Default copyright position of departmental web documents

Mark R. Diamond made this Freedom of Information request to Department of Education

This request has been closed to new correspondence from the public body. Contact us if you think it ought be re-opened.

The request was successful.

Mark R. Diamond
Sent

The FOI Coördinator
Schools, Youth, Child Care and Corporate Legal Branch
Location Code: C50MA10 - LEGAL
GPO BOX 9880
CANBERRA ACT 2601

Dear FOI Coördinator,

Default copyright position on departmental web documents
-----------------------------------------------------------

I request access to any document (i.e., to any single document, not all such documents) showing whether the the Department of Education has a "default" position with regard to the licensing of material on the departmental website. What I'm really wanting to know is whether a normal user of the Department of Education website can make a presumption that the material is licensed under the kind of open-government terms described on the Attorney General's Department at http://www.ag.gov.au/RightsAndProtection...

For instance, on the page
http://docs.education.gov.au/documents/g...
there is a spreadsheet that can be downloaded by a user. There is no licensing statement in the spreadsheet. Can a user presume that the spreadsheet is licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-s...) licence? And, to get to the heart of my request, what document in the department shows that the presumption would be correct? Or, since most documents don't have any licensing statement, must a user make a special enquiry regarding each one.

Please note I have no particular interest in the spreadsheet I mentioned above; I mean it only as an example.

Please treat this as a request for administrative access. If for some reason the request cannot be dealt with in that way, please treat it as a formal application under the Freedom of Information Act.

Yours faithfully,

Mark R. Diamond

Link to this Report
Education - FOI, Department of Education

2 Attachments

For Official Use Only

Dear Mr Diamond

 

Thank you for your email, below, requesting administrative access to
documents showing the department’s position with respect to the licensing
of intellectual property material published on its website.

 

Please find the following Department of Education policy documents
attached, which contain the information requested:

 

·        Department of Education Intellectual Property Management Policy;
and

·        Factsheet – Application of Creative Commons Attribution Licence
to Public Sector Information.

 

Kind regards

 

Alexandra Brown

Senior Government Lawyer

Schools, Youth, Child Care, and Corporate Legal Branch

Australian Government Department of Education

 

Opportunity through learning

 

Legal in confidence: This transmission is intended only for the use of the
addressee and may contain confidential or legally privileged information.
If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that any use or
dissemination of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have
received this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by
telephone and delete copies of this transmission together with any
attachments.

 

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Link to this Report
Mark R. Diamond
Sent

The FOI Coördinator
Schools, Youth, Child Care and Corporate Legal Branch
Location Code: C50MA10 - LEGAL
GPO BOX 9880
CANBERRA ACT 2601

Dear FOI Coördinator,

Default copyright position on departmental web documents
---------------------------------------------------

Thank you very much for the documents that you sent me regarding copyright. I have not yet read them thoroughly enough to know whether I can assume something about the copyright status of documents on the Department's website, or whether the documents are simply guidance for the Department staff! In any case, if I have any further questions I will contact you again.

Thanks again,

Yours faithfully,
Mark R. Diamond

Link to this Report