4 ms·

Does Government GIS Data Belong to the People?

53 points by xbryanx 15y ago

kylemaxwell 15y ago
Reminds me of the case a few years ago when some locality wanted to copyright a law, because they'd literally purchased the rights to the text from some industry group. That argument didn't go over well with the courts.
- brudgers 15y ago
  Perhaps you are thinking of: Peter Veeck v. Southern Building Code Congress International Veeck put the Standard Building Code as adopted by several local jurisdictions online. SBCCI sued because the model code was protected by copyright. http://www.pddoc.com/copyright/Veek_vs_Southern_Bldg_Code.htm http://www.pddoc.com/copyright/Veek_vs_Southern_Bldg_Code.ht... http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/99/99-40632.cv2.wpd.pdf http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/99/99-40632.cv2.wpd...
andrewpi 15y ago
The commonsense definition of data should prevail here. Since taxpayers originally paid to compile the data, the county should put all of their GIS data on the web, free to all. If hosting costs are a concern, they should look into creating a torrent.
- brudgers 15y ago
  Don't get me wrong, I'm in favor of government in the sunshine and half a million dollars is asinine and not in the public interest. However, the your argument appears largely unsupported. Just to play devil's advocate, if the county builds a stadium for the local high school team, are citizen's entitled to free admission? If they build a performing arts center, are citizens entitled to use it for free?
  - nknight 15y ago
    Actually, yes. Every dollar in use fees for physical locations goes to defray the cost of the construction, use, and maintenance, lowering the actual taxpayer burden. Cost of distribution for public information -- which will be collected regardless of use by anyone other than the government -- is de minimis. It is literally so low that it would cost the government more to do the accounting that could be reasonably charged for the act of distribution. What is unsupportable is not simply putting the data online. The government serves the people, it is to act in their interest. It is unquestionably not in the people's interest to have this data charged for.
  - waterlesscloud 15y ago
    Actually, at least some public venues are free for qualified non-profit use. So...yes.
  - forkandwait 15y ago
    The marginal cost to produce a nights worth of stadium use is nonzero -- staff, performers, and depreciation if nothing else. So the users should pay that. The marginal cost to produce data (or software) is almost nil -- hence the price should go to nil as well. THe only reason for a society to force the cost to be non-zero via licensing is to incentivize the creation of the data, but the government is going to do that anyway, since they need the data to function. (The marginal cost thing is why we need copyright and patents -- we need to impose non-market controls, because otherwise price and profit go to nothing and there is no incentive to create things which have marginal costs of nothing like sheet music and new molecular compounds. Yes, there is some irony whenever a capitalist argues for intellectual property -- save my market by non-market rules!)
    - davidw 15y ago
      IP is an artificial market rather than !market. Also, data is non rivalrous, unlike a stadium. Basically an unlimited number of people can access it. OTOH, charging something might put the onus of paying for the collection a bit closer to the users, if that group of users is small and well-defined. It wouldn't be fair for them to reap large benefits at the expense of everyone else. That said, though, if the users are a large and not well-defined group, opening up the data is probably more beneficial.
lwat 15y ago
GIS? What's that?
- gvb 15y ago
  Geographic Information System http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_information_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_information_system "A geographic information system is a system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present all types of geographically referenced data." Open Source: Quantum GIS http://www.qgis.org/ http://www.qgis.org/ and GRASS http://www.osgeo.org/grass http://www.osgeo.org/grass are good places to start.
abruzzi 15y ago
The funny thing is if you put in an IPRA (Inspection of Public Records Act) request at the county where I work, you'll have the entire parcel layer in three days for the cost of a blank DVD. Counties need this data to do their job, there is no reason to see it as a further profit source. If people stopped asking for the data, we would still keep and maintain in. Of course, I'm not in California were people seem to get overcharged for everything.
- frankydp 15y ago
  Free online in all the counties around me in georgia also. This is simply a beuracracy issue nothing else, pretty standard for california and new england.
twelvechairs 15y ago
It is a difficult issue, as often government data can only compiled because money comes from its sale. A good comparison example is the UK's Ordnance Survey, who now release all high-level data for free (http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/products/os-opendata.html http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/products/os-openda...) however the detailed data is only free to government institutions and their contractors. Private users of the detailed information pay alot of money for it (generally for site-location plans toward planning applications), which I assume is generally used for updating the database. This all works quite well generally, though arguments could be made from either side as to more or less information being publicly available. The key really is - if we want more government information to be free, we have to fund it more...
- rdtsc 15y ago
  But hasn't the public also been paying for low level data as well. Or is that provided by a 3rd party company who only licenses access to data in a strict and limited way (as a service) to the govt?
  - twelvechairs 15y ago
    I looked it up. According to their own data (see link at the bottom of http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/sep/02/ordnance-survey-business-model-costs-leak http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/sep/02/ordnance-su... - also this link is well worth a read), about 1/4 (£24.6m) it is publicly funded (tax money), while the other 3/4 (£68.7m) is self-funded (revenue from sales). However, the government probably gain more than they pay in terms of being able to use the data freely themselves (likely to be more than £24.6m if obtained from an outside source). So it is possible to consider the OS as more of a publicly-operated for-profit company than as a public-service.
- ZeroGravitas 15y ago
  Why do you think it works quite well? It's only just happened after years of arguments and the OS itself fought against it, most independent groups fought for it to go further and we've ended up with a compromise. If governments limit themselves to doing things that can be sold on the open market then there would be no need for a government. Instead they should be catering to the market failures like generating mapping data that can then be used by government and business alike at marginal cost i.e. free.
polemic 15y ago
It's great to see serious traction on opening up government data in the US. Central and local governments around the world are beginning to recognize the economic and societal benefits of releasing data back to users for little or no charge. In New Zealand, the Geospatial Office estimated that the government could expect to see financial returns of $NZ 100 - 500 million from reducing barriers to GIS data access[1], and in 2010 the New Zealand government issues directives encouraging data to "standardise the licensing of government copyright works for re-use using Creative Commons New Zealand law licences"[2]. Mid last year Land Information New Zealand released the "LINZ Data Service" (http://data.linz.govt.nz http://data.linz.govt.nz) to make it incredibly easy to get hold of national GIS datasets. Similarly, the Australian Government disbanded the Commonwealth Copyright Administration, and "agencies are now required to release copyright public sector information under Creative Commons BY-licences or other open content licences, wherever possible."[3] Throughout Europe we're seeing the same trend. It's a sign of how far things have come - and how far some have to go when you hear things like: > The County's logic was that GIS includes software and data (citing ESRI's definition of GIS as "a collection of software and data") It is shocking that this would be used as a defence - not so much because of the clear and obvious (to technical literate people) difference between a data format and the software you might or might not use to manipulate it - and nevermind the plethora of FOSS GIS tools that are available - but that the County believes it's in the best interests of their constituents. 1. http://www.linz.govt.nz/sites/default/files/docs/geospatial-office/cabinet-paper-capturing-benefits-of-location-based-information.pdf http://www.linz.govt.nz/sites/default/files/docs/geospatial-... 2. http://ict.govt.nz/guidance-and-resources/information-and-data/nzgoal http://ict.govt.nz/guidance-and-resources/information-and-da... 3. http://www.ag.gov.au/Copyright/CommonwealthCopyrightAdministration/Pages/default.aspx http://www.ag.gov.au/Copyright/CommonwealthCopyrightAdminist...

