Scientific advances rely on full and open access to data. Both science and the public are well served by a system of scholarly research and communication with minimal constraints on the availability of data for further analysis. The tradition of full and open access to data has led to breakthroughs in scientific understanding, as well as to later economic and public policy benefits. The idea that an individual or organization can control access to or claim ownership of the facts of nature is foreign to science. A market model for access to data is unsuitable for research and education.
Science is a cooperative, rather than a competitive, enterprise.
No individual, institution, or country can collect all the data it needs to address important scientific issues. Thus, practices that encourage data sharing are necessary to advance science and to achieve the resulting social benefits. Such data sharing is possible within tight research budgets only when data are affordable. If data are formally made available for scientific access, but the prices charged for such access are prohibitively high, the negative impact on science is the same as if access had been legally denied. This is especially the case for scientists in developing countries.