Discussion of how the technology of the internet offers ways of sharing scientific information that may have potential to save life and feed more people. John Willbanks discusses current approaches to copyright and patents as impendiments to realising the benefits of scientific and technological discovery.

Science Commons protocol for open data Announcing the Protocol for Implementing Open Access Data, Science Commons blog, December 16, 2007. Today, in conjunction with the Creative Commons 5th Birthday celebration, Science Commons announces the Protocol for Implementing Open Access Data (”the Protocol”). The Protocol is a method for ensuring that scientific databases can be legally integrated with one another. The Protocol is built on the public domain status of data in many countries (including the United States) and provides legal certainty to both data deposit and data use. The protocol is not a license or legal tool in itself, but instead a methodology for a) creating such legal tools and b) marking data already in the public domain for machine-assisted discovery.

PDF: http://sciencecommons.org/wp-content/uploads/ScienceCommons_Concept_Paper.pdf Science commons is intended to address brarriers to sharing information and materials between researchers while recognising commercial and academic imperatives. Issues to address include research materials transfer, licencing, IP, Copyright and web protocols .

The author, Alma Swan, presents a very read-able overview of the problems with the current system of scholarly communication.