agosti hagedorn egloff patterson 2013: open access and copyright for taxon name information - (tdwg...
DESCRIPTION
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.TRANSCRIPT
Coordination and Policy Development in Preparation for a European Open Biodiversity Knowledge Management System
Supported by the European Commission through its FP7 Research Funding Programme All slides published under Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 (unless marked otherwise)
Donat Agosti (Plazi), Gregor Hagedorn (MfN Berlin and Plazi), Willi Egloff (Plazi), David Patterson (Plazi)
What Taxonomic Informationis Open Access?(Copyright Issues ...)
Virtual Biodiversity
ViBRANT
Current practice
Current practice
No offence meant!We are scientists, not lawyers.
The work is honorable!
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)
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)
AlgaeBase Copyright NoticeThe 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)
Legal foundations
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.
Action Plan
1. Define elements that are not copyrightableat all.
2. Define elements that are copyrightable, but may in certain situations be used on the basisof exceptions and limitations to copyright
„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., life-form), etc. criteria
Analytical assessment and reasoning of authors as to the nomenclatural and taxonomic status of the name
Citation of sources
„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!)
Exceptions: EU-copyright-directivesDirective 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; […]
Exceptions: National copyright law in
EU member statesWe 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!
Coordination and Policy Development in Preparation for a European Open Biodiversity Knowledge Management System
Supported by the European Commission through its FP7 Research Funding Programme All slides published under Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 (unless marked otherwise)
Conclusions:
We control less than some of us would like to control.
That is a good thing.
Coordination and Policy Development in Preparation for a European Open Biodiversity Knowledge Management System
Supported by the European Commission through its FP7 Research Funding Programme All slides published under Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 (unless marked otherwise)
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!
Coordination and Policy Development in Preparation for a European Open Biodiversity Knowledge Management System
Supported by the European Commission through its FP7 Research Funding Programme All slides published under Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 (unless marked otherwise)
Thank you for your attention!
Questions?