Canberra: Wednesday 7 October 2009

The Australian government 2.0 taskforce invites submissions for the mashupAustralia Competition. The Competition opened on 7th October 2009 and will close on the 13th November 2009.

To assist the competition the taskforce has brought together data from over 15 different agencies as well as State and Territory Governments (including the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Northern Territory, South Australia, Queensland and Victoria) on licensing terms that permit mashups. You can find these datasets on the new “beta” data directory on data.australia.gov.au.

The prizes on offer are stated as:

Prizes (aka. “the Mashies”)

• $10,000 for Excellence in Mashing category
• $5,000 for Highly Commendable Mashups
• $2,500 for Notable Mashing Achievements

In addition, we are also offering some additional prizes for the following categories:

• $2,000 for the People’s Choice Mashup prize
• $2,000 for the Best Student entry
• $1,000 bonuses for the Transformation Challenge

We may even award more than one prize for each category if we are overwhelmed by quality mashups!

MashupAustralia states under Open Access to PSI that:

The concept of “open access” means access on terms and in formats that clearly permit and enable such use and re-use by any member of the public. This is broader than simply providing mere access to material, which permits only reading of the material or limited non-commercial use. Because open access can facilitate use and re-use of government information, it can drive innovation in the digital economy and generate real economic and social benefits. It allows anyone with an innovative idea to add value to existing public sector information for the common good, often in initially unforeseen or unanticipated ways.

The reason that open access is important is that, without an express statement that public use and re-use is permitted, applicable law (in this instance, primarily copyright law) and the limited scope of standard licensing requires that companies and the public ask for permission before mashing up data. This includes Australian government materials because Australian law (unlike US law) recognises Crown copyright . This can create barriers and frictions to use and reuse that limit the economic and social benefit that may otherwise result from a more flexible approach.

Related news topics

Towards Government 2.0

Open up information for re-use

Australia Opens up PSI for economic benefit!

Victoria publishes report on PSI