[Jean Bernard Minster]

This article should be interesting to the IG because I can easily imagine a similar situation that would raise rather nasty legal issues, whether intended or unintended. Bernard

Discussion

[Paul Uhlir]

Yeah. Just look at the GOP.

[Puneet Kishor]

I am not sure how. So, likely some folks less than ideally qualified entered some data in a db that was subsequently used in other studies. Then one study (this attached paper) found those errors. Isn’t this how science is supposed to work?
The issue of less than ideally qualified folks working on something, anything, is important to worry about but is orthogonal to the licensing of the database. In a litigious society, and who doesn’t love a frivolous lawsuit, that is what disclaimers are for.
—
Puneet Kishor
Just Another Creative Commoner
http://punkish.org/About=

[Donat Agosti]

It is just a fact that identification and synonymy has many problems. Not least, in taxonomy synonymy is split into objective and subjective synonymy. Whilst the former is a formal issue, such that to authors used independently the same name for different organisms, the latter has to do with scientific decisions whether two species are to be considered one. Identification is another quagmire, often with a high degree of errors.
BUT: the reason that this becomes an issue is not that in the age of the Internet we make necessarily more errors. The reason is, that we can see them. Now, only now, do we have the chance to have access to these databases, we can plot data therein and discover discrepancies. We develop also tools for data cleaning, annotations that make changes etc.
There is still a long way to go to have access to digital illustrations of the types and “properly” and other specimens of the taxon; even more to the published treatements, that is the opinion of the scientist when he created the taxon, or reused it later. All the organisms (species) in GenBank have no link to the treatments and thus these names float, nor in Catalogue of Life, WoRMS, etc. To achieve this is what the goal of the Plazi workflow.
I don’t see this article as a problem rather as part of science, and technological changes in the way we conduct science
Donat
rom: pfuhlir=***@***.***-groups.org [mailto:***@***.***-groups.org] On Behalf Of puhlir
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2015 12:44 AM
To: jbminster ; RDA/CODATA Legal Interoperability IG
Subject: Re: [rda-legalinterop-ig] Food of thought
Yeah. Just look at the GOP.
On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 4:47 PM, jbminster wrote:
This article should be interesting to the IG because I can easily imagine a similar situation that would raise rather nasty legal issues, whether intended or unintended. Bernard
—
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[Chris Morris]

HI,
This is hardly new. Frege pointed out that the phrases “the morning star” and “the evening star” are both references to the planet Venus. So they share the same reference, but do not have the same meaning.
Surely courts are used to dealing with such issues: whether or not “the defendant” and “the killer” refer to the same person is the key issue in a murder trial.
Regards,
Chris
– Show quoted text -From: agosti=***@***.***-groups.org [mailto:***@***.***-groups.org] On Behalf Of agosti
Sent: 13 November 2015 07:41
To: ‘puhlir’; jbminster; RDA/CODATA Legal Interoperability IG
Subject: Re: [rda-legalinterop-ig] Food of thought
It is just a fact that identification and synonymy has many problems. Not least, in taxonomy synonymy is split into objective and subjective synonymy. Whilst the former is a formal issue, such that to authors used independently the same name for different organisms, the latter has to do with scientific decisions whether two species are to be considered one. Identification is another quagmire, often with a high degree of errors.
BUT: the reason that this becomes an issue is not that in the age of the Internet we make necessarily more errors. The reason is, that we can see them. Now, only now, do we have the chance to have access to these databases, we can plot data therein and discover discrepancies. We develop also tools for data cleaning, annotations that make changes etc.
There is still a long way to go to have access to digital illustrations of the types and “properly” and other specimens of the taxon; even more to the published treatements, that is the opinion of the scientist when he created the taxon, or reused it later. All the organisms (species) in GenBank have no link to the treatments and thus these names float, nor in Catalogue of Life, WoRMS, etc. To achieve this is what the goal of the Plazi workflow.
I don’t see this article as a problem rather as part of science, and technological changes in the way we conduct science
Donat
rom: pfuhlir=***@***.***-groups.org [mailto:***@***.***-groups.org] On Behalf Of puhlir
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2015 12:44 AM
To: jbminster ; RDA/CODATA Legal Interoperability IG
Subject: Re: [rda-legalinterop-ig] Food of thought
Yeah. Just look at the GOP.
On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 4:47 PM, jbminster wrote:
This article should be interesting to the IG because I can easily imagine a similar situation that would raise rather nasty legal issues, whether intended or unintended. Bernard
—
Full post: https://rd-alliance.org/group/rdacodata-legal-interoperability-ig/post/f…
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[Jean Bernard Minster]

