Re: Business Models, Profitability, and Linked Data

On 6/10/13 4:18 AM, Leigh Dodds wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Fri, Jun 7, 2013 at 5:52 PM, Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com> wrote:
>> There have been a few recent threads on the LOD and Semantic
>> Web mailing lists that boil down to the fundamental issues of
>> profitability, business models, and Linked Data.
>>
>> Situation Analysis
>> ==================
>>
>> Business Model Issue
>> --------------------
>>
>> The problem with "Data"-oriented business models is that you
>> ultimately have to deal with the issue of wholesale data copying
>> without attribution. That's the key issue; everything else is
>> a futile dance around this concern.
> Why do you think that attribution is the key issue with data oriented
> businesses?

Its the key to provenance. It's the key making all contributors to the 
data value chain visible.

As I've already stated, the big problem here is wholesale copying and 
reproduction without attribution. Every data publisher has to deal with 
this problem, at some point, when crafting a data oriented business model.

>
> I've spoken with a number of firms who have business models based on
> data supply and have never once heard attribution being mentioned as
> an issue for themselves or their customers. So I'm curious why you
> think this is a problem.

And are those data suppliers conforming to patterns such as those 
associated with publicly available Linked Open Data? Can they provide 
open access to data and actually have a functional business model based 
on the aforementioned style of data publication?

If data publishers insist on being attributed by keeping the original 
URIs intact, you end up with a virtuous system for data publication that 
fits nicely into the underlying essence of systems such as the World 
Wide Web.

Kingsley
>
> Cheers,
>
> L.
>
> --
> Leigh Dodds
> Freelance Technologist
> Open Data, Linked Data Geek
> t: @ldodds
> w: ldodds.com
> e: leigh@ldodds.com
>
>
>


-- 

Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	
Founder & CEO
OpenLink Software
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