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

Thu Jan 13 14:13:19 UTC 2011

Paola: Just to keep this discussion focused on the topic at hand - we
started out by talking about the acceptability of restrictions of
commercial use of government information. In other words: should we
allow restrictions on commercial use (e.g. via non-commercial type
licenses) or not?

While this is an interesting debate, to a certain extent the question
is moot as the Open Knowledge Foundation and all its projects,
activities and working groups are united by a focus on material that
is open as in the Open Knowledge Definition (opendefinition.org). This
excludes, e.g. material which is simply freely available online (but
still under full copyright), or material which is under a non-open
license (such as licenses with non-commericial restrictions, or
restrictions on derivative works). If this is not clear then we should
endeavour to make it clearer. Just like the worlds of free/open-source
software, which focuses on software which is fully 'free/open', all of
our activities focus on knowledge or information that is fully 'open',
in accordance with this definition.

If you aren't a fan of fully 'open' data, and you think that
non-commercial restrictions are a very good and valuable thing - of
course this is completely fine. Just as, for example, you may be on a
list for people interested in open-source software, but you might not
like (certain types of) open source licenses, or you may think that
open source is not really the way to go, and freeware, shareware or
proprietary software models are much better. You might think "Why
should companies have a 'free ride' and be allowed to use software
packages like Open Office for free? Surely they should pay for all of
the hard work that people are putting into developing this software.
Hence there is an important place for licensing and subscription
mechanism to keep make sure that bad capitalists are not unfairly
exploiting other people's hard work / resources that taxpayers pick up
the bill for / etc.". But bear in mind that if you are on an
open-source software list, you might have a pretty hard time
convincing everyone else to agree with you (which isn't of course to
say that you might not be right). ;-)

On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 1:40 PM, Paola Di Maio <paola.dimaio at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Hjalmar
> thanks for reply -
> One of my concerns is that a lot of public funding is poured into private
> sector
> as 'research funding', for which the taxpayers who generated the funding
> initially never get to see the benefits of (except for the few entrepreneurs
> and employees who work for them)
>
> re argument 1
> agree that startups may need incentives, and would not have a problem
> negotiating favourable conditions with enterprise networks for startups,,
> provided any private entreprise reaching break even point  will be treated
> as any other private enterprise
> re. argument 2 - I dont think so
>>
>> 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.
>
> No, successful commercial enterprises are beneficial to those individuals
> who
> agree to be part of an economic system which is exploitative, wasteful and
> neither fair nor sustainable in nature. The economic system as it is (at
> national, international and global level) is absurd, it has been absurd
> throughout modern history [1]. But until now, it has been difficult to
> change.
> Those who try to change the economy by distributing resources more evenly,
> get nowhere, because entire societies and economies are based on the
> concentration of wealth and political hegemony of a few are not letting it
> happen (by manipulating knowledge through the media, or fostering
> 'exclusion', forcing 'scarcity' etc etc )
>  By contrast, more distributed economic systems capable of allocating more
> evenly political and economic powers more inclusively (irrespective of
> people's beliefs and political views for example) are consistently
> dismissed.  through the active manipulation of financing and of the
> mechanism to introduce innovation  (sorry, rant!). Investors tend to  'bet'
> money where they have higher profits, do not care what happens to the planet
> and the rest of the world.
> I am firmly convinced that the open data movement should work to contrast
> the vices of a destructive economic and political system, and still continue
> to encourage small enterprise proliferation and innovation etc
> PDM
> [1]
>
> The Growth Illusion: How Economic Growth Has Enriched the Few, Impoverished
> the Many and Endangered the Planet
>
> Richard Douthwaite
>
> 5.0 out of 5 stars  Se
> On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 12:09 PM, Hjalmar Gislason <hjalli at datamarket.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> > 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
>
>
>
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-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://blog.okfn.org

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