License: Multiple Options for Licensing

[eaquigley]

Explore other licenses to add to the License + Terms tab in addition to CC0.

• CC-BY

[mercecrosas]

When we do this, we should also make more clear the difference between choosing a license and entering custom terms of use (with the terms of use, users need to click through before downloading).

[pdurbin]

I believe @Venki18 is interested having "CC BY" as the default license rather than "CC0".

I originally left this comment at #3082 (comment) but thank you to @mheppler for mentioning that there's a dedicated issue for this!

[tdilauro]

JHU Data Archive would also be interested in the ability to set CC BY as the default.

[pdurbin]

As I mentioned at #3618 (comment) this is where CC0 is hard coded: https://github.com/IQSS/dataverse/blob/v4.6/src/main/java/edu/harvard/iq/dataverse/TermsOfUseAndAccess.java#L282

[Thalia-Uranga]

I'm interested in the subject, about attaching creative commons licenses to dataverse.

[pdurbin]

I interpret https://twitter.com/ruebot/status/938861697766477827 to mean that defaulting to CC0 is a nasty surprise to some users:

"While I'm very sympathetic to it, it really bugs me that OCUL's Dataverse still defaults a submission to Public Domain, and it's not obvious that it does it unless you're really looking."

[jggautier]

During the 2018 Dataverse Community Meeting, Obiajulu from DataverseNO said DataverseNO is interested in more licenses.

Zenodo shows a dropdown box with licenses it fetches from http://opendefinition.org as you type in their deposit form's text box:

[pdurbin]

Related: #1990

[philippconzett]

The EUDAT License Selector might be of interest here:
https://www.eudat.eu/services/userdoc/license-selector

[pdurbin]

@philippconzett interesting. Thanks. Since the first question is about if data or software is being deposited, it seems relevant to #2739 (code deposit) as well.

[shlake]

I can't find an issue about this, but has anyone thought about having different "terms" or licenses for different files in a dataset.

Setting license on a dataset assumes ALL files have the same license, and if not they should be in a different dataset?

[BPeuch]

Thank you @pdurbin and thanks a lot @poikilotherm! We will also look into this with care.

[poikilotherm]

Please note that I created a very minimal patch to Dataverse to enable CC-BY 4.0 as a license option. We have an utterly need and cannot wait until upstream is ready. I also added links to the license text, which is a common best practice for Creative Commons.

I am happy to share the patch to anyone interested - most likely it will not be accepted upstream by @TaniaSchlatter et al. (Beware - the patch is against 4.19 for now, but it should not conflict with 4.20.)

[djbrooke]

Thanks @poikilotherm for linking to the patch. Other institutions may have the same need and may decide to go that route.

[poikilotherm]

With pleasure @djbrooke 😄

[poikilotherm]

Today I learned about the existance of https://github.com/spdx/license-list-data which looks like a vault full of curated and validated license data, ready to be reused for a license chooser.

[samuel-rosa]

On Friday there was a meeting Brussels of six installations of Dataverse and having CC-BY and other Creative Commons licenses as options in Dataverse was a hot topic.

As I mentioned in the notes, I told everyone that I suggested recently in sprint planning that perhaps this issue could we worked on separately ("small chunk" style) from a complete redesign of the dataset landing page, especially given how much demand there is. Here are the notes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I44zKruk_vBBfvFEIZ2XBYLhZrmb4Xxbgg1I1XF3NL8/edit?usp=sharing

@philippconzett had an interesting comment that I think is worth sharing here:

"Just had a look at the notes. I don't understand the reluctance against CC0. See e.g. OpenAIRE on this: https://openaire.eu/how-to-openly-license-research-data. For most types of open data, CC0 is recommended because it enables maximum reuse of your data, and you avoid attribution stacking; see the DCC guide." https://twitter.com/PhilippConzett/status/1223323273020178434

This concept of attribution stacking is new to me. So perhaps if Dataverse offers a CC-BY option, we should warn about attribution stacking.

I suggest the help text be as follows:

"Datasets will default to a CC0 public domain dedication. CC0 facilitates the reuse and extensibility of research data and helps to avoid citation stacking. Our Community Norms as well as good scientific practices expect that proper credit is given via citation. If you are unable to give datasets a CC0 waiver you may enter custom Terms of Use for datasets."

For more info on citation stacking, a link to https://retractionwatch.com/?s=citation+stacking could be added.

[philippconzett]

I think such an addition could provide some more background information about why CC0 is a good license to use whenever possible. As for the more info link you provided, I think the attribution stacking discussed in this blog post is of another kind than the kind of attribution stacking that is problematic for research data. The blog post discusses the problem of journal editors asking authors to cite particular papers. This is not what (usually) is referred to when we talk about the problem of attribution stacking in licensing research data. For explaining this kind of attribution stacking, I'd rather refer to the guide I linked to in my reply on Twitter, i.e.

Alex Ball (DCC): How to License Research Data, page 4 (available at https://www.dcc.ac.uk/sites/default/files/documents/publications/reports/guides/How_To_License_Research_Data.pdf):

Datasets are particularly prone to attribution stacking, where a derivative work must acknowledge all contributors to each work from which it is derived, no matter how distantly. If a dataset is at the end of a long chain of derivations, or if large teams of contributors were involved, the list of credits might well be considered too unwieldy. The problem is magnified if different sets of contributors have to be credited in a different way, especially if automated methods are used to assemble the dataset – some of the benefits of automation are lost if attribution conditions have to be inspected manually.

[TaniaSchlatter]

The image posted in April of the patch looks like what we have discussed, @poikilotherm.

[poikilotherm]

Looks like #7440 just went through 🥳
Maybe this can be closed then @pdurbin?

[pdurbin]

Yes, the following pull request implements this. So I'll close this issue.

• Support for configurable list of licenses #7920

Check out the multiple license demo video (password "community2022!"). It's also on https://dataverse.org/dataversetv

See also #8347 for some possible future work.