UMDL subgroup on
Intellectual Property and Economic Issues
e-mail address: UMDL.IPE@umich.edu
UM Members
Partners
- Karen Hunter, Elsevier
- Ann Okerson, Association of Research Libraries
Mission Statement
The main responsibilities of this subgroup are
- to provide mechanisms for providing access and managing rights to intellectual property in the digital library, and
- to design and implement facilities for economic allocation of resources, including
- documents in the collections,
- information services, and
- computation (processing and storage).
In designing these mechanisms, we seek to maximize the value accruing to both providers and consumers participating in the UMDL. Our approach will be to provide an environment whereby the participants engage in transactions they deem mutually beneficial. This will include a general framework for negotiation of terms and delivery of information services, as well as a suite of specific protocols implementing some standard forms of agreement. We will evaluate alternate mechanisms according to allocation efficiency, equity, and computational and other transaction costs.
Pricing Information Resources
The prospect of using market-based mechanisms for allocating information and computational resources presents many complicated, confusing, and sometimes contentious issues. Hal Varian and Jeffrey MacKie-Mason answer Some FAQs about Usage-Based Pricing. Their discussion is in the context of pricing the internet, but most of the concepts are applicable more generally.
Meetings
We will schedule (roughly) monthly meetings for Winter 95.
Other Relevant Pointers
Updated by Michael Wellman on 11/29/94