Further Reading
Government documents and links
- Crown Copyright in the Information Age [1998]:HMSO Consultation document on access to public sector information
- The Future Management of Crown Copyright [1999]: White Paper which set out the Government’s strategy following the 1998 consultation
- Cross Cutting Review of the Knowledge Economy [2000]
- Licensing of Crown Copyright - HMSO Regulatory Framework [2002]: Consultation document and its outcome
- HMSO policy arrangements for licensing government information [2001]
Further useful reading
A general review of the Information industry is provided by Carl Shapiro and Hal R. Varian Information Rules, (Harvard Business School Press, Boston MA, 1999), and also Hal Varian’s The Information Economy Page (The Economics of the Internet, Information Goods, Intellectual Property and Related Issues).
Useful perspectives on public information and the network/knowledge economy can be found in:
- A Question of Balance: Private Rights and the Public Interest in Scientific and Technical Databases (CPSMA, 1999)
- The Digital Dilemma: Intellectual Property Rights in an Information Age (NRC, 2000)
- Resolving Conflicts Arising from the Privatization of Environmental Data (NRC, 2001)
Lawrence Lessig’s work on the commons and intellectual property rights, and also his Creative Commons site.
This is paralleled by Paul David’s work, which has a more economic focus - A Tragedy of the Public Knowledge Commons.
For information on access and pricing of public data consider Paul Weiss’s paper Borders in Cyberspace: Conflicting Public Sector Information Policies and their Economic Impacts.
The European Commission’s interest in public sector information is discussed in:
- Commission Of The European Communities, 2001, eEurope 2002: Creating a EU Framework for the Exploitation of Public Sector Information, Communication from the Commission to the Council 23.10.2001
- European Commission (EC), 1998, Green Paper on Public Sector Information: A Key Resource For Europe, 20 January 1999
- Marne-la-Vallee, 2002, Report of EuroGeographics workshop on Pricing and Licensing
There is also a search engine on GeoSpatial Data (the NSDI Knowledge Database) and all the questions of privacy, access, and pricing which have been debated in this rather narrower field. This can be accessed at TU Delft but it helps to know what you are looking for.