Drawing Up a New Legal Ecosystem for Open Data
to Improve Citizen Participation and Collaboration
by Irène BOUHADANA, Associate Professor, the Sorbonne Law School
(University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), Secretary-General
of IMODEV (France) and William GILLES,
Associate Professor (HDR), the Sorbonne Law School, Director of the Chair of
Americas of University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne,
President of IMODEV (France).
It may seem straightaway paradoxical to deal with the legal
framework of the public data reuse in a research work analyzing citizen participation and collaboration in promoting open
government. If
there is no doubt that public data reuse is a central issue of open
governments, a priori, this policy
falls under the third requirement of the open government, namely, transparency.
Yet, this assertion shall be qualified since we consider that the right to
re-use public information does not only pursue the objective of transparency in
public administrations, but that it has above all for end to favor the flow of
information.
This one is a requirement to favor a citizen participation
and collaboration that is effective and efficient. A quality distribution of
the information is a requirement for a public-spirited debate or to enabling
the citizenry to participate in the co-construction of the law. Indeed,
citizens cannot participate or collaborate without a full knowledge of the facts. In this respect,
transparency is a requirement, but it required also an efficient flow of the
information disclosed by governments and public administrations. In the same
way, companies cannot bring their participation or their collaboration to the
digital economy, and thus to the development of the society, if they cannot
easily reuse the public information that should be disclosed in an open
government. In this respect,
companies’ participation and collaboration will be, for example, in the service
of the quality, the effectiveness and the efficiency of public services by
developing apps that analyze data opened by public administrations. This
analysis helps improve public policies.
For these reasons, analyzing the legal framework of the
public information reuse is essential to understand the restrictions to citizen
participation and collaboration, and, on the contrary, to think how ensuring an
effective distribution of the public information that is disclosed by
governments. That last requirement is essential because it enables citizens,
civil servants, or companies to better participate and collaborate. From this
point of view, it is crucial to examine whether governments should provide a
free access to their data. To put it in another way, can we accept that public
information reuse is subjected to the payment of fees by the re-user?
The least that one can say about this issue is that the free
re-use of public information has become today the abiding principle of open
data policies. However, a more differentiating analysis based on the creation
of new resources thanks to the payment of fees could help governments to lead
an effective and efficient open data policy. This evolution is a huge
requirement to renew citizen participation and collaboration in the open
government age.
Seeking legal
solutions to the problems posed by the reuse of public data would not have been
relevant ten years ago, simply because, at least in France, the problem did not
arise. It's not that French law did not deal with public data, but it took
until 2005 for France to adopt a legal framework encouraging open data.
On the one
hand, it is true that in the late 1970s France became interested in the legal
regime of access to administrative documents by consecrating a "right to
information of the governed"[1]
in the Law of 17 July 1978. However, at that time, it consisted of only a right
to communicate administrative documents and not a right to re-use them. This
right to communicate was recognized as subject to the rights of literary and
artistic property[2].
However, the Law of 17 July 1978 did not provide for the right to re-use public
information. On the contrary, it expressly prohibited the reproduction,
distribution or use of communicated documents for commercial purposes. Thus,
with this legal framework, the process of opening public data would have lost
all its meaning.
European Union
law will encourage France to step up to a turning point in terms of open data
through the transposition of the 17 November 2003 Directive on public sector
information reuse[3]. This transposition was carried out by the
Ordinance of June 6, 2005[4],
which innovated by creating a legal regime dedicated to the reuse of public
information.
The European
Union’s foremost goal was to harmonize the practices of public information
openness, those differences in legislation which may be obstacles to European
common market objectives[5],
as this process is of major interest with the advent of the information
society.[6]
Despite the
importance of these issues, in its 2003 version, the Directive on public sector
information was barely binding for Member States. First, in terms of public
information, European law only covers the reuse of public information, not
access to it, which remains the exclusive competence of Member States.
