Economic, legal, and public policy issues influencing the creation, accessibility, and use of GIS databases

Abstract

Rhind (1992) argued that government data policies and Intellectual Property Righr (IPR) considerations would play an increasingly large role in influencing the use of GIS. This has proved to be correct in general but the non‐technical factors affecting data collection, supply, and price have become ever more complex. Indeed, one characteristic of the present situation is that it is now impossible to consider the legal, economic, and public policy issues in isolation. Consequently, this paper sets out to identify the interactions between them and the areas of conflict. It draws upon the literature of a much wider area than traditional GIS. This approach is essential because of two factors. The first is that GIS databases are presently of modest commercial value compared to some other data and hence key decisions on IPR, etc are being made outside our discipline. The second is that the nature of GIS databases is mutating rapidly through the wider use of multi‐media and of the internet. It is concluded that the future is largely unpredictable in any detail since the interactions differ in different countries and at different moments in time. In many cases, however, revenue generation from sales or leasing of data or from services built upon data exploitation is likely to be a characteristic of both the public and the private sectors. Such charging has observable beneficial effects to set against the frequently claimed disadvantages, whether measured in financial, legal, or public access terms.