Opening up government information and data: developments in policy and practice

Opening up government information
and data: developments in policy and
practice
Neale Hooper
and Dr Anne Fitzgerald
Information Futures: Open Access, Open Data and Creative Commons
Professional Practice Seminar (FIT5104)
Monash University
23 October 2014, Melbourne
"Opening up government information and data: developments in policy and practice" by Neale Hooper and Dr Anne Fitzgerald is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia Licence. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/.
1

Uptake of CC through diversity of sectors
• Although CC had its origins in the creative and cultural sector, the licences
have been embraced by and are increasingly being used across a diversity
of sectors including:
• the creative industries
• cultural heritage institutions
• education
• research
• Industry
• science
• government
• intergovernmental organisations.
During the decade since they were first launched, the CC licences have
proven to be an effective and simple mechanism to facilitate sharing and
collaborative production of content in the digital environment.
2

Some measures of CC uptake
• The number of CC-licensed items in circulation has steadily increased –
estimated to be > 500 million in 2013
• A 2014 statistical study (based on an estimate of a total of 400 million CC-licensed
works):
• photographs comprise the great majority of CC-licensed works (more than 75%) [eg
Flickr]
• text items (7.5%) [eg Wikipedia, OA journals]
• videos (1.8%) [eg YouTube]
• audio recordings (0.3%) [eg SoundCloud]
• More than half of the CC-licensed works available online have been
provided under licences that permit the material to be modified and
adapted – that is, without any limit on making “derivatives” (CC’s ND
condition)
3

Licence combinations
4

Licence combinations – standard representation
Attribution 3.0 Australia (BY)
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/>
Attribution 4.0 (BY)
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/>
Attribution No Derivatives 3.0 Australia (BY-ND)
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/au/>
Attribution No Derivatives 4.0 (BY-ND)
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/>
Attribution NonCommercial 3.0 Australia (BY-NC)
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/au/>
Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 (BY-NC)
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/>
Attribution NonCommercial No Derivatives 3.0 Australia (BY-NC-ND)
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/>
Attribution NonCommercial No Derivatives 4.0 (BY-NC-ND)
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/>
Attribution NonCommercial Share Alike 3.0 Australia (BY-NC-SA)
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/au/>
Attribution NonCommercial Share Alike 4.0 (BY-NC-SA)
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/>
Attribution Share Alike 3.0 Australia (BY-SA)
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/au/>
Attribution Share Alike 4.0 (BY-SA)
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/>
5

CC licence versions
• Version 1.0 - 16 December 2002: based on United States copyright law, concepts and
practice; known as the “generic” licences because they did not identify a specific
jurisdiction or governing law applying to the licence.
• Version 2.0 – 25 May 2004;
• International licences were called the “generic” licences – drafted to comply with US copyright law
• Version 2.5 – June 2005;
• International licences were called the “generic” licences – drafted to comply with US copyright law
• Ported into national versions – the first Australian CC licences were version 2.5
• Version 3.0 – 23 February 2007
• Initially known as “unported” licences but in 2010 re-branded as “international” licences
• Core version 3.0 licences drafted to conform to international treaties and drafting conventions
• Ported into national versions – in Australia, v 3.0 launched in 2010 (NZ, 2007)
• Version 4.0 – 25 November 2013
• CC version 4.0 international (unported) licences
• Genuinely international licences – not intended to be ported
"Opening up government information and data: developments in policy and practice" by Neale Hooper and Dr Anne Fitzgerald is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution 3.0 Australia Licence. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/.
6

CC licence versions: v 4.0 international
• Version 4.0 licences were launched on 25 November 2013
• Aim in drafting the version 4.0 licences was to produce an internationalised, easy-to-
use version of the licences suitable for use worldwide, by simplifying both
their structure and expression
• Intended to be more interoperable with other open content and open source
licences, to better meet the needs of users and to extend the use of CC licences
to data and public sector information
• The version 4.0 licences are drafted to conform to relevant international treaties
and drafting conventions
• Are “jurisdiction agnostic” – do not mention and are not drafted against any
particular jurisdiction’s laws
• Intended to be suitable for use as is, without the need for porting on a
jurisdictional basis - expectation is that they will be legally effective worldwide
and that few, if any, jurisdiction-specific ports will be required
• Being translated into the languages of many CC Affiliate countries – official
translations are treated as equivalent to the English language version
7