Therefore, the 2003 Directive only covers the second stage (reuse), not the
first (access to information). Yet, in order to reuse, one must first have
access to public information, which provides significant wiggle room for Member
States.
Moreover, the
initial version of the 2003 Directive left the States free decide whether or
not to allow the reuse of public information. Since the States wished to adopt
a legal framework authorizing the reuse of public information, they had to do
so while respecting European Union law, especially the 2003 Directive. Among EU
requirements we should mention the rules of competition among re-users of
different Member States or the supervision of public information reuse pricing.
France could
have contented itself with fulfilling its commitments vis-à-vis the European
Union by transposing the Directive at the
very least. Instead, it opted for recognizing a genuine right to reuse
public information. The transposition of the 2003 Directive enshrines a right
to reuse public sector information for a purpose that was not that for which it
was produced.[7]
The 2005 Ordinance, which transposes this text, thus allows the reuse of
information within a wider interpretation, including for commercial purposes,
which is conducive to the open data process.
By adopting a
broad interpretation of the right to reuse public information, France stood out
as one of the European countries, like the United Kingdom for example, to have
opted for a legal regime encouraging open data.
Since then,
France did not need to make significant efforts to comply with the new
requirements of European Union law following the revision of the 2003 Directive
by the Directive of 2013. While Directive 2003/98/EC imposes few requirements
in terms of the reuse of public information, the European Union has become
aware of the need for a more binding framework to meet the challenges of the
information society. To do this, the 2013 Directive seeks to require Member
States to make all public information materials on public services reusable, with
exceptions specified in the text, such as when it consists of intellectual
property rights or sensitive data (personal data, data protected by trade
secrets or for national security reasons, etc.). Member States were required to
transpose the Directive and to apply it by 18 July 2015 at the latest. This is
the context of the Law on gratuitousness and the terms for the reuse of public
sector information that was adopted by the French Parliament in December 2015[8], which that aims to transpose the 2013
Directive.
France’s
transposition effort basically consists in the extension of the right to reuse
in the educational and cultural field, from the 2003 to the 2013 directives.
These areas fell outside the scope of the initial version of the 2003
Directive, and the 2013 revision makes them part of the scope of the Directive
on reuse. Indeed, the right to reuse public information now also applies to
documents held by educational and research institutions or by some cultural
institutions such as libraries (including university libraries), museums and
national archives[9].
It is true
that France had already paved the way for the reuse of educational and cultural
documents with the 6 June 2005 Ordinance, but it was a specific regime. This
scheme is an alternative to ordinary law under the Law of 17 July 1978[10]
and allowed educational and research institutions as well as cultural
institutions, organizations or services to set themselves the conditions for
the reuse of the documents that they develop or hold. The text of the
transposition of Directive 2013[11]
deletes the Article of the Law of 17 July 1978[12]
that set the alternative scheme for documents of teaching, research or cultural
institutions. This had the effect of
placing them under the regime of ordinary law.
Moreover, the
text transposing the 2013 Directive will help clarify the French legal
framework for exclusive rights. These agreements, which consist of granting a
monopoly on the exploitation of public information to a single beneficiary, are
prohibited in principle, but are authorized by and under exceptional
conditions. Thus, according to the 2003 Directive, the Ordinance of 6 June 2005
already provided for the possibility of granting exclusive rights to a third
party re-user of public information where such right is necessary for the
performance of a public service mission[13].
The transposition text of the 2013 Directive will specify that in this case,
the exclusivity period may not exceed ten years and the merits for granting it
should be reviewed periodically and at least every three years. Similarly, it
will add a new exception to the prohibition[14]
of exclusive rights since the 2013 Directive[15]
now provides for the digitization of cultural resources.
