topic Re: Content Copyright in Data Management Questions

Content Copyright

EdwardSmathers — Fri, 28 Jul 2017 12:03:20 GMT

Hello,

I have a fairly non-unique subject that I am accumulating location information about (New York State Waterfalls). I know that a good part of the content is unique to my "survey". Other content I researched and included in the citation, even though we personally fact checked the information after collecting the initial point information (waterfall name and coordinance).

My question would be:
Once I decide to make this survey public, how do I protect the data from being mined by a "competitor" for their gain? I do not plan on financially gaining from this project, but I have a team of people that have placed decades of work into this survey and I wish to keep them cited for their work.

I am aware of the meta that can be added, but this only serves as a warning... I would like it to be known if anyone has used the data from my specific survey.

A second question would be:

How do I share the content, but restrict access to the "private" locations (posted or inaccessible)? I would love to build a layer only seen by my team and Accademia.

Re: Content Copyright

Lake_Worth_BeachAdmin — Fri, 28 Jul 2017 13:19:13 GMT

So you only want your organization to see the data? add it to AGOL and set the appropriate sharing properties.

Re: Content Copyright

EdwardSmathers — Mon, 31 Jul 2017 11:08:38 GMT

Thank you, Joe!

The premise is that I will create a "public" facing map using a separate feature layer so the posted locations do not get accidentally shared. Once this map is published to the public I fear that the data can be easily mined and the citation stripped. How do I protect it so that my company and the persons involved with the survey are kept properly cited and the data not "stolen"?

I currently have a map published to www.DigTheFalls.com and wish to use ArcGIS embedded in the future.

On the flip side, the complete survey would only be made fully available to those of which would use it for research and other activities.

Re: Content Copyright

XanderBakker — Mon, 31 Jul 2017 12:21:48 GMT

Hi Edward Smathers ,

If I understand you correctly, you want to protect the locations and photographs? For the photographs you could burn your logo into the photo, which will make a bit less attractive to use your content. For the locations, you should follow the suggestion provided by Joe Head , by creating a group (Create groups—ArcGIS Online Help | ArcGIS ), add named users for your colleagues to that group (Own groups—ArcGIS Online Help | ArcGIS ) and share the locations only with the people in that group (Share items—ArcGIS Online Help | ArcGIS ).

When you share locations (a hosted feature service) publicly, this content could be extracted by anyone using tools like the one described here: https://community.esri.com/docs/DOC-6496-download-arcgis-online-feature-service-or-arcgis-server-featuremap-service . I have seen services that did not have the "query" capability enabled which could be a solution, but I'm not sure if that is possible in ArcGIS Online.

Re: Content Copyright

EdwardSmathers — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 12:04:53 GMT

Hello xander_bakker‌,

You have confirmed my fears that, like anything on the internet, the data is not protected once it is shared publicly. This is one of the reasons I enjoyed Fusion Tables so much...

I will have to research a bit more and possibly even team up with other industry professionals to be sure the work is properly attributed moving forward so that even if the data were mined there would be multiple locations using the citation.

Re: Content Copyright

XanderBakker — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 12:39:08 GMT

I am tagging KGerrow-esristaff‌ and dlaw-esristaff‌ to see if they may have suggestions for you.

Re: Content Copyright

Lake_Worth_BeachAdmin — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 13:42:45 GMT

you can disable the features ability to be extracted, queried. however there are other means of users exporting the data from your web map but its more difficult. if you want the data to be open to the public then you have to understand its also open to being mined.

Re: Content Copyright

KellyGerrow — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 16:36:42 GMT

Hi Edward Smathers‌,

There are a few ways to prevent your public data from being mined by others, such as disabling the ability to extract data and protecting the rest url so that it can only be connected to via a specific app: Limit access to public layers - Crowdsource Reporter | ArcGIS for State Government

That being said, if the data is available and queryable by the public, someone with a lot of time on their hands could query and copy and paste the data. If you are looking to just visualize your data and not provide vector information like attributes or geometry, consider publishing a tiled service without a corresponding feature service. This will provide visualization without access to the feature data.

Publish hosted tile layers from files—ArcGIS Online Help | ArcGIS

Additionally you can use sharing settings with other ArcGIS Online users to ensure that only authenticated users of your choosing can view the data:

Share items—ArcGIS Online Help | ArcGIS

Thanks,

Kelly

Re: Content Copyright

EdwardSmathers — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 17:04:56 GMT

KGerrow-esristaff‌ - Thank you for the information. If I am understanding correctly, the tile layer would essentially be a set of "pictures" of my data, but would not allow clicking points to show the pop-up data box?

I want to be sure I can offer data about each point, but I still really like your option! Thank you so much for the suggestion. I will take it to my team to see if this will work for us.

Best regards,

Re: Content Copyright

KellyGerrow — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 17:53:18 GMT

Hi Edward,

If feature data isn't published than it can't be queried and displayed in a pop up. Check out what your exact requirements are and there may be some type of hybrid approach you can take, or use group sharing to ensure security of the data.

-Kelly

Re: Content Copyright

cedwards8511 — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 21:58:04 GMT

This has been an issue my entire career in city government (in which I also work in a college town where we provide assistance to students often). All of my work is technically public, so I have seen my work cannibalized in many private projects (that others are making money off of). I personally like the idea of 'public' or 'open' data and want to provide as much data to people as I have.

The question is going to be, why do you want to publish the data and who is it intended for? I understand the wanting to keep your name associated with data, especially when you've done something really cool, but is it worth limiting the access to it?

I would say the best you can do is create really good metadata, and maybe add a source field into the data itself. I can promise that limiting the access to only academia would not prevent it from being hijacked.

Re: Content Copyright

EdwardSmathers — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 11:42:47 GMT

edwa8511‌ - Your personal experience is very much appreciated here. If I were going it alone on this project I would not have an issue with making the data open source. A long time ago, in order to gain access to a vast amount of data, I signed NDA (probably not legally binding at this point, but I have a lot of respect for the source). The NDA made it very clear that certain data sets were to stay off public domain/being published.

I totally agree with your sentiment here and think, in an ideal world, knowledge is power. In this circumstance, knowledge offers party-goers and otherwise irresponsible individuals the access to locations otherwise unknown to the general public. Some other notable websites have proven this theory by publishing many posted and public location, only to have people further trash the locations and hurt our efforts in land-owner relations... Basically, it is the "waterfall communities fault" for what is happening to these beautiful locations...

OK... A little off track. But I hope this offers some insight.

Re: Content Copyright

Lake_Worth_BeachAdmin — Fri, 04 Aug 2017 12:28:24 GMT

You can use the splash screen widget to post a disclaimer and require users to accept in order to continue. Technically this won't prevent users from breaking the copyright agreement but it does give some legal support for your case and may sway users from attempting to download the data.

Re: Content Copyright

EdwardSmathers — Fri, 04 Aug 2017 15:46:55 GMT

I do like that idea as well!
I was thinking something similar for the posted locations too (even though those will not be public facing) just to say something like, "we will support/back/testify for any landowner claims of trespassing and vandalism of their property."

Thanks jhead@lakeworth‌

Re: Content Copyright

Lake_Worth_BeachAdmin — Mon, 07 Aug 2017 20:15:40 GMT

no problem @Edward Smathers .

here is a link to a zoning map our city uses with a disclaimer on, maybe give you an idea on yours

ArcGIS Web Application