[okfn-discuss] what are the arguments against open data

Tue Oct 8 16:34:21 UTC 2013

I think alot of this discussion has missed some basic issues regarding 
why data has traditionally been considered intellectual property and 
not open.

1) Scientists and others invest alot of time in creating data and do 
not wish to lose control or lose credit for this investment. Many 
scientists believe that open data allows others to come in and reap 
the benefits (in terms of publications etc.) of their investment in 
the data unfairly. They feel that they are at a disadvantage when they 
have been in the field collecting data and doing all of the hands-on 
work associated with this, compared with someone sitting in an office 
who can cherry pick the best data and whip out an analysis or paper 
quickly.

2) Those who "own" data are more willing to invest in expanding and 
improving the data. Many believe that the public sector and open 
community are not able to marshall the investments needed to fully 
obtain the benefits of new data. The huge investments in road 
navigation data and other geospatial data by Google and other private 
companies have yielded significant new services and benefits that 
probably could not have been made by the public sector--even though 
the basic technology of GPS (satellites!) was enabled originally by 
public sector investment.

3) Even public agencies that generate and distribute data want some 
control over their data so that they can tell who is using them and 
provide justification for their public investment. They may distribute 
the data at low cost or for free, but are hesitant to make data 
totally open due to this loss of ability to document use and benefits, 
which could in turn jeopardize their funding. This is partly a 
perception issue...e.g., when people mistakenly think the Weather 
Channel can operate without NOAA's satellites or forecasts...but it is 
a real concern.

4) Open data may also undercut other business models that have been 
developed over time to support the necessary investment and 
institutional commitment in data. For example, there are a number of 
organizations based on membership or subscriptions that have 
maintained large, very useful collections of data for widespread 
academic use by providing access and services primarily to members or 
subscribers. It is doubtful that these data would have survived in an 
entirely open environment relying just on public sector support or 
community volunteers. Moreover, in this era of government shutdowns 
and stressed budgets, relying entirely on public sector support poses 
major risks.

In summary, one of the biggest challenges for open data advocates is 
to develop and demonstrate strong and sustainable alternative business 
models for supporting the full life cycle of open data. At the moment, 
I think this might be possible for some limited areas of open data, 
where the benefits of open access are clear and stakeholders can be 
convinced to commit resources, but I don't think this is true for most 
data.

Cheers, Bob

*****
Dr. Robert S. Chen
Director, Center for International Earth Science Information Network
  (CIESIN), The Earth Institute, Columbia University
Manager, NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC)
P.O. Box 1000, 61 Route 9W, Palisades, NY 10964 USA
tel. +1 845-365-8952; fax +1 845-365-8922
e-mail: bchen at ciesin.columbia.edu
CIESIN web site: http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu
SEDAC web site: http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu

On Tue, 8 Oct 2013, Mr. Puneet Kishor wrote:

> Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2013 15:00:39 +0530
> From: Mr. Puneet Kishor <punk.kish at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: Open Knowledge Foundation discussion list
>     <okfn-discuss at lists.okfn.org>
> To: Karsten Gerloff <gerloff at fsfeurope.org>,
>     Open Knowledge Foundation discussion list <okfn-discuss at lists.okfn.org>
> Subject: Re: [okfn-discuss] what are the arguments against open data
> 
>
> On Oct 8, 2013, at 2:33 PM, Karsten Gerloff <gerloff at fsfeurope.org> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Oct 07, 2013 at 03:25:30PM -0700, Gene Shackman wrote:
>>> Ewan Klein asked an excellent question on identifying specific demonstrations of the benefits of open data. That made me wonder about a related question: what are the arguments against open data?
>>
>> In practice, the main argument I've heard against open data is
>> that it might harm privacy.
>
>
>
> Individual human privacy and security, cultural sensitivity, and national security come to mind as reasons against open public sector or individual private data.
>
>
>
>> This is usually raised by people who
>> are new to the field, and is for the most part easily countered.
>
>
>
> While I would not consider myself completely new to the field, I would love to know the arguments that would counter the above reasons.
>
> --
> Puneet Kishor
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