Creation of national semantic licenses and their attachment to data and content

The thesis work contributes to Data Licenses Clearance Center - DALICC project: https://dalicc.net

About the DALICC project: The creation of derivative data works, i.e. for purposes like content creation, service delivery or process automation, is often accompanied by legal uncertainty about usage rights and high costs in the clearance of licensing issues. The DALICC project aims to develop a software framework that supports the automated clearance of rights issues in the creation of derivative data works. In essence, DALICC helps to determine which information can be shared with whom to what extent under which conditions, thus lowering the costs of rights clearance and stimulating the data economy.

Specifically, the thesis addresses the extension of the DALICC License Repository with the national licenses, with provisioning of the semantic license models as well as the corresponding documentation.

The linked data empowered data repository for storing the structured semantic license data is set up. The data access is provided via appropriate interfaces using e.g. REST/Web Service access, SPARQL endpoint (for semantic data), etc. The repository is serving anybody who wants to address checking of the licenses’ specifics and their compatibility, using reasoning engines or license design tools.

Further, this Bachelor thesis is to enable and facilitate the attachment of the semantic licenses to the data and content. The possibilities should be evaluated, and they can include such options as through approaching the solution employing meta tags (RDF file attached or link to the file) or another system like a public blockchain. The corresponding tool support, such as a web application accessible with an API (that could work together with some platforms like GitHub, Facebook, ...) is to be realised. A part of the solution may also include a Python library for connecting data and content files and licenses.

To sum up, the thesis work focuses on extension of the licenses repository, design and development of an instrument enabling attachment of the semantic licenses to the data and content, and the system's uptake by the masses.

References:

1. Pellegrini, T., Havur, G., Steyskal, S., Panasiuk, O., Fensel, A., Mireles-Chavez, V., Thurner, T., Polleres, A., Kirrane, S., Schönhofer, A., 2019. DALICC: A License Management Framework for Digital Assets, in: Data Protection / LegalTech - Proceedings of the 22nd International Legal Informatics Symposium IRIS 2019, Colloquium. Presented at the IRIS 2019 - 21st International Legal Informatics Symposium, Editions Weblaw, Salzburg, Austria.

2. Pellegrini, T., Mireles, V., Steyskal, S., Panasiuk, O., Fensel, A., & Kirrane, S. (2018). "Automated Rights Clearance Using Semantic Web Technologies: The DALICC Framework". In Semantic Applications (pp. 203-218). Springer Vieweg, Berlin, Heidelberg.

3. Panasiuk O., Steyskal S., Havur G., Fensel A., Kirrane S. (2018) Modeling and Reasoning over Data Licenses. In: Gangemi A. et al. (eds) The Semantic Web: ESWC 2018 Satellite Events. ESWC 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 11155. Springer, Cham.