|
|
| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
| |
| Mailing List Archives |
| Subject: | Re: GISList: Cost of GIS Data |
| Date: |
11/19/2002 05:21:24 AM |
| From: |
Pat Waggaman |
|
|
David Nealy's neat percentages of cost which he views as appropriate fees
to charge users are an inconvenient "cookbook". They do not take into
account the potential market size for a given government entity's data.
Some types of cities will have a larger market for their data than
others: those with the larger markets will be able to recover more cost
and perhaps make money on the data acquisistion - resale process, those
with the smaller market will lose money.
The question becomes one of "public good". Is GIS data worthwhile as a
public good? We GIS folks tend to think so, but our opinion is a bit
questionable as most of us put our "fatback and hominy grits" on the table
with GIS. Basic data seems to pass the test of "high leverage public good
investment" in that the returns are felt throughout the economy, and are
narrowly profitable for few market players. This - over the long haul - is
the diffiult question, and the important one. Comments?
There is a nasty overlooked side-effect of "expensive" GIS data - and that
is corruption. The lessons of development economics are quite clear, to
the extent that a regulatory choke point is created, a government official
with the power to open and close the choke point will be tempted
economically in proportion to the value of whatever is on the other side of
the choke point, and his/her control over that shutoff. In other
words: the more power a regulatory official has, the more likely they are
to be tempted by corruption. The higher the prices for the data, the more
its flow into the market will be restricted - remember the "public good"
argument above, the data doesn't get into commerce where it begins to help
a large number of citizens: and with higher prices, the "stopping power"
of the choke point rises and hence the power of the regulatory folks to
create "sweetheart deals".
In the long run this argument, while forcing municipalities and counties to
justify their GIS expenditures more than at present - e.g. the taxpayers
will fund it - may be a powerful assist in creating "free GIS data".
My 2 pesos worth,
Pat
At 06:33 PM 11/18/02, David Nealey wrote:
>Robert,
>
>There are several reasons why a municipal government agency should be
>concerned with a private business reselling data at a profit. The first of
>which is the cost of the original data to the agency. Depending upon the
>source, an agency will pay anywhere from $4 to $10 per parcel for property
>data, which is one of the most useful pieces of information to many users.
>If a GIS firm can acquire those data for free and sell them for $1 a parcel
>then the taxpayer has just given that firm a $50K, $100K, $500K freebie
>depending upon the number of parcels sold to a client. So I would say yes,
>private firms should not be able to walk into the courthouse and download
>all the parcels data from the county/city's database.
>
>Probably the second most important data layer would be streets. I don't
>know the cost of converting a mile of streets into digital format but it
>probably much less than the cost of parcels conversion. But maintaining
>streets data has a cost and municipal government should be able to charge
>for them and a firm should not be able to resell the data without
>compensation to the agency.
>
>Now there are ways that a firm can compensate a government agency. First
>they can provide value add. By improving government-provided and giving all
>the data back to the agency at no cost. In some cases, firms have offered
>to do this and the agency has refused. But some types of data cannot be
>enhanced by an outside firm because the information needed to do so is
>acquired by the agency itself, e.g. parcels data.
>
>I have even heard of agencies buying their own data. One department may
>have converted the data and then gave them away or sold them to a firm that
>then sold them to another department. Well that should be illegal. At most
>the firm should only charge for time spent enhancing the data. Most of
>these cases probably occurred before metadata was "invented", at least I
>hope so.
>
>IMHO government agencies around the world but especially in the US need to
>establish a reasonable fee schedule for geospatial data. I would suggest
>that the fee be based on a percentage cost of conversion and maintenance.
>Perhaps 1 to 5 percent of the total cost. Exceptions should be made for
>colleges and universities that should get subsets of any government's data
>for free and all of the local data for free. Similarly, a person should be
>able to get free data for personal use. If a person is doing research or
>teaching a class in GIS they should not be charged for data that will be
>
|
|
Sponsored by:
For information
regarding
advertising rates
Click Here!
|
