As biological disciplines extend into the ‘big data’ world, they will need a names-based infrastructure to index and interconnect distributed data. The infrastructure must have access to all names of all organisms if it is to manage all information. There is no single compilation of all species nor of all names of organisms. Those who compile lists of species or names hold different views as to the intellectual property rights that apply to the lists. This creates uncertainty as to how names and compilations of names should be licensed, what conditions should apply to their re-use, and how to attribute the efforts of authors and others involved in making them available. The uncertainty, and in some cases protectionism, impedes the much-needed infrastructure that will enable sharing of biological data in the digital world. The laws in the United States of America and European Union are consistent with the position that scientific names of organisms and their compilation in checklists, classifications or taxonomic revisions are not subject to copyright. The spellings of names are facts and cannot be owned by individuals. Compilations of names, such as classifications or checklists, are presented in widely used layouts and are not creative in the sense of copyright law - even when considerable intellectual effort was needed to assemble them. A ‘blue list’ is presented that identifies familiar elements of checklists, classifications and monographs, and to which intellectual property rights do not apply. The absence of intellectual property rights stands in contrast to licensing statements associated with compilations that imply that rights apply. Many content providers desire credit for their efforts. In order to promote sharing, authors of taxonomic content, compilers, intermediaries, and aggregators should receive citable recognition for their contributions, with the greatest recognition being given to the originating authors.

1. What Taxonomic Information
is Open Access?
(Copyright Issues ...)
Donat Agosti (Plazi),
Gregor Hagedorn (MfN Berlin and Plazi),
Willi Egloff (Plazi), David Patterson (Plazi)
ViBRANT
Virtual Biodiversity
Supported by the European Commission through its FP7 Research Funding Programme
All slides published under Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 (unless marked

2. Current practice

3. Current practice
No offence meant!
We are scientists, not lawyers.
The work is honorable!

5. The Plant List
This online database is copyrighted by […]. Content
available on this site has been provided by TPL’s data
partners, who may have placed restrictions on how you
can re-use that content.
The Plant List […] is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be
available at www.theplantlist.org. […]
(Bold = My
highlights)

7. The International Plant Names Index (IPNI)
is a database of the names and associated basic
bibliographical details […]. Its goal is to eliminate the
need for repeated reference to primary sources for basic
bibliographic information about plant names. The data are
freely available and are gradually being standardized and
checked. […]
This database and its contents are
© copyright the Plant Names Project.
All rights reserved.
(Bold = My highlights)

9. AlgaeBase Copyright Notice
The images, information and data on this site are not in
the public domain and are the property of the copyright
owners. The data may not be downloaded or replicated
by any means, manually or mechanically, including
copying and pasting into theses, papers and other
publications, and extraction by any means, manually or
electronically. Any copying of the data or images, be it
commercial or non-commercial (including non-profit),
educational or non-educational, without the written
permission of the copyright owner and payment, if
requested, may result in legal action, including legal action
involving the service provider or publisher. See this site
regarding copyright owner's rights. Fair usage of data in
scientific publications is permitted, but not of images.
(Bold = My highlights)

10. Legal foundations

11. Copyright protection
 Copyright does not protect content,
but the form of presentation;
 Form of presentation must be original,
individual or new;
 No protection of typographical arrangements
in standard formats (except UK);
 Attaching a copyright sign, CC-license, etc.
has no influence on copyright protection.

12. Action Plan
1. Define elements that are not copyrightable
at all.
2. Define elements that are copyrightable, but
may in certain situations be used on the basis
of exceptions and limitations to copyright

13. „Blue List“ (= non copyrightable elements)
 Hierarchical organizations (= classifications like



species nested in genera, genera nested in families,
families in orders, etc.)
Linear ordering of taxa, or properties of taxa, by
alphabetical, chronological, phylogenetic,
geographical, ecological, feature based (e.g., lifeform), etc. criteria
Analytical assessment and reasoning of authors as
to the nomenclatural and taxonomic status of the
name
Citation of sources

14. „Blue List“ (= non copyrightable elements, continued)
 Synonyms or chresonyms of genus; may include an






analytical assessment and reasoning of the author as
to the synonymy status or validity
Description of genus
Description of species
Author (with or without date) of basionym
Author (with or without date) of species, combination,
or replacement name
Citations of publications that include taxonomic acts
(and many more!)

15. Exceptions: EU-copyright-directives
Directive 2001/29/EC, § 5.3:
Member States may provide for exceptions and
limitations to the rights provided for in Article 2 and 3
in the following cases:
a) use for the sole purpose of illustration for
teaching or scientific research, as long as the
source, including the author's name, is indicated,
unless this turns out to be impossible and to the
extent justified by the non-commercial purposes to be
achieved; […]

16. Exceptions:
National copyright law in
EU member states
We are working to summarize:
 national implementation of exceptions and
limitations,
 court rulings
 initiatives to privilege use of works or databases
for scientific purposes.
Please provide contacts in your country!

17. Conclusions:
We control less than some of
us would like to control.
That is a good thing.
Supported by the European Commission through its FP7 Research Funding Programme
All slides published under Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 (unless marked

18. But good scientific practice does not
depend on copyright!
Perhaps pay 1000 € for a copyright
violation.
Loose your Ph.D. for negligence in
omitting the citation of sources!
Loose your job for fraudulence in
omitting the citation of sources!
Supported by the European Commission through its FP7 Research Funding Programme
All slides published under Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 (unless marked

19. Thank you for your attention!
Questions?
Supported by the European Commission through its FP7 Research Funding Programme
All slides published under Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 (unless marked