The commons, common pastures, forests, lakes, rivers and the seas (better: our environment and our planet) used to be  public goods par excellence and to some degree they still are. However they degrade or collaps when overused or privatised without due regard for sustainability and informed public stewardship.
Publicly funded research results on digital networks we agree with Paul are public goods that increases with their use use. What about privately funded research results? They are not so different. If patented they move into the public domain only after about 20 years of privileged use. Society could debate different (shorter) time spans and limited privileged use to increase the common use and to appreciate or validate the contribution of the underlying public scientific base. Pharmaceutical results are quite prominent in this as their gainful use may adversely affect the health of many millions of people. (just read http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/en/ ) Cultural objects such as literature, film, music and the like that can be distributed as easily over internet as research results enjoy much longer and much more effective protection. Also their use is not only of private interest and the common use copyrights (for example: creative commons) address this point.  ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is the present way of gaining back lost territory of private interests. The ongoing political debate is of great interest also for GOAL since ACTA is set out to roll back the achievements of OA. And the debate is much more public: Emerging  âpirateâ-parties in countries such as Germany certainly have aroused the interest of traditional political parties. Should this list get involved in the wider debate? Best regards . . Hans F. Hoffmann From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of R. Stephen Berry Sent: 11 February 2012 12:31 To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci); Paul Uhlir Subject: [GOAL] Re: Nice blog post on OA  Dear Paul,             Scientific information is a very special kind of public good.  In general, the value of public goods does not decrease as the goods are used.  With scientific information, the value increases with use, so there is a very strong positive feedback that makes open distribution of scientific information one of the best things a society can do for itself.                       Best regards,            Steve On Feb 10, 2012, at 5:52 PM, Uhlir, Paul wrote: Not bad, except in economic terms, food is a private good (it is rivalrous and can be excluded, and can only be consumed only once), whereas publicly-funded research results (articles, data) on digital networks are public goods (they are non-rival and difficult or inefficient to exclude, since the value increases with use). So the situation is actually much worse than the analogy leads one to conclude.  Paul  ________________________________________________________________________________ From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of CHARLES OPPENHEIM [c.oppenh...@btinternet.com] Sent: Friday, February 10, 2012 6:53 AM To: GlobalOpen Access List ( Successor of Am Sci) Subject: [GOAL] Nice blog post on OA http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2012/feb/10/parable-farmers-teleporting- duplicator?CMP=twt_gu  Very nice analogy!  Charles  Professor Charles Oppenheim _______________________________________________ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal  [ Part 2: "Attached Text" ] _______________________________________________ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
