We’re very pleased that LAPSI will be joining us next week in Warsaw for a workshop on legal issues around PSI. In this post Cristiana Sappa and Claudio Artusio explain a bit more about what you can expect…
Public sector information can be defined as the wide range of information that public sector bodies collect, produce, reproduce and disseminate in many areas of activity while accomplishing
their institutional tasks. It may include (among other things) social, economic, geographical, cadastral,
weather, tourist, and business information. Information generated and collected by public sector
bodies represents a veritable gold-mine; it might make a much greater contribution to EU economies
and societies, if current legal barriers to access and re-use were removed.
The European Union adopted in 2003 a Directive on Public Sector Information re-use (d. 2003/98/
EC), which is at this time subject to an impact assessment with a view to amending it.
LAPSI is the European Thematic Network studying Legal Aspects of Public Sector Information Re-
use. It intends to build a network apt to become the main European point of reference for high-level
policy discussions and strategic action on all legal issues related to the access and the re-use of the
PSI, namely in the digital environment.
The LAPSI Thematic Network is aimed to produced policy recommendations in view of the impact
assessment exercise linked to the revision of the Directive 2003/98/EC scheduled for 2012.
More info at: http://www.lapsi-project.eu/
The LAPSI Workshop will introduce two legal sessions on Public Sector Information (PSI)
within the OGDCamp.
A first session will supply a general overview on PSI norms and principles related to contracts;
Julián Valero-Torrijos and Prodromos Tsiavos will explain the basic notions and practices to all interested parties
that want to get more familiar with access and re-use of PSI.
A second session studies specific issues of PSI licenses on re-use; this clinic is tailor-made for
stakeholders such as policy makers or executors, civil servants and re-users. Speakers at the
LAPSI clinic are: Julián Valero-Torrijos, Prodromos
Tsiavos, Sarah Pearson and Federico Morando. They will
discuss in depth the legal obstacles involved in both PSI access and re-use, the compatibility
of licences with European PSI rules, the interoperability between different licences (Creative
Commons/Open Data Commons/Open Game License) and the legal interoperability between
licenses, as adopted within various Regional PSI initiatives.
Get full details of the workshop, plus info about other LAPSI events happening next week in Warsaw, here!
Theodora is press officer at the Open Knowledge Foundation, based in London. Get in touch via press@okfn.org