Version 3.0 Australia and Version 4.0
international licences
• Both the version 3.0 CC Australia (ported) and the version 4.0
international (unported) licences are “current” for use in Australia
• The version 3.0 CC Australia licences were drafted in keeping with
Australian copyright law and practice (and have Australian governing
law)
• The version 4.0 international licences are not based specifically on
any country’s law and do not specify any governing law
• Essentially, the version 3.0 CC Australia and the version 4.0
international licences achieve the same outcome
• The differences are in the detail – in the Legal Code
8

Government and copyright
• Copyright protects much of the creative, cultural, educational,
scientific and informational material generated by federal and
state/territory governments and their various departments and
agencies
• Government functions result in a vast and diverse array of copyright
materials, eg legislation, parliamentary documents, cultural and
historical materials, databases of statistical, mapping, meteorological
and scientific data, official reports and publications and archived
public records
9

Steps toward CC adoption by government
• Increasing demand by citizens, business and the public sector itself to
be able to access, use and reuse government information and
materials
• Web 2.0 technologies spurred Gov 2.0 initiatives as government
responded to calls for greater openness, transparency and
accountability
• Growing awareness of the centrality of government information to
innovation and public policy.
• Acknowledgement of need to address the challenges presented to
government, as owner, user and custodian of copyright material in
the digital age
10

Steps toward CC adoption by government
• Traditional/existing models of information management and
copyright licensing were not realising the potential offered by the
networked environment
• Pricing practices and multiple (often incompatible) licences created a
gridlock and blocked the flow of government information
• Copyright used to restrict access to information, acting as a barrier to
innovation and new opportunities for reuse
11

Acceptance of CC licence as the default licence for
Australian Government copyright materials
• The adoption of CC licensing on material released for public
information by Australian governments was first formally
recommended by the National Innovation System review committee
in Venturous Australia – Building Strength in Innovation (2008)
• This was followed by the Victorian Parliament’s Economic
Development and Infrastructure Committee in its report on its Inquiry
into Improving Access to Victorian Public Sector Information and Data
(2009)
12

CC BY as the default licensing option
• The release of Government copyright materials under the CC BY
licence as the default licensing option was recommended by the
Government 2.0 Taskforce (chaired by Dr Nick Gruen) in its report,
Engage: Getting on with Government 2.0 in 2009
• This recommendation was adopted by the Commonwealth
Government in 2010 and has been implemented in -
• the IP (Intellectual Property) Principles for Australian Government Agencies,
which state in Principle 11(b):
• Consistent with the need for free and open re-use and adaptation, public sector
information should be licensed by agencies under the Creative Commons BY standard
as the default
13

CC BY as the default licensing option (cont’d)
• the IP Manual,
• the Guidelines for Licensing Public Sector Information for Australian
Government Agencies, and
• the Principles on Open Public Sector Information issued by the
Australian Privacy Commissioner in 2011.
14

Examples of CC adoption by government
• Since 2008 Government departments and agencies Australia-wide have
progressively applied CC licences when distributing their information and
data
• Agencies with responsibilities to create and publish important data
collections were the earliest adopters:
• Geoscience Australia (CC BY)
• Australian Bureau of Statistics (CC BY)
• Bureau of Meteorology (CC BY)
• Australian Treasury (CC BY) – see following slide for detail
15

Australian Treasury – Budget documents
• Since the 2010-2011 Budget, all Budget Papers (1-4), Budget Overview,
Portfolio Budget Statements and Treasurer’s Budget Speech in each year
have been published under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia (CC
BY) licence.
• In 2014-2015 for the first time Budget documents were provided in both
text and data form under the CC BY 3.0 Australia licence:
• tables and data from the Budget Papers and Portfolio Budget Statements were made
available on the Australia Government’s data.gov.au portal as:
• Excel (xlss) files
• and machine readable CSV files
• enhances access to Budget information by the public and the media
• makes it much easier for the information to be shared, analysed and
represented visually
16

• ComLaw
• Legislative materials website (CC BY-NC-SA)
• Australian Parliament
• Parliamentary materials and draft legislation (CC BY-NC-ND)
• CSIRO:
• ScienceImage library is published under a CC BY licence (see http://www.scienceimage.csiro.au) -
contains more than 4,000 high definition images and videos collected in the course of
environmental, industrial, agricultural and technological research over 60 years, organised into
categories such as Animals, Buildings, Soil Science, Technology and Water. CSIRO had previously
charged a fee of $50 to $400 per image for commercial use of these images, so the shift to CC BY
licensing indicates CSIRO’s recognition that
greater benefits will flow to the Australian community by making this valuable resource openly
accessible and reusable.
17

