The opening up of information to the public encourages further research and development  By making publicly funded academic work freely available to society, the state throws open the door to far more long term progress and invention that has been so long shut by the jealous hoarding of information and research. The arenas of science, literature, critical theory, and all other fields of academic pursuit, benefit most from a proliferation of voices and opinions, this is why the peer review system exists. This is much as how crowdsourcing and openness helps with software development, there are more eyeballs to spot mistakes, as a result research, particularly of large data capture projects is increasingly being crowdsourced itself. [1] By expanding the range of people able to utilize the information produced, more new and interesting things can be developed from it. The state funds important work, work that might never be able to attract private investment but is still important to the public interest. But this funding must then be available so that it may be best used in that public interest. And oftentimes it is only after an unprofitable, academic pursuit is explored with state support that someone else finds a profitable new use for it. That new endeavour can only be realised if academic work is made available to the public. In 2011 universities in the United States earned $1.8 billion in royalties from research. [2] Rather than simply being allowed to profit on their own, the inventions and developments of state-funded academic work should be made freely available to the public.  [1] Dunning, A., (29 July 2011) “Is crowdsourcing dumbing down research?” Guardian Professional.   [2] Blumenstyk, G. (2012) “Universities Report $1.8 Billion in Earnings on Inventions in 2011”. The Chronicle.