6 ms·

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

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.
- maxerickson 15y ago
  If the data collection is not benefiting most of the people in the county, then the question quickly comes up, why is the county doing it? That doesn't completely address the county doing collection that benefits everyone by providing information to a small group of people, but I think it supports the notion that any prices should be set to mitigate the sharing costs, not the collection costs (because the county should be organizing data collection around beneficial activities, not around creating salable data sets).
  - davidw 15y ago
    Yes, I would mostly come down on the side of making the data open due also to the benefits of letting anyone have at it and create new and interesting things. GIS data is not some tiny niche.
  - kd5bjo 15y ago
    There's also the possibility that the most value to the people of the county comes from subsidizing the beneficial activities that need the data by collecting licensing fees from businesses that can use the data for monetary gain.
brudgers 15y ago
>"The marginal cost to produce data (or software) is almost nil" Nonsense, GIS data typically found in municipal datasets requires going out to field and physically locating items such as underground utilities and stream edges, as well as, verifying data pulled from other sources. The cost of reproducing that data is low, but then again, the cost of unlocking a stadium is equally low...roughly equivalent to the cost of quality assurance measures one might take before distributing a copy of municipal GIS data, or the cost of maintaining adequate bandwidth to distribute data sets the size of a county GIS database containing 6" resolution aerial photography.
- forkandwait 15y ago
  Going out to the field and collecting data (or producing a complex piece of software) is very expensive -- but it is a one shot cost relative to distributing the dataset (or downloading software), which is the thing that a person buys/ downloads. And nobody just "unlocks a stadium".
  - brudgers 15y ago
    My local high school stadium has gates with padlocks. These are all that prevent free access and use of the field.
- dmethvin 15y ago
  Once the GIS data has been collected, there are no additional costs beyond some simple file copying which the requestors were willing to pay. Letting someone use a stadium involves many additional costs beyond someone turning a key in a lock, including insurance, utilities, and security.
  - brudgers 15y ago
    There are significant costs with GIS data, maintaining and insuring the accuracy of the data as changes are introduced among them. Keep in mind that GIS data is constantly revised as ownership of parcels changes, infrastructure is added or improved, properties are rezoned or receive variances, or when the aerial photography base layer gets updated. Much of that data is legally binding (e.g. zoning districts) or critical to protect the public (e.g. fire hydrant locations) or important for environmental planning (e.g. wetland locations). Municipal GIS data isn't just some mailing list mined from magazine descriptions.

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.

maxerickson 15y ago
If the data collection is not benefiting most of the people in the county, then the question quickly comes up, why is the county doing it? That doesn't completely address the county doing collection that benefits everyone by providing information to a small group of people, but I think it supports the notion that any prices should be set to mitigate the sharing costs, not the collection costs (because the county should be organizing data collection around beneficial activities, not around creating salable data sets).
- davidw 15y ago
  Yes, I would mostly come down on the side of making the data open due also to the benefits of letting anyone have at it and create new and interesting things. GIS data is not some tiny niche.
- kd5bjo 15y ago
  There's also the possibility that the most value to the people of the county comes from subsidizing the beneficial activities that need the data by collecting licensing fees from businesses that can use the data for monetary gain.

brudgers 15y ago

>"The marginal cost to produce data (or software) is almost nil" Nonsense, GIS data typically found in municipal datasets requires going out to field and physically locating items such as underground utilities and stream edges, as well as, verifying data pulled from other sources. The cost of reproducing that data is low, but then again, the cost of unlocking a stadium is equally low...roughly equivalent to the cost of quality assurance measures one might take before distributing a copy of municipal GIS data, or the cost of maintaining adequate bandwidth to distribute data sets the size of a county GIS database containing 6" resolution aerial photography.

forkandwait 15y ago
Going out to the field and collecting data (or producing a complex piece of software) is very expensive -- but it is a one shot cost relative to distributing the dataset (or downloading software), which is the thing that a person buys/ downloads. And nobody just "unlocks a stadium".
- brudgers 15y ago
  My local high school stadium has gates with padlocks. These are all that prevent free access and use of the field.
dmethvin 15y ago
Once the GIS data has been collected, there are no additional costs beyond some simple file copying which the requestors were willing to pay. Letting someone use a stadium involves many additional costs beyond someone turning a key in a lock, including insurance, utilities, and security.
- brudgers 15y ago
  There are significant costs with GIS data, maintaining and insuring the accuracy of the data as changes are introduced among them. Keep in mind that GIS data is constantly revised as ownership of parcels changes, infrastructure is added or improved, properties are rezoned or receive variances, or when the aerial photography base layer gets updated. Much of that data is legally binding (e.g. zoning districts) or critical to protect the public (e.g. fire hydrant locations) or important for environmental planning (e.g. wetland locations). Municipal GIS data isn't just some mailing list mined from magazine descriptions.