Creative Commons, as many of you know, provides and promotes the sharing of material by creating licenses that allow authors to chose the conditions how their work can be reused. In the science community, Creative Commons is especially important because all scientific research is build on the reuse and re-analysis of other scientific works in an international and interdisciplinary world.
Creative Commons just released CC4 and claims to be the most “globally, legally robust licenses produced by CC to date.” There are many improvements that include internationalization, interoperability and durability, but the most exciting is the advances for data, PSI, science, and education. These exciting advances address the obstacles of adoption of CC by other governments, aka database rights in the EU. According to Puneet Kishor the implications for the change is great:
That means a database creator in the EU, or any other jurisdiction where SGDR might exist, can use a CC4 license allowing use of the database without the user worrying about violating any database rights. In other words, using CC4 relieves the creator from separately licensing database rights, and it relieves the downstream database user – in particular if located in a region where SGDR apply– from worrying about violating any database rights
If you want to learn more about Creative Commons 4.0 check out this blog post or interview with Puneet Kishor. If you want to learn about applying a Creative Commons license, click here.
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Thanks for the info about Creative Commons 4.0. I wasn’t aware of the internationalization features. Can you tell me what SGDR stands for? And what it means to have SGDR active in a region?
That’s a great question! SGDR stands for sui generis database rights. These rights are mostly found in the EU and a few other countries as a result of free trade and other agreements.
In Creative Commons 4.0, a database creator in the EU (or anywhere where SGDR is a factor) can apply a CC4 license that allows use of that database without users being worried about violating database rights. Basically, “using CC4 relieves the creator from separately licensing database rights and it relieves the user from worrying about violating any database rights.” (http://blogs.plos.org/tech/creative-commons-for-science-interview-with-puneet-kishor/)
Does that answer your question? Let me know if you have any other questions about it! It’s a little complicate, but really interesting and exciting