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Releasing Council Geospatial Data
Creative Commons licensing can be used to release the bulk of Geospatial data. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand License (CC BY 3.0) is the most appropriate licence to use.
Prior to release, the data needs to be checked to ensure:
It belongs to the council who intends to give it out
It can be provided
It has quality metadata
The issuing council is responsible for performing this check. If it doesn’t meet these criteria it cannot be provided.
Justification for this decision
New Zealand has a strong history of open and transparent government that is internationally recognised. One of the pillars of open and transparent government is open government data and information.
Evidence suggests that opening up this information for re-use has considerable and widespread benefits to government, industry and the public. At the same time, technological and cultural advances also make it cheaper and easier to do.
A number of resources have been referred to in arriving at the above standpoint. These include:
NZGOAL Advice on using the Creative Commons licenses – Legal opinion from A J Park, 14 April 2011
Guidance and resources with more detail:
http://ict.govt.nz/guidance-and-resources/open-government/new-zealand-government-open-access-and-licensing-nzgoal-framework/
http://www.creativecommons.org.nz/