PSI: Costs and Benefits of Openness

LAPSI 1st Conference, 5th May 2011

Rufus Pollock
@rufuspollock[.org]

[CIPIL, University of Cambridge]
[Open Knowledge Foundation]
[Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow]
Licensed under cc-by v3.0 (any jurisdiction)

Background

Railways, Roads, Ships

Electrical Power, Phones, Radios, Computers

Code, Content and Data

Production and Distribution of Information in the Knowledge Economy

Public Sector Controls Some of the Key 'Utilities' of that Economy

Core infosets: legal, geospatial, meteorological, socioeconomic ...

Costs and Benefits of Openness

(Open = http://opendefinition.org/)

Focus on Digital, Non-Personal, Bulk, 'Upstream'

NOT associated services

Example: Company Registration, Timetables

The Questions

1. Who should pay to maintain PSI?
(Should info be free to users?)

2. What regulatory structure should support this?

To maximize social welfare

3 Basic Funding Options

1. General taxpayers
2. Users/Consumers
3. Updaters

Important:
Costs (in simple sense)
Don't Change
(Just Reallocated)

Open with Updaters Pay: Benefits > Costs very likely

Costs no worse (as distribution of costs no more regressive)
Elasticity of demand lower for updaters than users => Negative effect on behaviour of charging less when charging updaters than users
Low political cost

Open with 'Gov' Pay: Benefits > Costs likely

Cost: use up govt funds that could have been allocated differently
Benefit: social and commercial gains from new products and services etc
Cost is small and benefit (though poorly known) are likely large
Could be politically hard

Quality and Regulation

Maintaining quality when a zero price - need good regulation

(But you always need good regulation)

Price Discrimination

(E.g. non-commercial versus commercial)

Conclusion

We are Living in an Information Age

Threshold of a new Era

Unlock Power of Public Sector Information
Make Bulk, Digital Upstream Data OPEN

And Get a Regulator ...