Open data licensing: More than meets the eye

In discussions of open government data (OGD) the question of how such data should be licensed or whether they need to be licensed at all has to date received only limited attention in the academic literature. This paper seeks to make a contribution to reducing this gap. In order to do this, the concept of an open licence is first defined. Then, using a study of the extant literature and an examination of current open data licences, the challenges in designing an open data licence are explored. As part of this, relevant aspects of the debate that continue to surround such licensing in the worlds of open systems, freeware, shareware and open source are briefly discussed. A critique of a number of existing data licences including various international and national licencing frameworks is presented. The Creative Commons (CC) and Open Database (ODbL) Licenses are critically examined and problems with the concepts underlying a number of other licences are highlighted. The question of what may be suitable for standard public licenses and what may require bespoke or customised licensing is discussed. It is argued that many libertarian ideas about OGD licensing are unrealistic and that good licensing is critical to effective use of OGD. The paper concludes with a number of issues that would be designers of OGD licences need to address.