Remarks
Data collection, data management, data extraction and the inevitable questions about how to manipulate and interpret the data cost a great deal of time and money. Most of our datasets are unfunded, and we simply must charge to cover our costs. To extract data, curate it and provide assistance to you requires a staff member and fees we collect from the sale of data assist in meeting this cost.
Unfortunately, we have learned from bitter experience that we have to limit the use of our data by agreement. This is because:
In the past, we have found ourselves competing against grants and tenders from other organisations which rely on unauthorised copies of our own data!
We think it is fair to recognise BirdLife Australia, and the organisations that helped support our data collection efforts. We also think that it is fair to recognise the volunteer contributions to a dataset.
We need to protect our interests by ensuring that data are not on-sold or distributed, and that we are not liable for any misuse of the data.
Some aspects of the data contain sensitive information on rare or threatened birds. Agreements help us determine that our data is being used for the good of birds.
As a non-government organisation we are not a commercial seller of data, we do it to cover the costs of ongoing data management and to assist in the usability of the data.
Partners: http://www.birdlife.org.au/who-we-are/our-organisation/partners