[Talk-us] State Open Data

[Brian May]

On 8/15/2018 1:47 AM, OSM Volunteer stevea wrote:
> Again, one of the most important things that might be said (in talk-us) about "State Open Data" is that there are at least fifty different sets of rules.  "Check your state laws and county practices" remains excellent advice.  Yes, it can be complex, but if in a state like California, we're in pretty good shape.  In New York, it's different.  Et cetera (48 different other ways).
>
> Documenting state-by-state "rules" and legal state-data copyright practices-as-they-apply-to-our-ODbL could turn into a WikiProject.  (And then traffic in this mailing list might diminish yet more).  Yet, it's a rapidly moving topic and notice how everyone is so careful to say "I'm not a lawyer, but..." and gets the bright idea that OSM's seriously-busy Legal Working Group might spend time double-checking things, which simply is not practical.  So I don't see how a wiki could realistically keep up in real-time, even with a team of well-paid top lawyers, unless they fall from the sky like rain and I don't see that in tomorrow morning's forecast.
>
> I don't know a good solution to this except to keep open good dialog, even if it means we repeat ourselves.  This isn't like a hard math problem that got solved a few centuries ago, like orbital mechanics.  It is a very up-to-the-minute legal edge that we walk here, out on the hairy precipice of "do I or don't I enter these data?"  "Is this a good idea or could it jeopardize the project?"
>
> We can be both bold and careful, but it isn't easy.  Ask.  Dialog.  Read.  Discuss.  It is getting better.
>
> SteveA
> California
>
All good points.

If a billionaire is reading this list and wants to put their money 
towards doing a lot of public good and good for the economy in general 
(data is the new oil), they could make the sky rain lawyers!  Here's an 
idea for said billionaire: Create or fund an existing non-profit that 
hires a band of lawyers to roam the country and challenge these public 
records laws that put restrictions on public data, etc. And lobby 
legislatures to change the laws to make the public records more open to 
the public and free from copyright and exorbitant fees. There are a lot 
of individual organizations and people working on changing the current 
situation in their corner of the world, but the effort could use more 
organized and sustained activity to speed up the process of opening up 
data around the country. Its also an economic equality issue. I'm sure 
many of the biggest (and boldest) corporations already have their hands 
on data like parcels and tax records for every county in the US, even 
where data is supposedly copyrighted and sold for tens of thousands of 
dollars per county. So, like you said Steve, until that magical 
billionaire appears to save the day for public records laws, we just 
need to just keep the issue alive by discussing, sharing info, 
educating, etc.

Brian