Finally, the
transposition of the 2013 Directive by the 2015 Law on the free reuse of public
data will seek to reduce the scope of the principle for pricing the reuse of
public information. Again, France will surpass its transposition obligation by
affirming the principle of free re-use of public data. That is to say that
Citizenry may have access to more information than in the past, not only
through the information made available on line by governments, but also through
the new information created by the reuse of public information. Indeed,
enabling citizens to freely reuse public information help them to analyze and
comment this information. The consequence is that providing a free right to
reuse information not only encourages citizen participation and collaboration,
but it also increases the information available. The citizenry will access not
only to the official information, but also to the information derived from the
official information. By “derived information”, we mean the information
commented and analyzed by the citizenry. This one can all the more exercise
their critical power towards the public information that they have a right to
reuse it. In other words, if guaranteeing the right to access to public
information is important, ensuring the right to reuse public information is
equally crucial to encourage citizen participation and collaboration. However,
as explained below, the generalization at all costs of this principle of
gratuitousness without considering other methods of valuation might be seen,
paradoxically, as an obstacle to maximizing the reuse of public data. That is
what we call “the paradox of the principle of gratuitousness”.
The free reuse
of public information is often seen as a prerequisite for an effective opening
of public information policy. Indeed, there is no doubt that opening public
information for free promotes its reuse. This information is not retained by
governments and used for the sole benefit of the public service for which it
was collected. Instead, it is opened for free to serve the creation of an
economic or democratic value.
This favorable
impact of gratuitousness of public data, highlighted by several reports[16],
is understandable because information held by many public administrations
(encrypted tables, databases, cartographic information systems, electronic
records, etc.) represents an intangible heritage that is reliable, rare and
diverse (the collected data concern the economy, society, geography,
meteorology, tourism, patents, education, business, etc.).
Not exploiting
this data can be a loss of democratic and economic wealth. Whereas opening them
may provide for its redevelopment for greater transparency and efficiency of
public services and for the creation of innovative services leveraging open
data. In other words, at the very least, opening data is useful to citizens,
public service users, journalists, researchers, software developers,
businesses, or the government administrations that may wish to learn more about
their operation.
Because the
data represent information with economic value, governments may be tempted to
require payment for this reuse through the payment of a fee, especially in
order to obtain new resources. However, excessive pricing can be an obstacle to
optimum re-use of public data.[17]
For these
reasons, EU law and French law first legally framed the pricing of public data
reuse. They did not ban, but then
proceeded to restrict it further.
At first,
European Union law, through the 2003 European Directive, limited the amount of
the fee to be paid by the re-user to an amount not exceeding the total sum of
the cost of providing public information and a reasonable return on investment[18].
In other words, it was possible for the administration responsible for the
opening of public data to make a re-user pay a fee equal to the cost of
collection, production, reproduction, and distribution, plus a reasonable
return on investment, calculated on an appropriate accounting period.
However, to
encourage reuse of public information, the 2013 Directive sought to reduce the
amount of fees paid by re-users. Their price is now limited to the marginal-cost
of reproduction, provision and dissemination of public information. European
Union law on the reuse of public information thus shifted from a total cost
rationale, including a return on investment, to a marginal-cost rationale, no
longer considering the investment made by the administration in collecting
the information.
The
marginal-cost pricing limit applies to all reusable public information, except
three cases for which the 2013 Directive has retained the old rationale. Thus,
Member States may provide for a fee for which the amount is calculated from the
cost of collection, production, reproduction, distribution, conservation and
rights acquisition, while allowing a reasonable return on investment in the
three following cases: a) for the information from public sector agencies
"required to generate revenues to cover a substantial part of the costs of
discharging their public service missions"; b) as an exception, for the
"documents for which the public sector body concerned is required to generate
sufficient revenue to cover a substantial portion of costs for their
collection, their production, reproduction and their dissemination".
Finally, for public information opened by libraries, including university
libraries, museums and archives.[19]
The legal
framework was set forth by the directives on public sector information of 2003
and 2013, which stipulate the maximum amount of fees that can be charged to
public data re-users. However, the maximum amount shall not constitute an
obligation and Member States also have the possibility of providing a more
favorable legal regime for re-users. France has chosen this second path by
adopting gradually the principle of gratuitousness of public information reuse.
