Research on diginomics and making an open-world.

The purpose of our research is to obtain key facts and figures about the state of the information economy and, especially, the opportunity for employing alternative compensation systems (ACS) for paying for information – "alternative" in being different to monopoly rights like patents and copyright.

Research Program

Questions

• The "facts" of the information economy: how big is it, how significant is it relative to the rest of the information economy?
  • How much of the economy is "information" based
• What are the ways to fund information creation?
  • How would they work in detail.
  • Are open models more efficient than closed ones?

Themes

• Size and form of the information economy: how much money is spent on buying or prodeucing information each year? How much on music, how much on software etc?
• Sources of funding for information: how much funding is supplied by: public, government sources; philanthropic sources; private "open" businesses or individuals; private "closed" businesses. The logic here being that the first three are all "open-compatible" today.
• Detailed planning of ACS like remuneration rights. For example, assessing how much we would each pay for "open music", how we could assess usage (and value) and allocate monies

Some of this research is statistical and data oriented. Some of it is classic "desk research" to find papers, or to summarize reports.

Databases

Non-monopoly models

• Government funding for research
• Philanthropic funding for research
• A list of prize funds
• What other models are there (including what proposals) - literature

What research is there on copyright and its impact on access.

What research is there on patents and its impact on access.