SDI Convergence - Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association

The reuse of public sector information assumed an important role in the geographic
information field, in particular after the enforcement of the INSPIRE Directive, encouraging
both sharing of geographic information and services and protection of intellectual
property rights, using electronically implemented licences.
4. PHASE II: A NEW BUSINESS MODEL FOR LICENSING GEOGRAPHIC RE-
SOURCES
During the first phase we paid attention to international activities of managing use
rights of geographic information, focusing on the application of Rights Management in
the INSPIRE context, to understand the regulatory background in Europe. The second
phase started with a preliminary analysis of information, uses and conditions of access,
to develop the matrix ‘Data/use categories/access’. Then the research continued with
the realisation of two regulatory instruments on the use and dissemination of geographic
information: a set of ‘standard geolicences’ and the general ‘Guidelines on the
use of geographic information’.
4.1 The matrix of ‘Data/use categories/access’
The preliminary analysis produced a matrix enabling information owners, in this case a
public authority, to define possible uses and different kinds of access for different types
of users of their geographic information. The first column identifies the ‘data set’ on
which matrix is applied, the second the ‘use categories’ in term of permitted uses and
the third column defines ‘access conditions’ such as user types, on-screen display,
download and so on.
Figure 1: Matrix ‘Data/use categories/access’.
The ‘Data set’ column defines geographic information resources, probably in the next
research phase the definition may include not only data sets but also services. The
section ‘use categories’ includes commercial and non-commercial use. Commercial
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