Data ownership?

[Rob Seaman]

The last thread on the Data Curation and Preservation IG was at the  
beginning of December.  I posted a message asserting:  "Something like  
copyright is necessary as the fundamental basis for protecting  
proprietary data rights for our users."

What I didn't indicate was that this thread had jumped over from a non- 
astronomy blog:

	http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2008/11/29/an-ethical-question-involving-ebooks

The discussion there was a bit more - rambunctious - extending to 357  
messages.  Richard Stallman showed up at #229 and yours truly at  
#232.  The original topic was some hypothetical situation about e- 
books, but I brought up astronomical data at message #346.

Stallman's take on astronomical data is basically that nobody owns it:

	"Copyright law in the US does not apply to a collection of facts.   
Copyright only applies to the details of expression of a work, details  
that [the] author chose. So I would expect that copyright does not  
apply to astronomical photographs."

The bulk of the discussion was whether "Intellectual Property" means  
anything at all.

I can't say I disagree with Stallman's free software philosophy  
(whatever you do, don't call it "open source"), but I don't know  
whether it extends to astronomical data products.  The guy is  
relentless on staying on message.  I did my best to expand the  
boundaries of the discussion, but he kept pulling it back to the same  
talking points he would use testifying before a Congressional  
subcommittee.

My fundamental question about the Curation and Preservation of  
astronomical data is what exactly are we preserving and curating if  
nobody owns the data?  A curator is responsible for the holdings of a  
museum - certainly the museum claims ownership of those objects (or  
acts as a proxy for other owners).

Preserve has meanings like:
	1) to keep alive or in existence; make lasting
	2) to keep safe from harm or injury; protect or spare
	3) to keep up; maintain
	4) to keep possession of; retain
	...

It is certainly possible to (temporarily) preserve something whose  
ownership is subject to debate.  One could even argue that in a world  
devoid of intellectual property rights that multiple protectors could  
step forward.  Google or Yahoo might decide to simply slurp up the  
entire VO.  But with ownership comes responsibility.  Without  
responsibility, permanence is called into question.  What Google (or  
any third party) protects today, they may as easily abandon tomorrow.

Similarly, if no single authority "owns" (whatever that means) a data  
set, then several entities might concurrently claim to be curating the  
data, including making conflicting assertions regarding provenance or  
calibration, or modifying the data to match some private agenda.   
Rather than an archive, this situation would resemble the anarchy of  
slashdot or a blog.

The question isn't whether astronomy is likely to devolve into anarchy  
- one might even welcome such entertainment :-)  The question is what  
model of data custody or guardianship applies - or perhaps of First  
Amendment data rights (though Richard Stallman might even balk at this  
formulation).

Or even of more obscure archetypes such as prosopopoeia  
("personification, as of inanimate things") - if it ain't property,  
perhaps data is to be viewed as a legal personage?  Perhaps "data  
rights" are exactly analogous to "human rights".  I suspect this is  
not far from how many scientists view the inalienable integrity of  
"their" data.

Rob