53 points by xbryanx 15y ago

Reminds me of the case a few years ago when some locality wanted to copyright a law, because they'd literally purchased the rights to the text from some industry group. That argument didn't go over well with the courts.

brudgers 15y ago
Perhaps you are thinking of: Peter Veeck v. Southern Building Code Congress International Veeck put the Standard Building Code as adopted by several local jurisdictions online. SBCCI sued because the model code was protected by copyright. http://www.pddoc.com/copyright/Veek_vs_Southern_Bldg_Code.htm http://www.pddoc.com/copyright/Veek_vs_Southern_Bldg_Code.ht... http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/99/99-40632.cv2.wpd.pdf http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/99/99-40632.cv2.wpd...

andrewpi 15y ago

The commonsense definition of data should prevail here. Since taxpayers originally paid to compile the data, the county should put all of their GIS data on the web, free to all. If hosting costs are a concern, they should look into creating a torrent.

brudgers 15y ago
Don't get me wrong, I'm in favor of government in the sunshine and half a million dollars is asinine and not in the public interest. However, the your argument appears largely unsupported. Just to play devil's advocate, if the county builds a stadium for the local high school team, are citizen's entitled to free admission? If they build a performing arts center, are citizens entitled to use it for free?
- nknight 15y ago
  Actually, yes. Every dollar in use fees for physical locations goes to defray the cost of the construction, use, and maintenance, lowering the actual taxpayer burden. Cost of distribution for public information -- which will be collected regardless of use by anyone other than the government -- is de minimis. It is literally so low that it would cost the government more to do the accounting that could be reasonably charged for the act of distribution. What is unsupportable is not simply putting the data online. The government serves the people, it is to act in their interest. It is unquestionably not in the people's interest to have this data charged for.
- waterlesscloud 15y ago
  Actually, at least some public venues are free for qualified non-profit use. So...yes.
- forkandwait 15y ago
  The marginal cost to produce a nights worth of stadium use is nonzero -- staff, performers, and depreciation if nothing else. So the users should pay that. The marginal cost to produce data (or software) is almost nil -- hence the price should go to nil as well. THe only reason for a society to force the cost to be non-zero via licensing is to incentivize the creation of the data, but the government is going to do that anyway, since they need the data to function. (The marginal cost thing is why we need copyright and patents -- we need to impose non-market controls, because otherwise price and profit go to nothing and there is no incentive to create things which have marginal costs of nothing like sheet music and new molecular compounds. Yes, there is some irony whenever a capitalist argues for intellectual property -- save my market by non-market rules!)
  - davidw 15y ago
    IP is an artificial market rather than !market. Also, data is non rivalrous, unlike a stadium. Basically an unlimited number of people can access it. OTOH, charging something might put the onus of paying for the collection a bit closer to the users, if that group of users is small and well-defined. It wouldn't be fair for them to reap large benefits at the expense of everyone else. That said, though, if the users are a large and not well-defined group, opening up the data is probably more beneficial.

