The licensing assistant of the European Data Portal

One of the main difficulties in promoting the reuse of public sector information refers to the diversity of licenses. Given the absence of a general obligation, each public entity can decide the legal conditions to access for subsequent reuse taking into account the legal preference for open licenses, establishing the minimum possible restrictions.

In any case, there are no clear guidelines on how to use licenses, so that each entity could establish the conditions without having to resort to said instrument. Nor is there an unequivocal legal criterion that allows public entities to choose a certain type of license over another; which ultimately implies that the decision is normally based on criteria of opportunity or, where appropriate, based on the prior conditioning of the document management carried out internally by the entity (support in which it is carried out, formats used, respect for the interoperability rules ...).

Based on these premises, it is of great importance to establish specific criteria for the adoption of such decisions, in particular through the approval of a legal norm in the strict sense. This is the case, for example, in the field of the General State Administration, where some general rules for the provision of data have been established by regulation and, likewise, the preference for openness without conditions has been established unless there is an adequate motivation to justify the option for a reuse regime subject to them. Although already non-normative, one can also opt for the establishment of mere guidelines that, although lacking in strict force, can certainly be useful for making general preferences known in each administrative area.

This problem is reproduced and even multiplied if we project it in Europe. Indeed, although the new Directive 1024/2019 has established specific rules on the use of licenses, the truth is that it leaves a wide discretion to the Member States when they approve their own rules since, in addition to simply urging them to encourage use of type licenses, only establishes a mere obligation to ensure (Article 9.2)

because the type licenses for the reuse of public sector documents, which may be adapted to respond to specific applications of the license, are available in digital format and can be processed electronically.

Consequently, Member States are free to only establish conditions without using licenses; configure their own license adapting to specific measures; or, where appropriate, contemplate the use of type licenses. However, in the absence of the aforementioned guidelines and standards, in principle there will be no objective and predetermined criteria for setting the conditions for access and reuse of information, which would affect not only the public entities themselves but, in particular, those who aim to promote a specific project based on reuse, already for commercial purposes and with a political-social objective. Even more when finding that there can be multiple alternatives depending on the way in which the various criteria that can be taken into account are combined. Specifically, beyond the necessary attribution of authorship - recognition - it would be necessary to assess, among other circumstances, whether or not commercialization is allowed; if in the latter case the power of dissemination is conferred under the same legal conditions in which the data is provided; or, without exhaustive spirit, if modifications, adaptations or even translations are admitted as a result of data processing.

To cope with this difficulty, multiple studies and explanations have been prepared that, both from an academic perspective and, also, from a decided practical approach, are intended to help understand the scope of each type of license, which is especially interesting when the analysis attempts to systematize the existing practice in each of the States of the European Union. However, normally such instruments suffer from an excessively rigid approach, which hinders their use and limits their usefulness, hence the importance of promoting dynamic initiatives that effectively facilitate the understanding of the scope of each of the various types of licenses.

This is precisely the added value of the licensing assistant that has launched the European Data Portal. It is a tool that allows you to carry out advanced adjustments that combine, on the one hand, the choice of specifications and conditions of use and, on the other hand, it offers systematized information in very intuitive formats, such as color assignment or provision of clear and easy to understand information through summary sheets.

Specifically, the assistant allows you to make multiple advanced assignment settings by combining three criteria:

• The obligations that the license entails, an element that in turn articulates from several sub-criteria (lesser copyleft, attribution, sharealike, notice, copyleft and status changes).
• The permission granted, a criterion that is also systematized according to five more precise options (derivative works, distribution, reproduction, sublicensing and use patent claims).
• The prohibition or authorization of commercial uses of the data.

All these criteria can be activated in the configuration chosen when using the assistant, so you can search for those licenses that incorporate only one of them or several. It is also possible to activate in each search elements belonging to each of the main criteria, two of them or, also, to those included in three of them, according to the degree of precision indicated in each assumption. In any case, if several search criteria were legally incompatible with each other, no result would be obtained, which allows an intuitive and efficient exploration of all the possibilities of existing licenses for a specific case from searches that, otherwise, would certainly be complex.

In addition, the assistant allows to link each type of license with a summary sheet where the limitations and possibilities of each type of license are presented in a simple and easily to understand way. Even, in addition to indicating the possibilities, obligations and prohibitions assigning intuitive colours to each alternative, sometimes a succinct explanation is included to facilitate the understanding of each of the alternatives. Finally, each of the cards allows linking to the rest of comparable licenses, so that it is possible to perform that analysis in a simple way.

Even if some advanced functions could be added, such as linking licenses with specific initiatives and projects that are using this type to facilitate their understanding or even incorporate a greater depth of analysis highlighting the main advantages and disadvantages of each type license, the truth is that it is an instrument of unquestionable added value when exploring potential configurations of the conditions of use through licenses by public authorities; who, in addition, can go to the assistant to project multiple simulations when deciding the specific type of license to choose in each case based on diverse criteria.

With regard to reusers, the tool facilitates the effective understanding of each type of license, helping to determine what are the obligations assumed and the limitations to information treatments.

In short, the assistant is undoubtedly a remarkable effort in facilitating the interoperability of licenses in legal terms that, without a doubt, can serve as a basis for more complete future initiatives such as the one being promoted within the framework of the platform Joinup, where a suggestive initial working document has already been generated.

Content prepared by Julián Valero, professor at the University of Murcia and Coordinator of the Research Group "Innovation, Law and Technology" (iDerTec).

Contents and points of view expressed in this publication are the exclusive responsibility of its author.