Sam Higgins, research
director, Longhaus
(Credit: Longhaus)
commentary The stories of tragedy and triumph emerging from the Victorian bushfires and North Queensland floods have dominated the newspapers, televisions and PC monitors of the nation for the last few weeks.
Tales of personal loss that were viewed with empathy as the horror unfolded have now given way to consternation regarding rhetoric of organisational inaction by various governments and their agencies.
The first such stories to emerge surrounded delays in the implementation of a Community Information and Warning System. This was a system, having been trialled for flooding, which could have been extended to bushfire warnings.
But it was another of these stories that grabbed our attention as being most relevant to future solutions and involved the limitations of the Victorian Government's capability to provide Google with access to essential data about fires on crown land.
In the article, it was claimed that Crown copyright and Commonwealth data protection provisions needed to be overhauled. While on the face of it this argument may appear to involve a simple solution, those involved in copyright know that this is in fact not the case. On the surface Google's comments seem inconsistent with its own copyright behaviour, and certainly at odds with the behaviour of the open source community. The correct argument is not one of copyright or data protection at all.
Rather it is about access mechanisms and default licensing of data under copyright that requires improvement. Copyright is about the management of an owner's right to protect and choose to exploit something they have created, including information repositories.
These rights exist even when a copyright holder chooses to licence their work either commercially or for free via some form of public licence. The US Federal Court of Appeals ruling in August 2008 between Robert Jacobsen and KAM Industries (PDF) recently reinforced this notion in the open source community by stating:
Traditionally, copyright owners sold their copyrighted material in exchange for money. The lack of money changing hands in open source licensing should not be presumed to mean that there is no economic consideration...
There are substantial benefits, including economic benefits, to the creation and distribution of copyrighted works under public licences that range far beyond traditional licence royalties. For example, program creators may generate market share for their programs by providing certain components free of charge. Similarly, a programmer or company may increase its national or international reputation by incubating open-source projects. Improvement to a product can come rapidly and free of charge from an expert not even known to the copyright holder
Like the open source community, governments all over the world are facing the challenge of separating their ownership rights from their attitude to the access and release of information. Certainly the inability of the Victorian Government to release information to Google about fires burning on public land illustrates a situation where the challenge has not been addressed.
In Australia, the Queensland State Government is taking a lead in this arena through two initiatives outlined below that are designed to first and foremost maintain the Crown's copyright, but simultaneously ensuring information is licensed appropriately to allow ease and equity of access:
- The Right to Information &
Information Privacy initiative represents the culmination of the
Queensland Government's response to the Solomon review into the
Freedom of Information Act.
Currently in draft form the Right to Information Bill and associated Information Privacy Bill aim to increase the accessibility to information resources held by government and both draft documents specifically recognise that "information under the government's control is a public resource", and that "right to information legislation is only one [1] of a number of measures that should be adopted by government to increase the flow of information that the government controls to the community". This approach has led to the second of the Queensland Government's initiatives. - The Government Information Licensing
Framework (GILF) project is currently being trialled by the Office
of Economic and Statistical Research (OESR) in Queensland Treasury and provides a standard set of creative commons-based
licences specifically designed for government information products.
The intent is that these standardised licences can be applied to existing government information sets and make it easier to understand what uses can be made of public sector copyright information inclusive of viewing, copying, and making new products.
Neither the proposed Right to Information regime nor GILF attempt to change the nature of Crown copyright, but instead focus on changing the stance the government has to one where the information is routinely made available under an appropriate licensing arrangement.
Thereby recognising that information access schemes should not compromise the government's ability to commercially exploit data if appropriate to recover costs or fund ongoing service delivery. This is a positive step in the right direction and one that other jurisdictions should watch closely over the coming months.
Ultimately when the true nature of copyright is separated from licensing in this way it reveals how Google's argument and rhetoric requires clarification. Sadly, even with these facts laid out, a stance of default public licensing for the disclosure of government copyright information would have been of immense value to those threatened by the Victorian bushfires.
In the tragic circumstances that unfolded on Black Saturday no one could deny that as the fires raced across public land towards their homes, those residents had a clear right to information.
This article is by Sam Higgins, research director at Queensland-based ICT analyst firm Longhaus. It first appeared in the company's journal Longview early in 2009 and is published on ZDNet.com.au with Longhaus' permission.
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Google's problem is one of being able to scab free information and then ultimately earn revenue from it. I have no problem with Google negotiating with the Victorian Government for access to fire information, or indeed any similar information, however Google should pay a fair price for that access and provide a warranty to its users that the information they are displaying is accurate and updated in a reasonable timeframe. Personally though, I do believe that such a task is beyond Google's abilities.