Since we all love and use the OPSD data packages, I have it on my list to include it in the OEP.
Some data sets are already included (RES and CONV powerplants) but I am concerned with one issue:
The OPSD scripts are licensed (MIT license) and open, but the data itself does not have an (open) license.
In my understanding this is the basic principle of open data (first star of LOD).
Or it can be seen as public domain data? This is complicated, especially under German copyright regulations.
I know that we all consider it open, but in order to be (legally) published on the OEP, it must be licensed.
Since we have a lot of the OPSD team in the openmod, I’m happy to hear your comments!
It was not possible to put a license due to missing data of the original data sources. To my knowledge all original data owners were informed and just a few rejected. But: no license on the ready packages.
This is also the reason for the disclaimer:
“Disclaimer: Data might be subject to copyright or related rights. Please consult the primary data owner.” https://data.open-power-system-data.org/
So none of that data can be classified as open data. That sucks!
Now we have to discuss how to proceed with this kind of data sets.
They are available anyway and widely used by the community.
But redistributing it (online) is problematic.
Did you discuss creating a derived work and publish that new data with a license?
Hi Ludwig. A dataset that lacks a license is under all-rights-reserved copyright by default. No ifs or buts. This has nothing to do with Germany, it is mandated under the 1887 Berne Convention. Specific details related to OPSD use cases are covered in the legal opinion Till Jaeger wrote for the project in 2017. The PSI re-use submission I recently coordinated for the European Commission (Morrison et al 2017) deals with the downsides of unlicensed public data in quite some detail. On the upside, ENTSO-E is aware of our concerns and is attempting to address them. If you want open electricity data to stock the OEP database, try the French TSO Open Data RTE site which employs a CC BY 2.0 compatible license.
Note too that Elsevier, for instance, requires a statement from the lead author that the authors hold all necessary rights to the uploaded material, including any supplementary data. Some authors, I hear, happily tick that box when this is not the case. I doubt their legal departments would allow this if they were aware of the practice. HTH, Robbie.
Hello again Ludwig. There are special considerations in relation to datasets sourced from the ENTSO-E transparency platform because the platform is mandated under Commission regulation 543/2013 (listed below). See Jaeger (2017) for an analysis (listed above).
But, generally, if a derived work still contains material from the original dataset and the original dataset is under all-rights-reserved copyright, then no, one has no right add to an open license and make the derived dataset publicly available.
This is why it is so import to get this kind of information released under permissive open licenses (CC BY 4.0) or public domain dedications (CC0 1.0).
Note too that not all of these datasets are eligible for copyright. The submission mentioned above also asks the European Commission to clarify what is copyrightable and what is not in relation to energy sector datasets. HTH, Robbie