Report says new licensing regime will boost access to government data
Creative Commons licenses (CCLs), a license system that protects the rights of data creators whilst encouraging the sharing and re-use of their works, should be used more widely by the public sector.
The recommendation comes in a report by the Common Information Environment (CIE) Group, which points to many advantages of the system for the public sector, including minimum administration requirements and the provision of free resources to users that can legitimately be reused and redistributed.
The report recommends that resources should be made available for as "unconstrained as possible" reuse unless there is a justifiable reason why they should not. Commercial reuse as well as noncommercial reuse is also recommended.
As well as offering a consistent and transparent treatment of digital resources, use of licences would help the public sector reduce its effort in dealing with enquiries for information and resources.
The report also points to the CIE to create best-practice guides for the public sector.
Creative Commons is already used world-wide, including at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the South African Ministry of Education and the Brazilian Ministry of Culture, among others. Between February and August 2005, the number of online works licensed increased from 10 million to 54 million.
In the UK, there have been significant recent moves towards ensuring that material produced using public funds is more widely available. The Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, entitles anyone to request for information from a public authority, and several organisations are taking steps to make digital content more available, including the BBC and the British Library.
Related Links
View the report here: http://www.common-info.org.uk/docs/CC-Report.pdf (665KB - PDF)
eGov monitor feature on using Creative Commons in the public sector: http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/2667