• Open Government Data portals:
• Australian government – http://data.gov.au
• Queensland - https://data.qld.gov.au
• South Australia - http://data.sa.gov.au
• Victoria - http://www.data.vic.gov.au
• New South Wales - http://www.data.nsw.gov.au/copyright
• public data sets are being distributed under CC licences, with the CC
BY being the default licensing position – ensuring the data may not
only be accessed but also lawfully used, shared and reused
"Opening up government information and data: developments in policy and practice" by Neale Hooper and Dr Anne Fitzgerald is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution 3.0 Australia Licence. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/.
18

Data.gov.au
"Opening up government information and data: developments in policy and practice" by Neale Hooper and Dr Anne Fitzgerald is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia Licence. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/.
19

Local government adoption of CC licences for
open data
• Melbourne:
• In May 2014 the City of Melbourne Council launched its pilot open data platform -
https://data.melbourne.vic.gov.au/
• The platform provides citizens with access to, and the legal right to reuse, machine-readable
data which are available under the CC BY 3.0 Australia licence.
• Hobart:
• City of Hobart Road Formation datasets – prepared by the City Council and show the kerbs
and edges of road formations of roads within the municipal area (excluding formations on
private property) - are part of the City of Hobart’s Detail Plan map series
• provided in various machine readable formats eg kmz, shp, CSV, GeoJSON which enable easy
use and manipulation of the information
• published through the Australian government’s data.gov.au portal under a CC BY 3.0 Australia
licence - http://data.gov.au/dataset/city-of-hobart-road-formation
20

City of Hobart Road Formation datasets
21

Other City of Hobart datasets on data.gov.au
22

Intergovernmental organisations (IGOs) adopt
CC
• IGOs:
• UNESCO (UN Education Science and Cultural Organisation)
• World Bank
• IMF (International Monetary Fund)
• The CC 3.0 IGO licence was launched in November 2013 – a slight
variant on the version 3.0 unported CC licences, developed
specifically to meet the legal requirements of IGOs
• These CC 3.0 IGO licences contain a dispute resolution mechanism
which may be activated by an IGO to facilitate resolution of
differences between an IGO licensor and a licensee – consists of
mediation, followed by arbitration if necessary to resolve the dispute
23

IGOs and CC
• UNESCO:
• UNESCO launched its Open Access Repository in 2013, making more than 300 digital reports,
books and articles available to the world - mostly under the CC BY 3.0 IGO licence;
• Under UNESCO’s Open Access Policy, from July 2013 all new publications are released under a CC
IGO licence and published in the Open Access Repository
• World Bank:
• In 2012 the World Bank adopted an Open Access Policy for Formal Publications which establishes
the Bank’s commitment to the public accessibility of knowledge resulting from work carried out by
its staff as well as outside research funded by the Bank. For work carried out by World Bank staff,
the Open Access Policy applies to manuscripts and all accompanying datasets; for external
research funded by the Bank, the policy applies to the final report provided by the researchers to
the unit that has funded the research.
• To give effect to the Open Access Policy, the World Bank established its Open Knowledge
Repository to host its research and knowledge products.
• More than 17,000 publications covering a wide range of topics and all regions of the world are
now available in the World Bank’s Open Knowledge Repository – the majority are provided under
a CC BY 3.0 IGO licence.
• Since 2013 the Open Knowledge Repository has also provided links to datasets associated with
research publications.
24

International Examples
• United States:
• The White House website applies the CC BY (US) licence to all materials posted to its website by US
citizens and others;
• The New York State Senate website is licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND version 3.0 United States licence;
• The State of Virginia has enacted legislation to “authorize state agencies to release all potentially
copyrightable materials under the Creative Commons…..licensing system, as appropriate”;
• The Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC) introduced a policy in 2010
requiring that any software and educational materials produced with competitive grants (Federal, State,
foundation, etc) offered through or managed by the SBCTC are to be licensed under a CC BY licence;
• Under the Department of Labor’s Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training
Grant Program (TAACCCT), the Federal Government invested US $2 billion to provide grants to
community colleges and other higher education institutions to enable them “to expand and improve
their ability to deliver education and career training programs that can be completed in two years or
less … and prepare program participants for employment in high-wage, high-skill occupations”. The
terms of the grants require that all new curriculum and educational materials developed by grant
recipients are to be provided under the CC BY licence so that they are freely available for use
throughout the sector.
25

