Legal Interoperability: Making Open (Government) Data Compatible with Businesses and Communities

”Legal interoperability” could be defined as the possibility of legallymixing data coming from different sources (including governmental data, data gener-ated by online communities and data held by private parties). Legal interoperabilityis similar to technical interoperability, since it is a prerequisite for mixing data andcreate new knowledge or services. But it also has its own peculiarities, for instance be-cause it could be achieved simply choosing the appropriate licensing scheme, but alsobecause self-help mechanisms which could – at a certain price – guarantee technicalinteroperability to third parties cannot (lawfully) solve legal interoperability issues.In the mid/long run, legal interoperability could be achieved thorough the evolutionof legal frameworks in order to harmonize the landscape of Government Data. Inthe short term, the shortcomings generated by diversified legal frameworks may bealleviated through the careful choice of copyright licenses. The presentation willfocus on the latter aspects, discussing existing public licenses (such as the CreativeCommons and Open Data Commons ones), representing a de facto standard in thisdomain, and the main open data licenses developed by European governments (e.g.the Open Government Licenses in the UK, the French License Ouverte or the ItalianOpen Data License).