Creative commons licensing and the re-use of public sector or government copyright material: the Australian experience

The question of access to and re-use of materials produced by government and other publicly funded bodies has emerged as an important issue in recent years. The growing interest in open access to government copyright products has been driven not only by technological advances in software and hardware and a growing appreciation of the economic advantages to be gained by states who enable access to and re-use of public sector information, but also by user demand. In the era of Wikipedia, Amazon and Google, when the knowledge of the world is available to all at a click of a button, instant access to government information is not only desired by the
public, it is expected. Furthermore, industry, artists, researchers and scientists, as well as the general public and other government bodies, are increasingly demanding the ability to re-use this material, rather than merely acting as passive consumers.

There is now widespread recognition that such re-use is crucial not only because of its contribution to state economic development but also for creative, educational and scientific purposes. The consequence has been exponentially increasing activity directed at the development and implementation of systems
and procedures to make materials generated and held by governmental entities and publicly-funded research institutes more readily available for access and re-use. The task ahead is to map out how governments can best approach the management of their copyright
materials in order to foster social, cultural and economic innovation.

Citation:
Fitzgerald, A., Fitzgerald, B. and Coates, J., 'Creative Commons Licensing and the Re-Use of Public Sector or Government Copyright Material: The Australian Experience', iCommons Annual 2007, iCommons, July 2007