Legal NISHA Copyright and Licensing Issues Michael Sparenberg e Institute for Internet Security Gelsenkirchen University, Germany

Overwiew of topic - General Aspects - Software Licensing - Content Licensing - Issues - Next Steps - Q & A

Software Licensing What is covered? Software that is developed within the NISHA project What is not? Tools that NISHA is built upon

Software Licensing Goal: Software available to the general public free of charge Recommended Solution: EUPL (European Union Public License) v1.1 / v1.2 (draft available) Full text and disclaimer available at

Software Licensing Why EUPL? Key advantages: License terms available in all native languages of the EU member states Litigations are regulated according to EU legislation (not US) Better suited for data than Creative Commons (CC) Migration to other license types is possible Designed as a european approach (with project like NISHA in mind)

Content Licensing Part A What is covered? Content that is published by the NISHA project (portal) What is not? Content that is taken from external sources

Content Licensing Part A Goal: Users of NISHA shall be free to Share (copy, distribute and use the database) Create (produce works from the database) Adapt (modify, transform and build upon the database)... Information obtained from the system, as long as they Attribute (notice on the original database for any use or redistribution) Share-Alike (any adapted version must also be licensed under the ODbL) Keep open (redistribute without restrictions (such as DRM))

Content Licensing Part A Recommended Solution: ODC ODbL 1.0 (Open Data Commons - Open Database License) Full text and disclaimer available at granting the right to under the conditions of share, create, adaptattribution, share-alike, keep open

Content Licensing Part A Why ODbL? Key advantages: License terms available in all native languages of the EU member states Copyright issues are ruled according to EU law, not US Better suited for data than Creative Commons (CC) Migration to other license types is possible Designed as a european approach (with project like NISHA in mind)

Content Licensing Part B What is covered? Content that is taken from external sources and spread within the NISHA network and/or published on the NISHA portal What is not? Original Content (Copyright by NISHA)

Content Licensing Part B Goal: Make content from external sources available for NISHA The utilization of external material must comply to the original license Provide a solution for both linked and embedded material Take care of translations and derivative works

Content Licensing Part B Recommended Solution: Setup a list of acceptable license types Open Data Commons: PDDL, ODbL, ODC-BY Creative Commons: CC0, CC-BY, CC-BY-SA... basically all public domain (“copyleft”) license types and those with compatible restrictions (see Part A)

Legal Issues Challenge: Parts of the content provided by NISHA may violate copyright or other law in some (but not all) countries Make sure this will not affect the whole system Recommended Solution: Local Filtering (Blacklisting) Use destination IP address for geolocalisation Content will be silently dropped if necessary

Next Steps Challenge: Recommendations are preliminary, not audited Legal requirements are subject to change Recommended Solution: Formal approval procedure Make sure to fully comply with legal requirements in all member states

Q&A Any Questions? Thanks for your attention! Michael Sparenberg Institut für Internet-Sicherheit |Institute for Internet Security Westfälische Hochschule|Gelsenkirchen University, DE