[OSM-legal-talk] Fwd: [okfn-discuss] Law and the GeoWeb

[Rob Myers]

I recognise some of the names on that list. ;-)

- Rob.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [okfn-discuss] Law and the GeoWeb
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2010 13:28:11 -0600
From: Mr. Puneet Kishor <punkish at eidesis.org>
Reply-To: Open Knowledge Foundation discussion list 
<okfn-discuss at lists.okfn.org>
To: Open Knowledge Foundation discussion list <okfn-discuss at lists.okfn.org>

Law and the GeoWeb
==================

A workshop on "Intellectual Property and Geographic Data in the Internet 
Era" sponsored by Creative Commons and the United States Geological 
Survey (USGS) in conjunction with the annual meeting of AAG, April 11, 
2011, Seattle, Washington. The workshop will be held at the campus of 
Microsoft Research, and will be streamed live on the Internet.

This workshop will focus on intellectual property issues with geographic 
data, exploring situations when users and creators ranging from 
individuals to local, state and federal agencies as well as private 
companies and non-profits create, share and reuse geographic information 
from different sources over the Internet in their projects.

For more information, please see http://punkish.org/geoweb/index.html or 
search on Twitter for #lawandgeoweb

Rationale
=========

U.S Copyright Law protects tangible original works with creative content 
but the law also ensures that facts, that is, data that are discovered 
rather than invented, remain free for everyone's benefit. This 
ideas/expression dichotomy creates a lot of issues in the Internet age 
when information is very easily created, shared, used and reused.

With inexpensive computing and networking power available to everyone, 
geographic datasets are increasingly being created, shared and used by 
individuals, grassroots organizations, and private corporations. These 
data come with different expectations with regards to how they may be 
used resulting in a hodgepodge of licensing and contractual obligations 
that hinders data interoperability. Mixing data of different provenance 
creates new data with typically more restrictive licensing conditions. 
Public agencies may be unable to mix licensed data with government data 
due to restrictive licensing terms of the resultant dataset, and thus, 
may be unable to capitalize on and benefit from user-generated content.

Workshop Structure
==================

The current line-up of speakers from federal, state and local agencies, 
Creative Commons, grassroots agencies, intellectual property lawyers, 
the geospatial industry, and research and academia includes:

* Ed Arabas, National States Geographic Information Council
* Greg Babinski, King County, State of Washington
* Michael Brick, Microsoft Legal, Bing Maps
* Steve Coast, Founder, Open Street Maps
* Kari Craun, Director, National Geospatial Technical Operations, USGS
* Ed Parsons, Chief Technologist, Google Maps, Google
* Diane Peters, General Counsel, Creative Commons
* Tim Trainor, Bureau Chief, Geography Division, US Census Bureau
* Paul Uhlir, Director, Board for Research, Data and Information, NRC

The format of the workshop will encourage discussion and participation.

Participate
===========

To ensure those directly involved in the topic get a chance to attend 
the workshop, attendance is based on a short application form accessible 
at http://punkish.org/geoweb/participate/in_person/index.html. Deadline 
for applying for the workshop is December 18, 2010. Selected applicants 
will be informed by January 15, 2011.

Attendees will also be able to submit longer papers for publication in a 
special issue of the peer-reviewed, completely free and open access 
online journal "International Journal of Spatial Data Infrastructure 
Research" published by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.

Logistics
=========

The workshop is organized in conjunction with the AAG annual meeting. 
The workshop will be held on the campus of Microsoft Research, and run 
from 1 PM to 5 PM on Monday, April 11, 2011.

There is no fee for this workshop and participants do not have to 
register for the AAG Annual Meeting. The workshop is limited to 50 
participants to facilitate discussion.

Proceedings of the workshop and selected longer papers will be published 
in a special issue of the open-access International Journal of Spatial 
Data Infrastructure Research published by the Joint Research Centre of 
the European Commission.

Contact
=======

Please contact either Puneet Kishor, Creative Commons 
[punkish at creativecommons.org] or Barbare Poore, USGS [bspoore at usgs.gov] 
if you have any questions.




_______________________________________________
okfn-discuss mailing list
okfn-discuss at lists.okfn.org
http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-discuss