The law as cyberinfrastructure

Abstract

The Law as Cyberinfrastructure considers open licensing models for use in collaborative endeavour through networked cyberinfrastructure. Open content licensing for copyright material is considered, with examples of the use of open content licensing from two major scientific research publication projects. The most common of the open content licensing models, Creative Commons, is described and the potential use of Creative Commons for databases is demonstrated. Open patent licensing is also examined and the perceived benefits and risks of open patent licensing are discussed