Look for examples of sensible government attitude towards copyright and the Pentagon may not strike you as an obvious starting point. But for years the US military has had a very enlightened attitude towards its official photographs: the photos are paid for by the public so the public should be able to use them for free. The British military has also moved towards much more sensible policies on such copyright matters in recent years.
Aside from such piecemeal advances, there has been a debate going on about the general application of “Crown Copyright” and what, or shouldn’t, be allowed to be done with information and assets such as photographs which the government puts into the public domain.
As Simon Dickson has covered, a very welcome step forward has just been taken with the new Open Government License:
It states in remarkably straightforward terms that ‘you are encouraged (!) to use and re-use the Information that is available under this licence … freely and flexibly’. It has been defined to be legally ‘interoperable’ with the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, sharing a certain amount of its language – and even bears a mild visual resemblance to it, which is a smart move in itself.
As I’ve mentioned before, it doesn’t legally move the goalposts very much, I don’t think: but so much of this is in the presentation, and the culture change that it hopes to deliver. ‘Crown copyright’ sounds a lot more scary and protective than it really ever is/was. Even just the name ‘open government licence’ changes the whole tone.
On its launch Liberal Democrat Minister Lord McNally, Minister for The National Archives and Public Sector Information, said, “The National Archives isn’t simply a repository of our nation’s history, its task is to bring information to life, make it accessible and enable its re-use. This innovative licence gives everyone the opportunity to create products and services which benefit society.”
A licence is only as good as its take-up. There is a fair degree of central government momentum behind the Open Government Licence now, though I am sure that there are many other parts of the public sector which readers of The Voice have some influence in who could also make good use of the license too.
To take one very simple example: if you are a council, why not push for your council website to adopt it? It saves the time and effort in coming up with your own unique terms and conditions (don’t get me started on how many lawyer hours have been spent drawing up dozens and dozens of different website licenses for council websites…). It also avoid the risk of, er…, interesting decisions such as Hyndburn Council’s flirtation with banning photocopying of its website pages.
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6 Comments
The whole concept of “Crown Copyright” is offensive. Governmental texts ought to be in the public domain. The idea that the people do not even have the right to copy the texts of the laws under which they are governed is preposterous. It’s just another way for bureaucrats to extend their control over what people are allowed to know and think.
Except that Crown Copyright does allow people to copy the texts of the laws under which they were governed, so your point is pretty moot. Mark’s point that people didn’t understand what Crown Copyright permits and does not permit is, however, reinforced 😉
There’s a difference between an absolute *right* and “being allowed” (i.e., permitted by the grace of the authorities) to do something.
Mark,
Good article. There is nothing dramatically new in this: the re-use of public sector information was substantially liberalised in 2005. At the time HMSO created the “Click-Use licence”, enabling people to acquire a licence to re-use Crown Copyright material online without anybody checking up on them. This appears to be an effort to make it easier and to align it with the Creative Commons concept, which is to be welcomed.
To correct one common misconception, as highlighed by David’s comment that “Governmental texts ought to be in the public domain. The idea that the people do not even have the right to copy the texts of the laws under which they are governed is preposterous”, Crown Copyright does not cover, and never has covered, “the texts of the laws”. The law is not subject to copyright in any form.
The main purpose of Crown Copyright has been to avoid people misquoting and misrepresenting the law, and to preven the misappropriation of government symbols such as the Coat of Arms, which could otherwise be used to convey an apparent official seal of approval where it had not actually been given.
There is also some debate about allowing public bodies to charge licence fees to commercial interests so that the public body can retain the commercial value of the IPR that taxpayers have funded – otherwise, the taxpayer would be subsidising the information industry by producing data which this industry then appropriated for free. However, this is a controversial issue and one where – at least centrally – the government has come down on the side of openness and laissez faire.
Good point about the 2005 changes Tom. In many ways this license is about making it clearer to people all they can already do than in giving direct new rights – though as the license spreads through the public sector, it will end up doing more of the second too.
An interesting idea and debate. Perhaps the best is a combination of both. While I think a carrot is nice every now and then, I think you pretty much always need the stick. Especially when it comes to something as serious as being able to save someone’s life by reducing speeding.