I was recently asked to write a piece for Berlin-based think tank Das Progressive Zentrum on public interest information policy in Germany:

• Wem gehört das Wissen? Informationspolitik in Deutschland (Shorter German version)
• Public Interest Information Policy in Germany (Longer English version)

The piece finishes with three policy suggestions:

1. Support legislation as well as licensing and pricing policies that support public re-usability of Public Sector Information. The creation of a national register of PSI assets, and the commissioning of a country-wide and cross-sector report would help to inform appropriate activity in this area.
2. Support mandates for open access to publicly funded research. These should target higher education institutions, as well as funding bodies and umbrella organisations.
3. Keep the public domain in the public domain. Encourage publicly funded cultural heritage institutions to allow digital copies of their holdings to be re-used by the public. Encourage the adoption of intellectual property law and policy that takes account of public interest, as well as private interests.

Related posts:

1. Euro Directive on Re-Use of Public Sector Information: What Is Actually Happening at the Local Level? John Gray has recently been conducting some rather interesting research on the degree of re-use actually being achieved at local government level in the UK pursuant to the Euro Directive on the Re-Use of Public Sector Information (Statutory Instrument SI...
2. Meeting on UK Public Sector Information Re-use Request Service On Saturday I attended a ‘BarCamp’ on the Power of Information Review Recommendation 8 – which suggests there should be a re-use request service for UK Public Sector Information (we blogged about this in October). The event was organised by...
3. What Obama can do to promote openness With the inauguration of US President-Elect Barack Obama later today – we thought we’d prepare a brief list of things he can do to promote openness in his new role. Open government data. Make core government data open (as in...