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Background: As biological disciplines extend into the ‘big data’ world, they will need a names-based infrastructure to index and interconnect distributed data. The infrastructure must have access to all names of all organisms if it is to manage all information. Those

Background: As biological disciplines extend into the ‘big data’ world, they will need a names-based infrastructure to index and interconnect distributed data. The infrastructure must have access to all names of all organisms if it is to manage all information. Those who compile lists of species hold different views as to the intellectual property rights that apply to the lists. This creates uncertainty that impedes the development of a much-needed infrastructure for sharing biological data in the digital world.

Findings: The laws in the United States of America and European Union are consistent with the position that scientific names of organisms and their compilation in checklists, classifications or taxonomic revisions are not subject to copyright. Compilations of names, such as classifications or checklists, are not creative in the sense of copyright law. Many content providers desire credit for their efforts.

Conclusions: A ‘blue list’ identifies elements of checklists, classifications and monographs to which intellectual property rights do not apply. To promote sharing, authors of taxonomic content, compilers, intermediaries, and aggregators should receive citable recognition for their contributions, with the greatest recognition being given to the originating authors. Mechanisms for achieving this are discussed.

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    Title
    • Scientific Names of Organisms: Attribution, Rights, and Licensing
    Contributors
    Date Created
    2014-02-04
    Resource Type
  • Text
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    Identifier
    • Digital object identifier: 10.1186/1756-0500-7-79
    • Identifier Type
      International standard serial number
      Identifier Value
      1756-0500
    Note
    • The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://bmcresnotes.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1756-0500-7-79

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    This is a suggested citation. Consult the appropriate style guide for specific citation guidelines.

    Patterson, D. J., Egloff, W., Agosti, D., Eades, D., Franz, N., Hagedorn, G., . . . Remsen, D. P. (2014). Scientific names of organisms: attribution, rights, and licensing. BMC Research Notes, 7(1), 79. doi:10.1186/1756-0500-7-79

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