At first,
France merely transposed the legal pricing regime as provided by the 2003
Directive. Thus, the 2005 Ordinance, transposing the text, authorized the
administrations which open their public information to establish a fee that
reflects the cost of information provision, including, where applicable, the
cost of treatment to render it anonymous and the costs of information
collection and production. In accordance with what was authorized by the 2003
Directive, governments could include in the fee calculation basis a reasonable
return on their investments.[20]
However,
France wanted to go further by promoting the free reuse of public information,
especially that collected and produced by the State. Also, the French government
decided in 2011 to limit reuse fees on data opened by the State by providing
that they must be authorized by a decree.[21],[22]
France has
pursued this commitment to free public information reuse by signing the G8
Charter on opening data of June 18, 2013. We recall that the signatory States
recognized "that open public data should be accessible and reusable for
free to promote more widespread use”[23],
and sought to "support the publication of data by using free licenses or
other relevant instruments, in compliance with intellectual property rights, so
that the information can be reused freely and unrestrictedly for commercial
purposes or not, except in exceptional cases." Indeed, as the Charter
highlights, "to make the State’s data available to the public by default
and make them reusable for free in formats that are open, easily accessible and
readable by computers and describe this data clearly to allow the public to
easily understand their content and meaning, is to provide new sources of
innovation in the private sector, to entrepreneurs and non-governmental
organizations”[24].
Finally,
France has just decided to extend the principle of free access to all public
information opened by the government (State and local authorities) through the
transposition text of the 2013 Directive by the Law of December 28, 2015[25]. This change seeks to promote the
reuse of public data by limiting the exceptions to the principle of
gratuitousness, on the one hand, to public authorities required to generate
their own resources and, on the other, the digitization of cultural capital.[26]
So doing, France yet again exceeds its European obligations, since rather than
considering marginal-cost pricing as allowed by the EU law, it prefers to cloak
its policy of opening up public data to the principle of free reuse.
However, this
commitment to free reuse of public information should not prevent one from
thinking of methods to valuate it, in particular by using additional resources.
A priori, everyone is in favor of gratuitousness. It is
obviously easy to defend such an option since everyone obviously wants to
benefit from a free provision. However, if we reflect more deeply, this
attitude amounted to an especially easy way and highlights a lack of
responsibility, especially given government that have a weak financial
situation, such as France.
Indeed,
gratuitousness can sometimes become a problem when governments do not have
enough money to implement a quality policy of open data. That means that
sometimes they do not open a lot of data, or if they do so, only weak data are
opened. Thus, citizens have a low interest for the data opened because they
consider that they are not useful. This leads to a paradox: providing a right
to reuse freely public information should encourage transparency, participation
and collaboration, but as governments do not dedicate enough resources to open
good quality data, the citizenry does not exercise their right. For this
reason, we consider that if gratuitousness is justified in most cases because
one must encourage access to data and their reuse, this principle should not
prevent one from thinking about public policy financing arrangements, and open
data policies.
What would be
the point of gratuitousness applied to low quality data and too few data?
However, a more complex approach, and therefore more intelligent one, would, in
our opinion, likely ensure funding to implement an ambitious policy of opening
up public data.
Take the
example of free public transport. At first, people are happy because they can
use public transport for free.... Then, gradually, they let their
dissatisfaction become known as the transportation system becomes antiquated.
This obsolescence is due to the lack of investment; the government did not have
sufficient resources to finance updating because their budgets have been
reduced due to the gratuitousness. This example illustrates the complexity of
the issue of gratuitousness. If it can enjoy the support of everyone at first,
difficulties may arise, particularly when public resources are insufficient to
finance effective public policy.
Thus, the
principle of gratuitousness can be helpful and understandable, but it should
not prevent the valuation of the intangible heritage of public persons. The two concepts for public data reuse have often
been considered contradictory when in reality, they can be complementary.
