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In a sign that the discussion over what public data should be public is ongoing, the New York Times has reported that the NY Metropolitan Transportation Authority has issued a takedown notice to an iPhone developer who has used train schedules in his iPhone application.
The Authority claims that public train schedule data is its intellectual property - similar to the claim by NSW Rail when it issued four takedown notices against application developers reusing NSW rail timetable data in March this year.
In this case, however, the Authority is seeking to profit off licensing the information for distribution - despite providing it for free. This was because the iPhone application maker was charging US$2.49 for his application, which he says is merely to cover the costs of producing the application.
Note that the Authority is not completely government-owned, however is paid by US governments to operate a public service, which might become an interesting area of debate in future regarding date in the public interest generated by public-private partnerships such as tollways, utilities (ActewAGL for example) and Job Network members. Even access to postcode geodata in Australia might become a consideration.
If the government contracts a third party to provide a service, should part of that arrangement include ensuring that all public data generated is made available to the public?
I think it will be a discussion we'll need to have in the next year.
It will be interesting to see how the New York situation is resolved - particularly considering the level of negative media attention the Authority has been receiving.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
New York Transportation Authority sues iPhone developer over schedule information | Tweet |
Cluetrain for Government | Tweet |
Some of you may have read The Cluetrain Manifesto. This is widely considered to be one of the seminal works for Web 2.0, albeit being written in 1999, before the expression Web 2.0 was coined.
The Cluetrain Manifesto outlined 95 theses for how markets would develop and people behave online, forshadowing the growth of social media.
Now Steve Radick over at the Social Computing Journal has published a 'cluetrain' for governments, with 20 theses that it would be wise for public servants to read and consider.
The theses are available in Steve's article, Twenty Theses for Government 2.0, Cluetrain Style.
Read them now.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
New Zealand Draft Open Access and Licensing Framework released | Tweet |
Thanks to the eGovernment Resource Centre, I've become aware of the New Zealand Draft Open Access and Licensing Framework that was release late last month.
Structured as a discussion paper, it sets out guidelines for the use of 'no copyright' and Creative Commons use across the NZ government to support the release and appropriate re-use of government generated data and materials.
One of the issues it aims to address is,
current confusion, uncertainty and criticism on the part of members of the public around Crown copyright and licensing, including difficulties being experienced through the various and inconsistent licensing practices across the State Services.
I believe this would resonate with organisations such as OpenAustralia who are attempting to reuse government data in Australia (and recently had their request rejected by Queensland).
The document provides a thorough guide to Creative Commons copyright in New Zealand.
It also includes a handy review and release decision tre to make it easy for government departments to select the licensing most appropriate for their data and documents. On first glance this tree looks jurisdictionally agnostic - meaning it could as easily be applied in Australia as it could in New Zealand.
The entire document has been released in a blog-style format, supporting comments on each page (though there are none visible to-date).
I don't expect Australia to be that far behind.
Monday, September 07, 2009
NSW launches 'Apps4NSW' with $100,000 in prizes | Tweet |
Launched by the NSW Premier at NSWSphere on Friday, Apps4NSW is the first Australian public competition for reusing online NSW government data to create useful applications for the public.
Quoting the new site,
In the competition, individuals and groups will compete for cash prizes by creating ideas and software application prototypes that can be used on websites and mobile devices. This competition will foster collaboration between NSW citizens and the Government as well as promote and highlight innovation in the digital media sector.This reflects the App for America competition that has been running for two years in the US, and a similar competition recently run in the UK via the site Show us a better way.
There will be two competition categories:
* ideas for applications or services based around public or government data, and
* prototype software applications that demonstrate the idea in action.
In conjunction with this announcement, the NSW government has also announced the launch of data.nsw.gov.au, a site that will shortly begin providing access to NSW government data feeds available for reuse online. It even has a Twitter stream at dataNSW that will provide notifications as data feeds are released.
Data.nsw.gov.au announced - open NSW data feeds for reuse coming soon | Tweet |
The NSW government has announced the launch of data.nsw.gov.au, a site that will shortly begin providing access to NSW government data feeds available for reuse online. It even has a Twitter stream at dataNSW that will provide notifications as data feeds are released.
Announced at NSWSphere last Friday, alongside the release of the Apps4NSW public competition, data.nsw.gov.au will first release RTA data around the end of September - conclusively ending the controversy that began when NSW Rail threatened four developers with legal action for repackaged NSW rail timetables into applications for iPhones, breaching copyright.
