[euopendata] Study says charge for public data...

Thu Jan 13 12:12:26 UTC 2011

> Aha, that explains much of the open data sudden frenzy from people who have
> never been interested in public administration, sniffing money are we?

Hehe, no worries: Yes, I'm trying to build a start-up company that
among other things utilizes public data that is openly available, but
that came out of my interest for open data, not the other way around
:)

You might find this blog post interesting:
- http://blog.datamarket.com/2010/06/01/the-commercial-opportunities-in-open-data/

> Open data advocates come in different flavours. Not every Open data advocate
> is keen to foster private enterprise flourish on the back of tax payers
> money
>  If the data is used for commercial purposes (ie, to generate revenues) I
> dont see why private commercial firms benefiting for their own profits (to
> which I do not object) should not contribute to the government effort
> (spending) for publishing the data in the first place.
> Otherwise there is increasing public cost (effort) to open the data, putting
> increased strain on resources
> Effectively this would mean taxpayers money is used to provide commercial
> opportunities for those who have the marketing and financial networks to
> generate revenues,
> It goes without saying that I agree non commercial use should be free.

I agree with you to a certain degree. But I do have two counter arguments:

1. The fact of the matter is that most of the untapped value in
opening data lies in unforseeable innovation, i.e. innovation that
will result from a long line of trial and (mostly) errors, until
somebody comes up with something that turns out to be valuable and is
able to extract value from that. This innovation can come from the
academia, from small startups or large corporations, but the fact of
the matter is that none of these will be playing around with the data
if it is not freely available for such tinkering. Even big companies
only spend money on things they believe are highly likely to be
successful. A minimal fee can therefore prevent enormous creation of
value.

2. Successful commercial enterprises are beneficial to the economy as
a whole (and thereby the government) as they pay salaries, taxes, and
buy goods and services from other companies that do the same.

What happened at statistical offices in Scandinavia in the late '90s
is a great example of this: They used to charge for access to their
data, first in print and later also in electronic format. With the
advance of the internet they came to the conclusion that their
services were worth more to society if access was provided for free
over the Internet as the marginal cost was close to zero. This has
really paid off with more usage and better data behind decisions in
all ranks of society. Nobody today would seriously argue that this
access should be put behind a paywall again even not by evil people
that might use it for - gasp - "commercial purposes" :)

It can be really tricky to track the money all the way down in these
equations, but in my mind the generic rule is really simple: Public
data should be Open unless other - more important - factors such as
privacy or security indicate otherwise.

Best,
-hjalmar