I think my concern was misinterpreted in a very narrow way. It had little to do with taxonomy, and a lot to do with the correctness of a database and the mechanisms to preserve its integrity.
If erroneous information makes its way into a popular database because of poor protection, and is not detected quickly, then that erroneous information gets propagated to the extent that control becomes nearly impossible.
This is certainly true of demographic databases, where someone may be declared deceased, and then have to spend years trying to convince the rest of the world that “the news of my death have been greatly exaggerated”.
I fear that poor protection could be exploited deliberately by parties who would have an axe to grind. They could not lose!! Either the wrong information is used unknowingly by subsequent users, or the database itself is discredited and any use of it, honest or not, becomes suspect. This impacts any use of the database for legal purposes.
Consider the NOAA National Climate Data Center (NCDC): One of the common uses of that center is by lawyers in various criminal or civil cases. A trivial example is “what was the weather at that location at the data and time when the crime was committed”. The notion of modifying a poorly protected database to affect application of the law could be the basis for a (rather bad, I should say) TV episode.
Bernard=

[Puneet Kishor]

When I wrote that your concern was “an orthogonal problem,” I didn’t mean to imply that your concern was not a big deal. I only asserted that it may not be *our* big deal. Let us examine the issue briefly from two angles:
1. Does a database license provide protection against intentionally or unintentionally corrupting a database?
No, it does not. There is nothing magical in a license that will, like an antivirus software, watch over the integrity of a database and alert us in case there is corruption, intentional or unintentional. All a license gives you, the licensor, is the legal basis to terminate the license in case of violation, or ask for damages if you could prove those damages were caused by the violation. Remember, it only gives you the legal basis, not necessarily the ability. You may have no resources or the desire to pursue legal action even though you may have the basis to do so. A fully copyright protected database (assuming a copyright license could be validly applied to a database) is just as corruptible as a free and open database. Yet, for some strange reason, most folks conflate a license with some kind of a magic shield that will protect them.
2. Does a license guarantee a certain level of quality?
No, it does not. A license makes no promise of any kind. It is an assertion of one’s rights arising from copyright law. The world is full of novels, films and music, fully protected by copyright, but of terrible quality from both factual and aesthetic perspectives. This is the reason a modern public license such as Creative Commons 4.0 allows the licensor to attach a statement of warranty, if desired. Note, such a statement is not an intrinsic part of the license but is attached to the license.
As Donat eloquently explained, taxonomy especially is a hairy discipline comprising opinions, synonyms and “facts” that eventually everyone settles on *until* we learn otherwise. That is just the nature of this (and all) science, and openness and scrutiny bring old errors and new information to light constantly. Science is not the truth, it is hopefully the quest for the truth. Protecting its quality is orthogonal to licensing it.
I end this unfortunately long missive with the “Three Axioms of Copyright Licenses” http://punkish.org/Three-Axioms-of-Copyright-Licenses
—
Puneet Kishor
Just Another Creative Commoner
http://punkish.org/About

[Jean Bernard Minster]

Dear Puneet:
I understand your argument about licenses.
Nonetheless, I think that “legal interoperability” is a pretty broad term. When an international database managed in some other country (perhaps in multiple countries) is penetrated and misused or modified, with legal consequences —or worse, financial consequences for the users— where do users turn for redress? Who has ultimate jurisdiction?
I realize that this is a can of worms, but thought that at some future point, the discussion could extend well beyond mere violations of licensing terms.
In any event, I think this is something that could only be discussed based on a plausible scenario. There is no time for that right now.
Best-
Bernard

[Puneet Kishor]

The term is as broad as we want it to be. When we started this project, our goal was to ensure that the act of mixing different data sources would be legally permissible and not hindered because of restrictive use conditions of any one component data source. We were not concerned with the correctness of the result but that the result would be usable by all.
If we decide to expand the scope of the term, yes, it would be a can of worms, as you quoth verily, and oh, what a can it would be.
—
Puneet Kishor
Just Another Creative Commoner
http://punkish.org/About=

[ENRIQUE ALONSO GARCIA]

