Why Reject the INSPIRE Directive?
- Emphasis on Intellectual Property rights is harmful to innovation and job creation in Europe.
- The Commission made its dissatisfaction with the Council common position very clear, suggesting that INSPIRE may create more obstacles to sharing geographic information across Europe.
- Alternative models for distributing data in the public domain create new business activity in other states; Europe will lag behind.
The Commission disagrees with the Council on the issue of Intellectual Property Rights to state-collected geographic information
From the Commission communication on the common position:
The Commission does not agree that intellectual property rights held by public authorities should be among the list of grounds for limiting public access to spatial data.
The Commission maintains that the view services referred to in Article 18(1)(b) of the Commission proposal should be made available free of charge.
Certain aspects of the common position could have the effect of reducing rather than increasing the availability of spatial data, by consolidating the obstacles to data sharing between authorities and unduly limiting public access.
State agencies collect geographic information as part of the essential machinery of government. Remote areas or public services like disabled access facilities, will not be mapped by market forces alone. Geodata should be treated as a public good. Where National Mapping Agencies charge for data, 50% of sales are to other taxpayer-funded agencies.
Im many cases it can cost more to charge for data that to give it away. INSPIRE mandates costly viewing and distribution systems to charge users for data, to restrict their rights by implementing costly and rapidly-changing Digital Rights Management schemes,
Protective Intellectual Property rights policy in the Database Directive in have been shown in a recent Commission study to suppress and restrict economic development and innovation. http://news.ft.com/cms/s/99610a50-7bb2-11da-ab8e-0000779e2340.html
- The Council's common position does not fit with the Lisbon agenda for technological innovation in Europe.
The Lisbon agenda for enhancing technological competitiveness within Europe stresses the importance of transport networks and the crucial role of support for the GALILEO system. GALILEO will offer a basic service free to the public. Charging European citizens, businesses and research groups to gain access to public geodata will hamper their efforts to innovate and to create value. If INSPIRE is passed in this draft without amendments, it will lead to less growth and less job creation in Europe in a whole range of mobile, location and environmental sensing based services.
- Alternative models - Open Geodata is good for the National Economy
In the United States, all geographic information collected at a federal level, and much of that at a local level, is available in the public domain. This is driving a second internet boom in digital mapping and local search services. Google Earth and MSN Live Local use public domain imagery resources. European companies are not in a position to build competitive local offerings.
The first reading amend First reading amendments in European Parliament