Indeed, one can provide for a free basic principle in addition to a mechanism
that values the datum in a more complex circuit focused around value-added or
acquired rights services. The thinking that opposes everything that is free and
everything that is paid is therefore a sterile debate. What is less so,
however, is the need to forge an economic model and to find legal solutions to
the complex problems that may arise from it.
In a more empowering perspective, therefore, first one must question the
effectiveness of open data. The pricing issue should only be treated
afterwards. In other words, to evaluate the effectiveness of open data, it is
important to ask questions on two levels.
From a
qualitative point of view, the question consists of opening public data compliant
with international opening standards to encourage their reuse.
From a
quantitative point of view, it is necessary to open the most data possible.
Once the goal
is set, then one must identify what the constraints are in order to remove
them.
Among these
constraints, we must mention the hesitation of some governments to open their
data. Given this situation, an educational effort is needed to make them
understand the interest they may have in opening their data.
To our mind,
the real problem that remains is funding in order to achieve an ambitious
opening of public information policy. To do this, one must go beyond the binary
debate between free and fee. The reality is probably more complex.
And herein
lies oftentimes a misunderstanding. We may well defend a position that is more
nuanced than that, in which everything is free, while encouraging opening
public information because we are certain of the interest of this movement, we
are aware of what it can bring to the economy, and it is precisely for these
reasons that we must find a solution to finance an ambitious policy of
re-opening public information, with data service and quality.
Re-users do
not correspond to any single category and some have specific needs. An
instrument for the enhancement of public data could take these specificities
into account. Two axes of valuations can be considered to raise new resources,
and better fund the public information opening policy.
On the one
hand, one could envisage the creation of "fees for acquiring rights".
This proposal assumes the principle that some re-users can accept or even wish
to purchase additional rights to have more flexibility in data management. For
example, the new mechanism could be based on a basic license authorizing a "share alike" of documents, that is, an identical copy of
public information, which the re-user may then wish to acquire to have a more
permissive license in exchange for payment of rights. The valuation of public
data is therefore based, in this case, on additional rights that the re-user
wishes to acquire on the given open datum in its raw format.
These
additional rights do not undermine the principle of non-discrimination and free
competition, which could be an obstacle to their implementation in accordance
with European Union law. Indeed, any re-user may acquire these additional
rights, by consequence without discrimination among future potential re-users.
In addition, it should be noted that earnings from the rights acquired by the
re-user are not intended to finance the collection or provision of data, but
additional rights in relation to this basic process. Fees or other compensation
that may be paid in connection with the acquisition of these rights should
therefore not be confused with reuse fees, which are strictly controlled by the
2013 PSI Directive.
On the other
hand, a second proposal to value public information would be to provide fees
for additional service. In other words, the re-user who wishes to enjoy
additional services in contrast to the basic service of raw information
provision should pay the price corresponding to this additional service. These
additional services would be a real added value in comparison to the basic
service, and they may take the form of alerts, increased update frequency (e.g.
quarterly rather than yearly), access to reworked data, provision in a specific
format, etc.
In this case, the introduction of fees would not be subject to access or
reuse of public data in raw state, but rather the performance of a value-added
service by the government. Again, this is not a public data reuse fee. As such,
they fall outside the scope of the PSI Directive.
In the two
above-mentioned proposals, the only goal is to enable the government, if it so
wishes, to charge for supplementary or additional acquired rights services.
These charges for additional services cannot be assimilated to those set forth
in the European directive, if only because they correspond to work done by the
government or a service provided by the latter to re-users in relation to the
distribution of basic public information.
Thanks to
these additional services, governments will earn new resources. However, in our
proposal, the aim is not to reallocate new resources for the Government budget
in general, but to find revenues to finance an open data policy that is
efficient and effective, and thus encouraging transparency, and citizen
participation and collaboration. Our next proposal pursues the same goal.
