on creators may be positive due to the increase of the demand for complements to protected works, such as concerts, special editions or merchandising.
The value of other examples of public domain models, as singled out by Pollock’s study, The Value of the Public Domain, can be more immediately appreciated.[1] Open source software is a quintessential example of the value of an open approach, or functional public domain approach, as The Public Domain Manifesto puts it, to the production of information goods. The Internet and the World Wide Web are further examples of the great wealth that can be built upon public domain material. These technologies were non-proprietary and openness was the key to their revolutionary success. Again, online search engines, such as Google, produce relevant social benefit through their service and generate very large revenue by copying “open” information on the web.
Finally, several studies have highlighted that a public domain approach to weather, geographical data, and public sector information (PSI) in general, may yield a substantial long-run value for Europe, running into the tens of billions or hundreds of billions of euros.[2] The benefit of access to and reuse of public sector information has been widely investigated during the Communia proceedings by Paul Uhlir, member of the Communia Advisory Committee, among others.[3] In particular, the fifth Communia workshop, co-organised by the Open Knowledge Foundation and the London School of Economics, focused on accessing, using and reusing public sector content and data.
Additionally, the value of privileged and fair use of copyrighted material is also to be taken into account when assessing the overall value of the public domain. Privileged and fair uses of copyrighted material are an integral part of the functional public domain. As a recent study has shown, companies benefiting from fair use and copyright exceptions
exceeded GDP, employment, productivity and export growth of the overall
- ↑ See Pollock (2006), pp. 11–13.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 14; Pira International, “Commercial Exploitation of Europe’s Public Sector Information” (30 October 2000) (report prepared for the European Commission, Information Society Directorate General); Richard E. W. Pettifer, “Towards a Stronger European Market in Applied Meteorology”, Meteorological Applications, 15/2 (2008), 30512; see also Peter Weiss, “Borders in Cyberspace: Conflicting Government Information Policies and their Economic Impact”, summary report (February 2002), available at http://www.nws.noaa.gov/sp/Borders_report.pdf.
- ↑ See Paul Uhlir, “Measuring the Economic and Social Benefits and Costs of Public Sector Information Online: A Review of the Literature and Future”, paper delivered at the first Communia conference, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium (30 June 2010).
