An information economy is based upon the premise that information has economic value and requires an information marketplace in which such value can be exchanged. However, this economic reality runs counter to the popular historic notion that information is free.
Confusion about What We Mean
In discussing the information is free notion, delineates the costs of information: gather, process, distribute; human capital
intellectual property is financed in 3 ways: patronage (sponsored), procurement (contracted) and property (entrepreneurs)
Human capital must be provided with a reasonable expectation of a return on the investment of intellectual skills as well as the use of the information processing machines that support productivity.
property requires legal protection because no guarantee of remuneration for the creator
3 ways to examine the legal domain for protecting proprietary information
creativity as property
public domain as public ownership & control (problems: tragedy of the commons—either over- an misused or not maintained; public institutions lack funding)
privacy or control of personal information as property (transaction-generated data)
why it's hard to translate our legal system for digital age
expense of computerization
“information wants to be free” one can argue that valuable information resources, to which all of the nationals of the world lay claim, should be both funded and captured by a pool of capital supplied by contributions to a central fund and then become part of the global information commons.
inappropriateness of concept of copyright: access, not copies
econ support of universal service ***how Western of her!
public-private
http://paigrain.debatpublic.net/?p=62
