The Treaty if implemented without exclusions relating to the international exchange of operational meteorological and related environmental data would place pressures on countries to impose restrictions on data flow. Original data placed in the public domain should continue to be available to the scientific community freely or at nominal cost, irrespective of the existence of databases. A private provider of a database must not be able to deny access to the original public domain data. Data generated by publicly funded research should be available to the public, with the exception of data that has a national security classification. Fair use provisions need to be appropriately defined.
Scientific databases vary in the extent to which they constitute a public good'.
The intention to use a database for public good' is the most important criterion for its exemption from the protection' of databases offered by the proposed Treaty. Exemptions from the proposed Treaty should be given for databases which have substantial public good' benefits, particularly where those public good' benefits extend to several countries. Data collected for internal research purposes by a research institution, and any associated databases, should also be exempt. Unless otherwise specified, the generators or authors of original or raw data should retain rights to impose conditions upon the maker of a database for free or nominal cost usage for themselves and other classes of user as specified by them. If the Treaty does come into being, a prescribed time should be allowed for the identification and symbolic marking of public good databases.