Data at a low level

“Information theory starts with applications in telecommunications by Hartley (1928) and Shannon (1948). Their engineering approach focuses on the transmission of signals or messages between a sender and a receiver, irrespective of the semantic meaning of the message.

Data become information become knowledge

“[Interaction] between the World, data signals, information and knowledge

Rival goods v. non-rival data

“Material goods are, by nature, rival goods. […] Rivalry makes it easier to claim exclusive property rights on material goods: you have it or you don’t.

Ideas, data and information are non-rival. […] Reduced excludability is at the root of many property rights problems…

Contracts are not sufficient to protect rights to data

“[Contract] law leaves loopholes in data ownership.

A data owner can sign a contract a with a data user that forbids any distribution to or re-use by third parties. However, that contract is not enforceable toward third parties who are not…

Information: appears in analogue, transmitted in digital, perceived in analogue

“Until very recently, human societies stored information on many different material carriers and in many material carriers [and all in analogue format]. […] That changed with digital technology.

What data are and what data are not

“Data are representations of observed and measured facts, not creations of the human mind.”

Source: Nestor Duch-Brown, Bertin Martens and Frank Mueller-Langer, The economics of ownership, access and trade in digital data; Digital Economy Working Paper 2016–10; JRC Technical Reports.

Data ownership protection and data access rights balance

“From an economic policy perspective the maximization of social welfare from data requires maintaining a balance between data ownership protection and access rights.”

School of law thought alternatives to cover rights to data

“There are several schools of thought in law on the origin of [exclusive private rights:

• ‘single variable essentialism’ argues that the right to exclude is enough
• ‘multiple variable essentialism’ says that the right…

Whether data or information is property and can be owned

“Heverly (2003) argues that in order to determine whether data or information is property that can be owned by a natural or legal person, we must examine to what extent the rights given to information are analogous to those in more established property rights settings…