Open Access and the Public Domain in Digital Data and Information for Science Proceedings of an International Symposium (2004) / Chapter Skim
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9 Scientific Research, Information Flows, and the Impact of Database Protection on Developing Countries
9 Scientific Research, Information Flows, and the Impact of Database Protection on Developing Countries
Pages 33-40
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From page 33... ...
3. Is there any difference in the way scientists from developing countries use information compared with the use of information by their peers in developed countries?
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From page 34... ...
INFORMATION AND THE PRODUCTION OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE IN DEVELOPED AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIES From an economic and social perspective the practice of science in developing countries is paradoxically akin to scientific research being performed in emergent areas of knowledge in developed countries. The replication of many simple experiments in developing countries usually requires creating a specialized and costly laboratory.
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From page 35... ...
Scientific collaboration is the rule for leading research groups and fair use of copyrighted information is an important mechanism facilitating the access of researchers from developing countries to scientific information not directly available to them (CTS-Columbia Project, 2003)
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From page 36... ...
The trend toward stronger protection of intellectual property rights over information that is deemed necessary for the production of knowledge, combined with the concentration of databases in developed countries, poses serious obstacles to scientific information flows for researchers in developing countries. Concentration of Database Production The production of databases is highly concentrated in North America and Western Europe; 94.1 percent of 12,111 databases traded worldwide and listed in the Gale Directory of Databases are produced in these areas (Williams, 2002, as cited by Braunstein, 2002)
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From page 37... ...
If additional protection is granted to databases already protected by copyright, the exceptions for fair use and the de facto perpetual protection that is granted to databases in certain regimes, equally affect the supply of information for research activities in developing countries. An issue of special concern in developing countries is that of legal protection of nonoriginal databases.
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From page 38... ...
In contrast, the public domain may be analyzed in an institutional setting or arrangement. Information is not in the public domain by its public good nature or even by its governmental origin but as the result of a network of formal and informal social agreements, explicit or implicit but entrenched in common law and in the culture of a society.
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From page 39... ...
Misuse of exclusive rights could be confronted by antitrust litigation, but such legislation is uneven in developing countries and transaction costs of suing in developing countries are very high. The risk of being condemned through litigation is therefore low and it would hardly dissuade monopoly practices in developing countries.3 The economic and scientific consequences of the legal protection of databases on the scientific and technological activities of developing countries should be analyzed in this perspective.
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From page 40... ...
Rather than a global commons for scientific information, a collection of closed and relatively isolated networks would dominate scientific activities worldwide. In this scenario the role of researchers from developing countries in global science would diminish even further in relative terms, as a consequence of the narrower availability of scientific information.
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