A Contractually Reconstructed Research Commons for Scientific Data in a Highly Protectionist Intellectual Property Environment
A Contractually Reconstructed Research Commons for Scientific Data in a Highly Protectionist Intellectual Property Environment
复制标题
在高度保护主义的知识产权环境中以合同方式重建科学数据的研究共享
DOI：
--
复制
发表时间：
2003
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
P. Uhlir
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
J. Reichman;P. Uhlir
事实数据是科学进步和我们卓越的创新体系的基础。调查自由、科学数据的公开获取以及通过出版物充分披露结果是基础研究的基石，国内法律和公共科学规范长期以来一直坚持这一点。(1)在过去的二十年里，数字技术和网络的快速发展从根本上改变和改善了数据在科学和人类奋进的所有其他领域中的生产、传播、管理和使用的方式。(2)因此，这些变化导致产生的数据量急剧增加，并为加速研究和在利用数据的基础上创造财富创造了前所未有的机会。(3)自然世界的每一个方面，从亚原子到宇宙，所有人类活动，甚至每一种生命形式，现在都可以通过电子数据库进行观察和捕获。(4)整个科学领域完全是数据驱动的，例如分子生物学中的生物信息学和观测环境科学。所有研究都越来越依赖于数据资源的便捷获取和使用。(5)除了使这些活动成为可能的明显的技术进步之外，这场革命的成功在很大程度上来自美国的法律的和政策制度，该制度支持科学数据的公开可用性和不受限制的使用。(6)这一制度仍然是世界上最开放的制度之一（7），它重视尽可能广泛地传播和使用政府或政府资助来源提供的科学数据。这项政策传统上是以几种互补的方式实施的：明确禁止对联邦政府产生的所有信息进行知识产权保护;通过在联邦研究赠款和合同中规定开放数据条款和条件，以合同的方式加强科学共享的精神;为无版权的数据开辟一个非常大而强大的公共领域;（11）或通过适用有利于科学和教育的其他豁免和例外，以保护信息收集的知识产权。(12)A.第二个与此相反的趋势是科学数据的逐步私有化和商业化，以及随之而来的囤积和交易压力，就像其他私人商品一样。(13)这一趋势因新的法律的权利和保护主义机制的建立而得到加强，这些权利和保护主义机制基本上与科学事业无关，但越来越多地被科学事业所采用，其中包括大大加强对数字信息的版权保护;（16）和颁布新知识产权的建议（17），以保护数据收集。(18)这些新的法律的权利和机制正受到某些信息工业集团的推动，这是因为私人利用新的数字信息资源的经济机会，也是对在数字环境中可能失去对某些专有信息产品的控制的法律的反应。(19)与此同时，新的法律可能会破坏作为公共科学基础的规范性习俗，特别是传统的合作和分享精神，因为它既产生了压力，也产生了封闭科学公域和大大缩小公共领域数据范围的手段。(20)冷静地看，必须在一个社会生产框架内调和这些趋势，这种调和的目标似乎是明确的。积极的成果将最大限度地在准公共空间传播科学数据，确保为研究目的获取和使用科学数据，同时不破坏私营部门商业利用科学数据库的新机会。…
I INTRODUCTION Factual data are fundamental to the progress of science and to our preeminent system of innovation. Freedom of inquiry, the open availability of scientific data, and full disclosure of results through publication are the cornerstones of basic research, which both domestic law and the norms of public science have long upheld. (1) The rapid advances in digital technologies and networks over the past two decades have radically altered and improved the ways that data can be produced, disseminated, managed, and used in science and in all other spheres of human endeavor. (2) As a result, these changes have given rise to a dramatic increase in the amount of data produced and have fostered unprecedented opportunities for accelerating research and creating wealth based on the exploitation of data. (3) Every aspect of the natural world, from the sub-atomic to the cosmic, all human activities, and indeed every life form, can now be observed and captured through an electronic database. (4) Whole areas of science are entirely data-driven, such as bioinformatics in molecular biology and the observational environmental sciences. All research increasingly depends on easy access to and use of data resources. (5) Apart from the obvious technological advances that made these activities possible, much of the success of this revolution derives from the U.S. legal and policy regime that supports the open availability and unfettered use of scientific data. (6) This regime, which remains among the most open in the world, (7) has placed a premium on the broadest possible dissemination and use of scientific data produced by governmental or government-funded sources. This policy was traditionally implemented in several complementary ways: by expressly prohibiting intellectual property protection of all information produced by the federal government; by contractually reinforcing the sharing ethos of science (8) through open data terms and conditions in federal research grants and contracts; (9) by carving out a very large and robust public domai (10) for non-copyrightable data; (11) or by applying other immunities and exceptions that favor science and education to intellectual property rights that otherwise protect collections of information. (12) A. Countervailing Trends Affecting the Production, Distribution, and Use of Scientific Data A second and opposing trend, however, is characterized by the progressive privatization and commercialization of scientific data, and by the attendant pressures to hoard and trade them like other private commodities. (13) This trend is reinforced by the creation of new legal rights and protectionist mechanisms that are largely extrinsic to the scientific enterprise, (14) but increasingly adopted by it. These include greatly enhanced copyright protection of digital information; (15) new ways to control access to and use of digital data by contractual restrictions that are technologically enforced; (16) and the enactment of proposals for novel intellectual property rights (17) to protect collections of data. (18) These new legal rights and mechanisms are being promoted by certain information industry conglomerates because of economic opportunities for the private exploitation of new digital information resources and as a legal reaction to a possible loss of control over certain proprietary information products in the digital environment. (19) At the same time, the new laws pose the danger of disrupting the normative customs at the foundation of public science, especially the traditional cooperative and sharing ethos, by producing both the pressures and the means to enclose the scientific commons and to greatly reduce the scope of data in the public domain. (20) Viewed dispassionately, the need to reconcile these trends in a socially productive framework has become imperative, and the goal of such a reconciliation seems clear. A positive outcome would maximize the dissemination of scientific data in a quasi-public space where access and use for research purposes was ensured, without disrupting new opportunities for com mercial exploitation of scientific databases in the private sector. …