International Symposium on Open Access and the Public Domain in Digital Data and Information for Science
UNESCO Headquarters, Fontenoy Room II
Paris, France — 10-11 March 2003

Additional Background

Summary

The International Council for Science (ICSU), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the U.S. National Academies, the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA), and the International Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI) have jointly organizing this international symposium and related activities on Open Access and the Public Domain in Digital Data and Information for Science. This meeting will bring together policy experts and managers from the government and academic sectors in both developed and developing countries to: describe the role, value, and limits that the public domain and open access to digital data and information have in the context of international research; identify and analyze the various legal, economic, and technological pressures on the public domain in digital data and information, and their potential effects on international research; review the existing and proposed approaches for preserving and promoting the public domain and open access to S&T data and information on a global basis, with particular attention to the needs of developing countries; and identify and analyze important issues for follow up by the ICSU family of organizations, and for the development of an Action Plan in this area by ICSU and UNESCO in preparation for the World Summit on the Information Society.

Background

Data and information produced by government-funded, public-interest science constitutes a global public good caught between two different trends. On the one hand, the Internet provides valuable new opportunities for overcoming geographic limitations and the promise of unprecedented open access to public information for research on a global basis. The synergistic aspects of the availability and access to such information result in a broad range of positive network externalities that increase exponentially with the addition of new Internet users. On the other hand, there are growing restrictions on the availability and use of public data and information arising from the privatization and commercialization of such sources. This countervailing trend undermines the traditional scientific cooperative and sharing ethos. It diminishes the public domain and open access to such global public goods and leads to a host of lost opportunity costs at both the national and international levels.

While there has been a great deal of focus on new commercial opportunities with digital information and on increased intellectual property rights, comparatively little attention has been devoted to the importance of maintaining open access to the source of upstream scientific-and other-data and information produced in the public domain for the benefit of all downstream users, or to the imperative to balance the public and the private interests. The question is, how to preserve and promote access to and sharing of such public scientific resources without unduly restricting new opportunities for commerce or the moral rights of authors? Or, conversely, how to promote commercial activities in the private sector without significantly compromising the availability of data and information in the public domain or through open access for global public good purposes?

The recent pressures on both public-domain and open-access information-scientific and otherwise-have resulted from a variety of legal, economic, and technological factors. New and revised laws have broadened, deepened, and lengthened the scope of intellectual property and neighboring rights in data and information, substantially redefining and limiting the public domain. National security concerns also are constraining the scope of government data and information that can be made publicly available. Economic pressures on both government and university producers of data and information similarly have narrowed the scope of such information placed in the public domain, with resulting access and use restrictions on resources that were previously openly available to researchers, educators, and others. Finally, advances in digital rights management technologies for enforcing proprietary rights in various information products are posing some of the greatest potential restrictions on the public domain and open access to data and information.

Nevertheless, some well-established mechanisms for preserving public domain or open access data and information-such as public archives and data centers, together with ever-increasing numbers of open Web sites-exist in the government, academic, and not-for-profit sectors. In addition, very innovative institutional and legal models for making available digital scientific data and information resources in the public domain or through open access provisions are now being developed by different groups in the scientific, library, and legal communities in many countries.

Various aspects of these issues have been addressed in some detail already in previous reports published by the National Academies and its National Research Council, including by the U.S. National Committee for CODATA. See, for example, The Digital Dilemma: Intellectual Property in the Information Age (CSTB, 2000); A Question of Balance: Private Rights and the Public Interest in Scientific and Technical Databases (CPSMA, 1999); Finding the Path: Issues of Access to Research Resources (CLS, 1999); and Bits of Power: Issues in Global Access to Scientific Data (USNC/CODATA, 1997). (Note: Electronic copies of these reports may be obtained free of charge at from the National Academies Press Web site www.nap.edu or may be purchased in hard copy through that Web site.) More specifically, the Office of International Scientific and Technical Information Programs recently convened a "Symposium on the Role of Scientific and Technical Data and Information in the Public Domain." This symposium will build on the results of that activity.

Activities focused on these issues also have recently been undertaken by several international organizations. For example, the International Council for Science, together with the international CODATA, has sponsored an ICSU-CODATA ad hoc Group on Data and Information since 1997, which has focused on the importance of full and open access to scientific data and information on a global basis. This group submitted a white paper on these issues to the World Intellectual Property Organization in 1997 and subsequently developed a set of guiding principles. The ICSU/CODATA ad hoc Group held a workshop in Baveno, Italy, on the European Union's Directive on the Legal Protection of Databases. CODATA International also held several sessions on these issues at its recent international Conference in Montreal, Canada, on 29 September-3 October 2002.

In addition, ICSTI, working with CODATA and ICSU, has held two meetings on the important topic of preservation of digital content, more particularly on the topic of continuous availability of digitally produced materials. There are significant technical, administrative, and economic issues associated with the longer-term availability of scientific data and information and these constitute important elements in establishing policies in the area of open access.

ICSTI, with INSERM and INIST, recently organized an international meeting on 23-24 January 2003 on Open Access to STI: State of the Art and Future Trends. This meeting examined the consequences of recent organizational and technical developments on the wider availability of scientific information. It dealt with the issues from the point of view of authors, publishers, users-especially those in the developing world, and policy makers.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has formed an "OECD follow up group on issues of access to research data from public funding," which recently has produced an interim report. This group has reported on the current practices concerning Access to and Sharing of Research data and their underlying principles on the basis of case studies;eported on effects of selected current data sharing practices on the quality of research and the progress of science; andsuggested principles for making policy on data sharing within the relevant national and international policies and regulatory frameworks.

ICSU and UNESCO are also preparing Policy Guidelines for the Development and Promotion of Public Domain and Open Access Information in conjunction with other related contributions for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The results from these studies and activities are either already available or will be published by early 2003. They will provide a solid foundation for holding in-depth discussions of the issues relating to public domain and open access in digital data and information produced or used by public-interest science. Although these previous, related activities will address these issues in some detail, none will provide an international focus and forum at which representatives of public and private interest groups and experts can meet to discuss these topics on a sustained basis. Furthermore, none will be specifically focused on providing input to the preparatory process to the WSIS. This collaborative, international symposium and workshop and the related activities will provide a unique forum and opportunity to add value to this important debate. In addition, these meetings will provide a venue to discuss recent changes in the European Union regarding access to scientific data and information, such as the Commission on European Communities' recent directive on public access to environmental information, and the proposed directive on the commercial exploitation and reuse of public sector information.

Definitions

The "public domain" may be defined in legal terms as sources and types of data and information whose uses are not restricted by statutory intellectual property (IP) laws and other legal regimes, and that are accordingly available to the public for use without authorization. For analytical purposes, information in the public domain, including scientific data and information, may be divided into two major categories:
  1. Information that is not subject to protection under exclusive IP rights; and
  2. Information that qualifies as protectable subject matter under some IP regime, but that is contractually designated as unprotected (e.g., is transferred or donated to a public archive or data center, or is made directly available to the public, with no rights reserved. Typically, such material consists of scientific data collections.)

A third category, information that becomes available under statutorily created immunities and exceptions, is also important in this context, although it does not constitute public-domain information per se.  The primary sources of public domain data and information are governmental and academic institutions. "Open access" may be defined as proprietary information that is made openly and freely available on the Internet or on other media by the rights holder, but that retains some or all of the exclusive property rights that are granted under statutory IP laws. Open access may be provided by all types of public and private sector sources.