A final, more
innovative, proposal would be to promote public information through a tax paid
by the major re-users. The need to create this new funding source stems from
the finding that the main beneficiaries of data reuse, who are the Internet
actors, do not participate sufficiently in the financing of the economy from
which they derive their profits.
Most often,
these companies use aggressive tax schemes to evade taxes and repatriate
taxable profits in tax havens, taking advantage of legal loopholes between
international tax treaties. In addition, they often fail to develop their
economic model using the "free worker”[27],
that is, they make users contribute to the development of a website (e.g.
Wikipedia), a product or a service without compensating them. The Colin &
Collin Report underlines that free labor existed prior to the digital economy
(e.g. Tupperware meetings), but that it has taken on a new dimension in the
Information Society. Indeed, free labor is growing at a much larger scale as
the model of the digital economy is based on data and information that are
either collected automatically or indicated by the users. This information
obtained nearly for free are then valued.
This free
labor theory can in some ways be applied to the opening of public information
since they are collected and opened by the authorities without making the
re-user bear the costs; or, if they’re not free, at a marginal-cost under
European Union law.
While the free
opening of this data can be justified as explained above, it becomes
problematic when it prevents governments from having sufficient resources to
conduct a quality open data policy.
For these
reasons, we propose to find new resources to fund an effective policy of
opening up public data. In addition to the fees that have already been
mentioned, we should consider the creation of a new funding source from the
major re-users of data, the main beneficiaries of the digital economy.
This new
funding could take the form of a tax calculated according to the volume and
quality of open data. The latter would be gradual so as to weigh only on the
largest data consumers and, thus, not penalize small re-users. Furthermore, in
France, start-ups benefit from a tax exemption for seven years to enable them
to achieve sufficient economic stability. The goal is to avoid having this new tax,
the terms of which were set forth in a report resulting from my 2015 hearing
before the French Senate[28],
create barriers for newcomers to the digital market economy since they are the
drivers of the information society.
However, it is
precisely the role of law to regulate the digital economy by finding a
compromise between freedom of enterprise, the traditional need to finance
public services (the purpose of taxes) and the search for a new valuation of
the intangible resources of government to benefit the collective well-being,
and in our case, to favor the citizenry participation and collaboration in an
open government age.
[1] Article 1st
of the Law No. 78-753 of July 17, 1978.
[2] See
Article 10 of the Law No. 78-753 of July 17, 1978.
[3] Directive n° 2003/98/EC of November
17, 2003, of the European Parliament and of the Council on the re-use of the
public sector information.
[4] See the ordinance n° 2005-650 of June 6,
2005 (ordonnance relative à la liberté d'accès aux documents administratifs et
à la réutilisation des informations publiques).
[5] The directive of 2003 recalls that:
“(1)
The Treaty provides for the establishment of an internal market and of a system
ensuring that competition in the internal market is not distorted.
Harmonization of the rules and practices in the Member States relating to the
exploitation of public sector information contributes to the achievement of these
objectives. […]
(6)
There are considerable differences in the rules and practices in the Member
States relating to the exploitation of public sector information resources,
which constitute barriers to bringing out the full economic potential of this
key document resource.
Traditional
practice in public sector bodies in exploiting public sector information has
developed in very disparate ways. That should be taken into account. Minimum
harmonization of national rules and practices on the re-use of public sector
documents should therefore be undertaken, in cases where the differences in
national regulations and practices or the absence of clarity hinder the smooth
functioning of the internal market and the proper development of the
information society in the Community.
(7)
Moreover, without minimum harmonization at Community level, legislative
activities at national level, which have already been initiated in a number of
Member States in order to respond to the technological challenges, might result
in even more significant differences.
The
impact of such legislative differences and uncertainties will become more
significant with the further development of the information society, which has
already greatly increased cross-border exploitation of information.”
[6] Those issues are explained by the
directive of 2003 in the following terms:
“(2)
The evolution towards an information and knowledge society influences the life
of every citizen in the Community, inter
alia, by enabling them to gain new ways of accessing and acquiring
knowledge.
