Bubbles in the Bathtub

A really great little post on the importance of making data freely available (or at least with as few restrictions as possible). And the dangers inherent in treating data as intellectual property.

In particular this bit, quoted from a policy paper prepared by Athena Global:

• A direct association exists between pricing and its effects on public access and commercialisation of government agency information. Current pricing problems are having a deleterious effect on the affordability of spatial data in Canada, France, and the United Kingdom;
  
• A direct association exists between the application of intellectual property rights and the degree of public access and commercialisation of government agency information. The greater the restrictions on access, the less successful dissemination programs will be;
  
• Reducing prices and relaxing intellectual property restrictions on government datasets are significant factors improving opportunities for access and commercialization for stakeholders in the geographic information community.

It's impossible to put a value on all the earth observation data that the US government makes freely available. It is one of the undeniably good things they do and it's a shame that other countries do not do the same. Access to European remote sensing data, in particular, is a shambles (CNES Aviso data the notable exception).