="_blank">http://www.elec.qmul.ac.uk/digitalmusic/people/dans.htm</a><br>
<a href="http://www.mcld.co.uk/" target="_blank">http://www.mcld.co.uk/</a><br>
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</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br>-- <br>-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-<br>Ross Mounce<br>PhD Student & Open Knowledge Foundation Panton Fellow<br>Fossils, Phylogeny and Macroevolution Research Group<br>
University of Bath, 4 South Building, Lab 1.07<br><a href="http://about.me/rossmounce" target="_blank">http://about.me/rossmounce</a><br>-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-<br>
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