(3)
Digital content plays an important role in this evolution.
Content
production has given rise to rapid job creation in recent years and continues
to do so. Most of these jobs are created in small emerging companies.
(4)
The public sector collects, produces, reproduces and disseminates a wide range
of information in many areas of activity, such as social, economic,
geographical, weather, tourist, business, patent and educational information.
(5)
One of the principal aims of the establishment of an internal market is the
creation of conditions conducive to the development of Community-wide services.
Public sector information is an important primary material for digital content
products and services and will become an even more important content resource
with the development of wireless content services. Broad cross-border
geographical coverage will also be essential in this context. Wider
possibilities of re-using public sector information should inter alia allow European companies to exploit its potential and
contribute to economic growth and job creation.”
[7] See the ordinance n° 2005-650 of June 6, 2005.
[8] See the
Law n° 2015-1779 of December
28, 2015, on gratuitousness and the terms for the reuse of public sector information (loi relative à la gratuité et aux
modalités de la réutilisation des informations du secteur public).
[9] See the directive of June 26, 2013.
[10] In particular, see Article 10 of the Law of July 17, 1978.
[11] See
the Law n° 2015-1779 of December 28, 2015.
[12] See
Article 11 of the Law of July 17, 1978.
[13] See
Article 14 of the Law of July 17, 1978.
[14] See
Article 2 of the Law n°
2015-1779 of December 28, 2015, that amends Article 14 of the Law of July 17,
1978.
[15] See
Article 11 of the directive of June 26, 2013.
[16] For instance, see M. Lind, The Value of
Providing Danish Address Data Free of Charge, July 12, 2010, Danish
Enterprise and Construction Authority (DECA); G. Almirall,
M. Moix Bergadà, P. Queraltó Ros, M. Craglia, The
socio-economic impact of the spatial data infrastructure of Catalonia,
Official Publications of the European Communities, 2008; Mohammed Adnène Trojette, Ouverture des données publiques. Les exceptions au principe de gratuité sont-elles toutes légitimes?, Rapport au
Premier ministre (France), October 2013.
[17] About the debate of the pricing of the
public sector information re-use,
see William
Gilles, La tarification de la mise à
disposition des données publiques électroniques des collectivités territoriales,
Revue Lamy Collectivités territoriales,
n° 76, 2012.
[18] See
Article 6 (Principles governing charging) of the directive of 2003.
[19] See
Article 6 (Principles governing charging) of the directive of 2013.
[20] See
Article 15 of the Law of July 17, 1978.
[21] The decree n° 2011-577 of May 26, 2011
(décret relatif à la réutilisation des informations publiques détenues par l'État et ses établissements
publics administratifs) adds two paragraphs to
Article 38 of the decree of December
30, 2005. This provision is
specified by the ministerial
circular of May 26, 2011 (circulaire du 26 mai 2011 relative à la création du portail
unique des informations publiques de l'Etat « data.gouv.fr » par la mission « Etalab » et l'application des dispositions régissant le
droit de réutilisation des informations publiques), and in particular,
annexes II and III.
[22] The list of fees is mentioned on:
https://www.data.gouv.fr/fr/Redevances.
[23] See
the final release of the G8 Summit, Lough Erne, June 20, 2013.
[24] Ibidem.
[25] See Article 5 of the Law n°
2015-1779 of December 28, 2015, that amends Article 14 of the Law of July 17,
1978.
[26] See
the explanatory statement of the Law n° 2015-1779 of December 28, 2015.
[27] See Pierre Collin & Nicolas Colin, Rapport
Mission d'expertise sur la fiscalité de l'économie numérique, 2013.
[28] See William Gilles, Décloisonner le débat sur l'open data. Pour une
politique ambitieuse de réutilisation des informations publiques,
Report, Imodev, Octobre 2015. See also William Gilles, Refonder le droit et la gouvernance de
l'information publique à l'ère des gouvernements ouverts, Report, IMODEV, May 2014.