lwat 15y ago

GIS? What's that?

gvb 15y ago
Geographic Information System http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_information_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_information_system "A geographic information system is a system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present all types of geographically referenced data." Open Source: Quantum GIS http://www.qgis.org/ http://www.qgis.org/ and GRASS http://www.osgeo.org/grass http://www.osgeo.org/grass are good places to start.

abruzzi 15y ago

The funny thing is if you put in an IPRA (Inspection of Public Records Act) request at the county where I work, you'll have the entire parcel layer in three days for the cost of a blank DVD. Counties need this data to do their job, there is no reason to see it as a further profit source. If people stopped asking for the data, we would still keep and maintain in. Of course, I'm not in California were people seem to get overcharged for everything.

frankydp 15y ago
Free online in all the counties around me in georgia also. This is simply a beuracracy issue nothing else, pretty standard for california and new england.

twelvechairs 15y ago

It is a difficult issue, as often government data can only compiled because money comes from its sale. A good comparison example is the UK's Ordnance Survey, who now release all high-level data for free (http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/products/os-opendata.html http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/products/os-openda...) however the detailed data is only free to government institutions and their contractors. Private users of the detailed information pay alot of money for it (generally for site-location plans toward planning applications), which I assume is generally used for updating the database. This all works quite well generally, though arguments could be made from either side as to more or less information being publicly available. The key really is - if we want more government information to be free, we have to fund it more...

rdtsc 15y ago
But hasn't the public also been paying for low level data as well. Or is that provided by a 3rd party company who only licenses access to data in a strict and limited way (as a service) to the govt?
- twelvechairs 15y ago
  I looked it up. According to their own data (see link at the bottom of http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/sep/02/ordnance-survey-business-model-costs-leak http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/sep/02/ordnance-su... - also this link is well worth a read), about 1/4 (£24.6m) it is publicly funded (tax money), while the other 3/4 (£68.7m) is self-funded (revenue from sales). However, the government probably gain more than they pay in terms of being able to use the data freely themselves (likely to be more than £24.6m if obtained from an outside source). So it is possible to consider the OS as more of a publicly-operated for-profit company than as a public-service.
ZeroGravitas 15y ago
Why do you think it works quite well? It's only just happened after years of arguments and the OS itself fought against it, most independent groups fought for it to go further and we've ended up with a compromise. If governments limit themselves to doing things that can be sold on the open market then there would be no need for a government. Instead they should be catering to the market failures like generating mapping data that can then be used by government and business alike at marginal cost i.e. free.

polemic 15y ago

It's great to see serious traction on opening up government data in the US. Central and local governments around the world are beginning to recognize the economic and societal benefits of releasing data back to users for little or no charge. In New Zealand, the Geospatial Office estimated that the government could expect to see financial returns of $NZ 100 - 500 million from reducing barriers to GIS data access[1], and in 2010 the New Zealand government issues directives encouraging data to "standardise the licensing of government copyright works for re-use using Creative Commons New Zealand law licences"[2]. Mid last year Land Information New Zealand released the "LINZ Data Service" (http://data.linz.govt.nz http://data.linz.govt.nz) to make it incredibly easy to get hold of national GIS datasets. Similarly, the Australian Government disbanded the Commonwealth Copyright Administration, and "agencies are now required to release copyright public sector information under Creative Commons BY-licences or other open content licences, wherever possible."[3] Throughout Europe we're seeing the same trend. It's a sign of how far things have come - and how far some have to go when you hear things like: > The County's logic was that GIS includes software and data (citing ESRI's definition of GIS as "a collection of software and data") It is shocking that this would be used as a defence - not so much because of the clear and obvious (to technical literate people) difference between a data format and the software you might or might not use to manipulate it - and nevermind the plethora of FOSS GIS tools that are available - but that the County believes it's in the best interests of their constituents. 1. http://www.linz.govt.nz/sites/default/files/docs/geospatial-office/cabinet-paper-capturing-benefits-of-location-based-information.pdf http://www.linz.govt.nz/sites/default/files/docs/geospatial-... 2. http://ict.govt.nz/guidance-and-resources/information-and-data/nzgoal http://ict.govt.nz/guidance-and-resources/information-and-da... 3. http://www.ag.gov.au/Copyright/CommonwealthCopyrightAdministration/Pages/default.aspx http://www.ag.gov.au/Copyright/CommonwealthCopyrightAdminist...