What usage is allowed for an "open data" database released with a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND (Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivatives) license?
An example of this is the Placenames Database of Ireland. They say "external parties are welcome to reuse these data to build their own applications or to integrate placename data in existing applications."
Yet the "No Derivatives" clause says "If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.".
Creative Commons also say "CC does not recommend use of its NonCommercial (NC) or NoDerivatives (ND) licenses on databases intended for scholarly or scientific use.". That link does go into detail about EU sui generis database rights, and how the usage can vary between version 3.0 and version 4.0 licenses. It's difficult to understand exactly how it applies in this case, but it looks like if there is any way to use the data it would be an unintended loophole.
For a usage example, say I plot some of the places on a map (using the geometry data, and attach information to the places (such as the number of hedgehogs seen there last year). Sounds like I'm building on it (violates ND), and if this is on a personal blog that also has a few ads, it becomes commercial. Or if I'm at a university and plot similar data for the whole country, and publish it as a scientific paper that is charged for (by the publisher), that's commercial use (as well as still building on the database, and distributing it).
I actually can't think of a way to build an application using the data (as they say is possible) that conforms to the license.
The obvious "solution" is to just ask for permission to use it in a particular way.
Which leads to the general question: is there any point to licensing a database as CC-BY-NC-ND? In other words, is it actually granting any useful rights at all, or is it essentially the same as normal copyright? Is there a case where the data could be used legally in a third party application?