LAPSI 2.0: Legal Aspects of Public Sector Information 2.0

Status: concluded
Period: January 2013 – December 2015
Funding: 446,000 € for the entire project (Nexa Center – 16,000 € )
Funding organization: European Commission (CIP-ICT-PSP.2012.2.2)
Person(s) in charge: Marco Ricolfi (Nexa scientific supervisor); Claudio Artusio (Nexa project manager)

Executive summary

Starting from the results achieved by LAPSI, the LAPSI 2.0 thematic network supported the objectives of the European Open Data strategy by addressing the most relevant legal aspects of access to and reuse of Public Sector Information (PSI), i.e., data produced and collected by public bodies.

Background

The LAPSI thematic network released a set of position papers and policy recommendations, also acknowledged by the European Commission when drafting its Open Data strategy. The LAPSI 2.0 thematic network worked on the remaining open issues in the fields, also in light of the amended European Directive on PSI.

The LAPSI 2.0 consortium held 23 partners from 15 EU countries, coordinated by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Interdisciplinary Centre for Law and ICT).

Objectives

The Nexa Center aimed at continuing sharing knowledge and contributing to building consensus on legal aspects of PSI. In particular, as a partner, the Nexa Center aimed at remaining at the cutting edge of (legal) research and policy support in the PSI domain.

The contribution of the Center focused on the analysis of legal aspects that are tightly connected with technology (e.g., linked data, open data services, and related issues, such as license interoperability and standardization). The LAPSI 2.0 consortium focused the first year of activity on the Licensing and Enforcement work packages; the second year being devoted to discuss the remaining topics of Access, IPR and Competition.

Results

During the first year of its activity, the LAPSI 2.0 network held its kick-off meeting and the first three internal meetings (in Prague, Samos and Ljubljana) concerning licensing and enforcement.

In 2014 three other internal meetings were held (in Paris, Madrid and Amsterdam) – to discuss access to data and IPR & Competition issues.

The LAPSI2.0 Final Conference was held in Brussels, November 28th 2014.

As for the scientific outcomes, the Nexa Center contributed to the development of a collection of good practices on the enforcement of PSI legislation and its redress procedures, a set of guidelines on the licensing of PSI, a report on interoperability among open government licenses, a report on best practices in Intellectual Property, a collection of good practices on institutional embedding and enforcement, a position paper on access to data and a PSI Legal Toolbox. In addition, the Nexa Center participated into the EC Consultation on guidelines on recommended standard licences, datasets and charging for the re-use of PSI. The issue of PSI pricing was further developed in Morando, F. & Iemma, R. & Basso, S. (2013), Is there such a thing as free government data?, Internet Policy Review, 2(4).

LAPSI2.0 also developed a paper on Competition Law issues, a position paper on enforcement and institutional embedding, a collection of good practices on access to data and a position paper on access to data.

As for dissemination activities, the LAPSI 2.0 network organized a workshop on open data legal issues within the Samos 2013 Summit on Digital Innovation and held its first public conference in Ljubljana discussing the results achieved so far and the impact of the new PSI directive. Also a joint workshop with Europeana Creative and ePSIplatform was held in Milan on October 10th 2014 and a joint workshop with SharePSI was held in Lisbon on December 3rd and 4th 2014.