Intellectual Property and Economics: Mission Statement

The main responsibilities of this subgroup are:

1. to provide mechanisms for providing access and managing rights to intellectual property in the digital library
2. to design and implement facilities for economic allocation of resources, including:
• documents in the collections
• information services
• computation (processing and storage)

In designing these mechanisms, we seek to maximize the value accruing to both providers and consumers participating in the UMDL. Our approach will be to provide an environment whereby the participants engage in transactions they deem mutually beneficial. This will include a general framework for negotiation of terms and delivery of information services, as well as a suite of specific protocols implementing some standard forms of agreement. We will evaluate alternate mechanisms according to allocation efficiency, equity, and computational and other transaction costs.

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Comments or questions may be sent to: UMDL.INFO@umich.edu