. "12 Promoting Access to and Use of Government-Sector Scientific and Technical DataAn Assessment of Legal and Policy Options." Proceedings of the Workshop on Promoting Access to Scientific and Technical Data for the Public Interest: An Assessment of Policy Options. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 1999.
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PROCEEDINGS OF THE WORKSHOP ON PROMOTING ACCESS TO SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL DATA FOR THE PUBLIC INTEREST: AN ASSESSMENT OF POLICY OPTIONS
Why or why not?
What should be the scope of the government exemption for government data and databases when they are incorporated into a nongovernment database and disseminated by a nongovernment entity?
Should there be a prohibition on exclusive privatization or licensing arrangements?
Even if exclusive privatization or licensing arrangements are prohibited by law, some private-sector disseminators may become exclusive, in fact, because the government data source no longer has the original data available. Should safeguards be legislated that would require the private-sector disseminator to make the original government data or databases available under some preferential terms and conditions? If so, what should these be?
What should be the terms and conditions under which government or government-funded data are published in scholarly publications and elsewhere? What is the scope of rights of the publisher to such data now, and what should it be under a new database IPR regime regarding both access and use?
The federal government acquires, uses, disseminates, and archives massive amounts of data that are created by both not-for-profit or commercial entities.
What should be the government's approach in obtaining S&T data from the commercial sector regarding:
use, including transformative uses;
integration into multiple-source data products or databases;
dissemination to other parties within: the government, not-for-profits, commercial sector;
liability issues, generally; and
other issues?
Should the policies be different when the government obtains S&T data from the not-for-profit sector, and would the answers to the questions posed in 3.a be different? Why or why not?
If government data are exempt from the scope of protection, should databases created in state universities also be exempt, or should they be removed from that exemption in any new database IPR legislation in order to make their rights parallel to private universities? Why or why not?
What other important legal or policy issues should be considered in promoting access to and use of government S&T data for the public interest?
Question number 1: Assuming that government data will remain exempt from copyright or proposed database legislation protection, what should be the scope of that exemption for databases created outside of government, with government funding? I would like to make it clear that when the term “government” is used here, it refers to the federal government and federal agency policies. That is something that has not always been clear; we are not talking about state and local government, and perhaps we might return to what those particular policies might be under the database legislation a little bit later. Another point is that we will assume that government data will remain exempt from copyright or proposed database legislation. Is there anyone that disagrees with that assumption?
DR. ALEXANDER: One exception is the National Institute of Standards and
