IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unm/umamer/2001003.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Tragedy of the Public Knowledge 'Commons'? Global Science, Intellectual Property and the Digital Technology Boomerang

Author

Listed:
  • David, Paul A.

    (MERIT)

Abstract

Radical legal innovations in intellectual property protection have been introduced by the little noticed European Database Directive of March 1996. This initiative, part of the larger institutional transformations initiated in response to the economic ramifications of rapid progress in digital information technologies, poses numerous contentious issues in law and economics. These are likely to create ambiguities for business and non-profit activities in this area for years to come, and the terms on which those issues are resolved will materially affect the costs and organizational feasibility of scientific projects that are of global reach and significance. This is the case especially in fields such as geology, oceanography and climatology, which depend heavily upon the collection, management and analysis of large volumes of observational data that cannot be regenerated. More generally the conduct of open, collaborative science - along with many of the benefits that flow from it for the developed and the developing economies alike - may be seriously jeopardized by the consequences of the new database protections. This raises the spectre of a new and different "tragedy of the commons," one created by continuing the unbalanced pressure to extract greater economic rents by means of controlling access to information. "Over-fencing," which is to say, the erection of artificial cost barriers to the production of reliable public knowledge by means of reliable public knowledge, threatens the future of "the public knowledge commons" that historically has proved critically important for rapid advance in science and technology. The paper sets out the economic case for the effectiveness of open, collaborative research, and the forces behind the recent, countervailing rush to strengthen and expand the scope of intellectual property rights protection. Focusing upon innovations in copyright law and the sui generis protection of hitherto unprotected content, it documents the genesis and analyzes the economic implications of the EC''s Database Directive, and related legislative proposals (H.R. 3125, H.R. 354 and H.R. 1858) in the US. The discussion concludes by advancing a number of modest remedial proposals that are intended to promote greater efforts to arrive at satisfactory policy solutions for this aspect of "the digital dilemma."

Suggested Citation

  • David, Paul A., 2001. "Tragedy of the Public Knowledge 'Commons'? Global Science, Intellectual Property and the Digital Technology Boomerang," Research Memorandum 003, Maastricht University, Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
  • Handle: RePEc:unm:umamer:2001003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://unu-merit.nl/publications/rmpdf/2001/rm2001-003.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bakos, Yannis & Brynjolfsson, Erik & Lichtman, Douglas, 1999. "Shared Information Goods," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(1), pages 117-155, April.
    2. Reichman, Jerome H, 1998. "Securing Compliance with the Trips Agreement after US v India," Journal of International Economic Law, Oxford University Press, vol. 1(4), pages 585-601, December.
    3. Besen, Stanley M., 1986. "Private copying, reproduction costs, and the supply of intellectual property," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 5-22.
    4. Liebowitz, S J, 1985. "Copying and Indirect Appropriability: Photocopying of Journals," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(5), pages 945-957, October.
    5. Besen, Stanley M & Kirby, Sheila Nataraj, 1989. "Private Copying, Appropriability, and Optimal Copying Royalties," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(2), pages 255-280, October.
    6. Louise C. Keely, 2000. "Pathway From Poverty? Intellectual Property And Developing Countries," CEP Reports 14, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    7. David, Paul A, 1998. "Common Agency Contracting and the Emergence of "Open Science" Institutions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 15-21, May.
    8. Partha Dasgupta & Paul A. David, 1987. "Information Disclosure and the Economics of Science and Technology," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: George R. Feiwel (ed.), Arrow and the Ascent of Modern Economic Theory, chapter 16, pages 519-542, Palgrave Macmillan.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Arwin van Buuren & Jeroen Warner, 2014. "From Bypass to Bathtub: Backfiring Policy Labels in Dutch Water Governance," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 32(6), pages 1000-1016, December.
    2. Alfredo Macias Vazquez & Pablo Alonso Gonzalez, 2016. "Knowledge Economy and the Commons," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 48(1), pages 140-157, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Paul A. David, 2000. "The Digital Technology Boomerang: New Intellectual Property Rights Threaten Global "Open Science"," Working Papers 00016, Stanford University, Department of Economics.
    2. Gürtler, Oliver, 2005. "On Strategic Enabling of Product Piracy in the Market for Video Games," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 36/2005, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).
    3. Yoon, Kiho, 2002. "The optimal level of copyright protection," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 327-348, September.
    4. Hal R. Varian, 2005. "Copying and Copyright," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 121-138, Spring.
    5. Gürtler, Oliver, 2006. "Software Piracy in the Video Game Market," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 20/2006, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).
    6. Holm, Håkan, 2000. "The Computer Generation's Willingness to Pay for Originals when Pirates are Present – A CV study," Working Papers 2000:9, Lund University, Department of Economics, revised 16 Mar 2001.
    7. Paul A. David, 2005. "Can ‘Open Science’ be Protected from the Evolving Regime of IPR Protections?," Industrial Organization 0502010, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Martin Peitz & Patrick Waelbroeck, 2005. "An Economist's Guide to Digital Music," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 51(2-3), pages 359-428.
    9. Liang Guo & Xiangyi Meng, 2015. "Digital Content Provision and Optimal Copyright Protection," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(5), pages 1183-1196, May.
    10. Tunay I. Tunca & Qiong Wu, 2013. "Fighting Fire with Fire: Commercial Piracy and the Role of File Sharing on Copyright Protection Policy for Digital Goods," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 24(2), pages 436-453, June.
    11. Terrence August & Tunay I. Tunca, 2008. "Let the Pirates Patch? An Economic Analysis of Software Security Patch Restrictions," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 19(1), pages 48-70, March.
    12. Cho, Won-Young & Ahn, Byong-Hun, 2010. "Versioning of information goods under the threat of piracy," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 332-340, December.
    13. Felix Oberholzer-Gee & Koleman Strumpf, 2010. "File Sharing and Copyright," NBER Chapters, in: Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 10, pages 19-55, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. David Blackburn, 2002. "Complementarities and network externalities in casually copied goods," Estudios de Economia, University of Chile, Department of Economics, vol. 29(1 Year 20), pages 71-88, June.
    15. Yeh-ning Chen & Ivan Png, 2003. "Information Goods Pricing and Copyright Enforcement: Welfare Analysis," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 14(1), pages 107-123, March.
    16. Rob, Rafael & Waldfogel, Joel, 2006. "Piracy on the High C's: Music Downloading, Sales Displacement, and Social Welfare in a Sample of College Students," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 49(1), pages 29-62, April.
    17. Issman-Weit, Einat & Shy, Oz, 2003. "Pricing of library subscriptions with applications to scientific journals," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 197-218.
    18. Rick Harbaugh & Rahul Khemka, 2010. "Does Copyright Enforcement Encourage Piracy?," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 306-323, June.
    19. T. S. Raghu & Rajiv Sinha & Ajay Vinze & Orneita Burton, 2009. "Willingness to Pay in an Open Source Software Environment," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 20(2), pages 218-236, June.
    20. Alan E. Woodfield, 2006. "Piracy Accommodation and the Optimal Timing of Royalty Payments," Working Papers in Economics 06/01, University of Canterbury, Department of Economics and Finance.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    economics of technology ;

    JEL classification:

    • O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth
    • P - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:unm:umamer:2001003. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Leonne Portz (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/meritnl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.