International examples (cont’d)
• Indonesia:
• In September 2014 the Indonesian government launched the Data Indonesia Portal
Indonesia, a one stop shop for Indonesian open data, which is licensed under the CC
BY 4.0 licence.
• Philippines: Philippines Laws and Jurisprudence Databank. The collection
was launched in 2014 under a CC BY NC 3.0 Philippines licence. (Statutes,
Issuances and Court Decisions are the copyright works of the Philippine
Government.)
• Korea:
• The official blog of the President of Korea is published under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Kr
licence;
• The Mayor of Seoul (Won-Soon Park) is a strong supporter of open government – the
Seoul city government has launched a platform for sharing administrative documents
and worksheets which are CC-licensed.
26

International Examples (cont’d)
• Austria: The Austrian government has launched an open data portal (http://data.gv.at)
with much of the data available under a CC BY licence. The Vienna City Government has
established an Open Government Data portal which publishes datasets under a CC BY 3.0
Austria licence.
• Italy: The Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research launched its Open Data
portal which makes much of its data available under CC BY. The Chamber of Deputies of
the Italian Parliament has developed a platform for publishing linked open data under CC
BY. The Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat) publishes its statistical data and
analyses under a CC BY 3.0 licence. The official website of the Italian National Police is
published under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 IT licence;
• France: In 2014 the French Minister of Culture and Communications announced that its
two flagship websites – culturecommunication.gouv.fr and culture.fr – would be
published under CC BY-SA 3.0 FR licences. The Ministry and CC France produced a video
to educate French speakers on how to use CC licences and how to find CC-licensed
works.
27

Further reading
• CC and Government Guide: Using Creative Commons 3.0 Australia Licences on Government
Copyright Materials, Anne Fitzgerald, Neale Hooper and Cheryl Foong, available at
http://eprints.qut.edu.au/38364/20/CC_and_Govt_Guide_v3.2_110316_Final.pdf
• Explainer: Creative Commons, Anne Fitzgerald and Neale Hooper, The Conversation, 19 December
2013, available at http://theconversation.com/explainer-creative-commons-21341
• Budget Papers are free to share, thanks to Creative Commons, Anne Fitzgerald and Neale Hooper,
The Conversation, 26 May 2014, available at http://theconversation.com/budget-papers-are-free-to-
share-thanks-to-creative-commons-26900
• Various articles on CC licences and Government at
http://eprints.qut.edu.au/view/person/Fitzgerald,_Anne.html
• http://eprints.qut.edu.au/32117/
• http://eprints.qut.edu.au/29773/
• Creative Commons Australia website at http://creativecommons.org.au
• Slideshare at http://www.slideshare.net/GoingDigital
• Slideshare at http://www.slideshare.net/ccaustralia
28

Presenter Information
Neale Hooper BA LLB LLM (Qld) is a legal consultant and former
Principal Lawyer in the Intellectual Property and Technology Law team
in the Queensland Crown Law Office. Neale holds undergraduate and
graduate degrees in Law from the University of Queensland. He has
considerable experience as a legal practitioner, consultant and
researcher in the area of intellectual property and innovation law, and
technology commercialisation.
From 2005, Neale was centrally involved with Creative Commons
Australia and played a leading role in the implementation of Creative
Commons licensing – particularly in the government sector – as well as
the revision and ongoing management of the licences.
29

Presenter information
Dr Anne Fitzgerald BSW (Qld) LLB (Hons) Grad Dip Welfare Law (Tas.) LLM
(Lond.) LLM (Col.) JSD (Col.), Barrister (Qld) is an intellectual property and e-commerce
lawyer, academic and researcher. Anne graduated in Law from
the University of Tasmania and holds postgraduate qualifications from
University College London and Columbia University (New York). Anne has
served terms as a member of the Advisory Council on Intellectual Property
(ACIP) and the Copyright Law Review Committee’s Expert Advisory Group,
and was a consultant to the Venturous Australia review of Australia's
innovation system. She led Creative Commons Australia’s engagement with
government, overseeing the adoption of CC licences as the default copyright
licence for public sector materials by the Commonwealth and several State
governments.
Anne has published widely on intellectual property and internet law. Her
latest major (co-authored) book is Internet and E-commerce Law, Business
and Policy, Thomson Reuters, Sydney (2011) – revised edition forthcoming
2015.
Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia Licence. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/. 30

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