California Came Dangerously Close to Ruining What Makes Open Data ‘Open’

One of the defining traits of open data is that it is freely available to the public without any restrictions, writes Daniel Castro in Government Technology. In short, open data must be open. However, in March, a committee in the California Legislature approved Assembly Bill 2880, which would grant the state and local governments the ability to apply intellectual property restrictions to all government materials. While supporters of the bill ostensibly intended it to prevent potential intellectual property copyright disputes with contractors, in effect the legislation could make everything that a public entity creates—such as reports, maps and of course data—subject to copyright protections that would restrict the public’s ability to access and use this material. Fortunately the California Senate recently struck those provisions from the bill, but had it not, open data would have been dealt a serious blow in the state. Regardless, that any legislation would propose establishing such authority indicates that there is still a long way to go to ensure that policymakers recognize the importance of open government data.