Open Access Promo Material by Biblioteekje (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Open Access Promo Material by Biblioteekje (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Open Access

Same As It Ever Was: Canada’s New Open Data Portal and Restrictive Licence Terms

I was offline yesterday and thus missed the official launch of the federal government’s open data portal.  Like many, I think is great that the government has finally moved on this issue as Canada has trailed far behind many other countries in making government data openly available for reuse for far too long. The immediate reaction to the launch included some disappointment at the licensing terms, as David Eaves quickly pointed to restrictive language that would even stop someone from using the data “in any way which, in the opinion of Canada, may bring disrepute to or prejudice the reputation of Canada.” Treasury Board Secretary Stockwell Day responded to the concern by indicating that was not the intent and that the language would be addressed.

That too is good news, but I think it is important to identify the source of the licensing language and the larger issue at play. First, the licensing terms, including the disrepute provision, have been used by the government for several years. The licence terms at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, which has offered open data for several years, features the same language on a webpage that was last modified in 2008.  In fact, the GeoConnections program, which disseminates geographic data, published a 184 page best practices guide in 2008 (and that was version 2) that discusses licensing terms in great detail and includes several samples.  In each case, the licence includes the disrepute provision. While it may be true that few people ever read the licence – Transport Canada published the new GC Open Data Portal licence weeks before yesterday’s launch and no one seemed to notice – the terms are important both because they can be used to later restrict activities and because they reflect the government’s view of the rights of Canadians to their data.

The government may revise the licence by removing the disrepute term, but I think a larger issue will remain.

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March 18, 2011 7 comments News

U.S. Government Funding For Open Education Materials a “Game Changer”

The technology community is fond of referring to announcements that fundamentally alter a sector or service as a “game changer”. Recent examples include the debut of the Apple iTunes store in 2003, which demonstrated how a digital music service that responds to consumer demands was possible, and Google’s Gmail, which upended web-based email in 2004 by offering 1 gigabyte of storage when competitors like Microsoft’s Hotmail were providing a paltry 2 megabytes.

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) recently covered the U.S. government announcement of its own game changer, though it attracted far less attention than iTunes or Gmail. Led by the Departments of Labor and Education, it committed US$2 billion toward a new program to create free online teaching and course materials for post-secondary programs of two years or less.

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March 9, 2011 24 comments Columns

U.S. Government Funding For Open Education Materials a “Game Changer”

Appeared on February 27, 2011 in the Toronto Star as U.S. digital project signals the rise of versatile e-textbooks The technology community is fond of referring to announcements that fundamentally alter a sector or service as a “game changer”. Recent examples include the debut of the Apple iTunes store in […]

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March 9, 2011 Comments are Disabled Columns Archive

OC Transpo Backs Away From Open Data

OC Transpo has backed away from making GPS data available, expressing concern about potential lost revenues.

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February 15, 2011 5 comments News

More Canadians Speak Out on Bill C-32, Deadline Today

Today is the final day for Canadians to submit their comments on Bill C-32 to the legislative committee examining the bill.  New posts of submissions include Heather Morrison linking open access with copyright reform and Dylan McCall with a library perspective. Meanwhile, CBC.ca covers the politics behind the bill and […]

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January 31, 2011 6 comments News