Dylan Bushell-Embling, Private eyes on public data, Sydney Morning Herald, September 25, 2007. (Thanks to Anne Fitzgerald.) Excerpt:
Public sector data [PSD]...is a potential goldmine. [Are] we are doing enough to spread the wealth? ...
Today the US Government...offer[s] all that [geospatial, mapping] data free. In Australia, spatial data of this sort primarily originates from either state, territory or federal governments. But Australian governments have traditionally treated spatial information, as with much of its accumulated Public Sector Data (PSD), as primarily a revenue source....
Every time [Scott] Powell has tried to expand [his mapping business] into the Australian market, he's found the cost of procuring the raw data he needs far too expensive, and restrictions on how he may reuse the data far too constraining....
Terry Cutler, principal of the specialist consulting firm Cutler & Company and CSIRO board member, believes that in an information age, a dearth of cheap access to government data can stifle the entire country's economic growth....
"Generally in Australia a compilation of data will have some copyright attached that the government will own," says QUT professor Brian Fitzgerald....Because various departments' licensing regimes were developed independently, they are often very disparate. Differing state laws just make the problem worse.
"It's likely that across Australia there are dozens if not hundreds of different licence agreements that need to be signed up to in order to permit a data-set to be moved from government to a private sector user," says Peter Woodgate, CEO of the Co-Operative Research Centre for Spatial Information. One Queensland government study identified 20 different licences from a mere five departments.
However government is not blind to the problem. Politicians and bureaucrats across all levels of government are considering ways to make more information freely available....
The change of heart rippling throughout all levels of government is primarily brought on by two economic arguments. The first is that governments collect data using taxpayer money....
The second argument is that the potential economic benefits of releasing government data free far outweigh the funds accrued by selling the data....
A handful of government departments are already experimenting with offering free PSD.
Since 2005, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has offered nearly all its statistical information at no charge on its website, partly because of this argument. Mr Cutler calls the decision to remove charges for ABS data "the best thing the Federal Government's done in recent times"....
Special Minister of State Gary Nairn notes the decision to release all ABS data for the cost of reproduction was not the first such experiment in Australian government. Mr Nairn says he's seen the economic benefits of releasing data for free....
The Queensland Government has commissioned a project exploring the possibility of adapting the [Creative Commons] licences for the entire state's PSD. The Queensland Spatial Information Council (QSIO) is working with Professor [Bryan] Fitzgerald and other government departments on the project....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 9/26/2007 08:37:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