Concerning this debate, it is ibvious that not only this problems but many others arise when legal interoperability moves from simple access to data to and databases to open databases, web services or e-infrastructures, Issues of liability aruce (or literally srpout) in several areas in the web services and e-infrastructures. I raised that question this summer saying that our principles had 2 gaps: 1) they do not distinguish between Ac cess to data, and Access to software inextricably linked to the data that limits Access to data if Access to the software is restricted; and 2) a while range of legal interoperability problems raised in open databases (e.g. crowdsourcing-based data bases), web services (built upon one and specially upon 2 or more databases) and e-infrastructires. Th ¡e telecom of early Augist discarted getting into the subtleties these aspects would imply. So now we have to live with principles on dlegal interoperability LIMITED to access to digital objects.
These aspects disregarded by the RDA-CODATA IG under what I took to have been an intentional choice (because RDA-CODATA has a constant tendency to leave aside complex legal problems – “lawyerisly talk”) has not been so clear in GEO whose DSPs and DMPs are more open and applicable also to more complex web services; and since A¡early Augist then I have been working in parallel in other fora -with Chris Morris, FAO, the EU and the US fisheries data management, agricultural data DataOne, EGI, Globis-B, medical data…and other groups, in particular those that are startu’ing to provide VREs (virtual research environments) – on these other problems because I am convinced that the self-limitation that the RDA-CODATA IG agreed to may allow us, at least, some mínimum agreement on open access to scientific publications and other data sets built upon very basic organizational digital objects management structures (collections of digitized research data).
Let us focus on this only (maybe introducing a paragraph at the beginning clarifying the approach). And it makes sense to focus only in this fisrt pahse or basics of data Access and use because, if we agree to the principles and their implementaton, we will have solved the first basic phase or step which constitute the basics on the core information/fiundation upon which, later .in a conceptual sense- more complex legal interoperability problems arise when those dataset become open or the base upon which web services and e-infrastrcutures are built. So thsese inital problems will not be unsolved problems in the first step of the dataflow chain adding their unsolved legal interoperability problems (on the basics) to the ever increasing legal interoperability complexity of the “new” problems raised by open databases, web services and e-infrastrictures. Bernard´s article and a whole list of many other legal interoperability problems -totally different from those we have been discussiong- arise when data are linked to specific software for their use (a higj stakes issue raised in July in the RDA Barcelona meeting) as well as in almost all open databases, web services and e-infrastructures are considered.
Are we all aware of this? because the debate raised by Bernard´s article [I could send you dozens of similar articles in which equivalent legal interop types of problems are studied] seems to revive a debate I proposed us all to undertake by the end of July before continuing with the guidelines and that was set aside (perhaps prematurely under the summer heat; Paul I think this was one of the couple of them you could not participate) based on the argument (and subsequent common understanding) that the RDA-CODATA should be “scientists oriented” avoiding tackling these problems which are more “lawyers´ issues”.
I have no problema at all leaving them aside but the fact that they reemerge every now and then should make us think in introducing a paragraph at the very beginning saying that we are dealing on’y with the very basic legal interoperability problems of data sharing and that there are very many other types of legal interoperability issues when access to data takes place through non fully open source software, in open databases (public participated crowdsourced databases), web services or e-science infrastructures in which different legal interoperability bottlenecks or restrictions to data arise, none of which are addressed -at least as this stage- by these RDA-CODATA principles. If you wat I can supply a list of such problems if antbody is interested simply in knowing which problema I am talking about.
Take care you all,
Enrique
.
________________________________________
De: punk.kish=***@***.***-groups.org [punk.kish=***@***.***-groups.org] En nombre de punkish [***@***.***]
Enviado el: sábado, 14 de noviembre de 2015 10:20
Para: Jean-Bernard Minster; RDA/CODATA Legal Interoperability IG
Asunto: Re: [rda-legalinterop-ig] Food of thought
The term is as broad as we want it to be. When we started this project, our goal was to ensure that the act of mixing different data sources would be legally permissible and not hindered because of restrictive use conditions of any one component data source. We were not concerned with the correctness of the result but that the result would be usable by all.
If we decide to expand the scope of the term, yes, it would be a can of worms, as you quoth verily, and oh, what a can it would be.
—
Puneet Kishor
Just Another Creative Commoner
http://punkish.org/About=
—
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