The Incentives to Preserve Digital Materials: Roles, Scenarios, and Economic Decision-making

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The Incentives to PreserveDigital
MaterialsRoles, Scenarios, and Economic
Decision-making

• Brian Lavoie
• Research Scientist
• OCLC Research
• CNI Spring Task Force Meeting, April 29, 2003

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Roadmap

• Background Economics of Digital Preservation
• Incentives to Preserve Digital Materials
• Framework for Analyzing Incentives
• Implications
• Summary

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Economics of Digital Preservation
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Digital collections growing
but long-term retention uncertain

• Digital Preservation Research
• Architectures
• Metadata
• Preservation strategies
• Economics

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Fundamental Economic Questions

• IF we preserve, how much will it cost?
• But WILL we preserve?
• Or What are the incentives to preserve?
• Important because digital preservation
• likely to be routine, ongoing component of
  digital asset lifecycle management
• extends beyond collecting institutions to
  stakeholders not traditionally associated
  with preservation

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Analysis of Incentives

• Incentives in practice
• Cost/benefit analysis for a proposed activity
• Quantify incentives (costs and benefits)
• But quantifying digital preservation costs and
  benefits problematic
• Useful to have some form of predictive model to
  address question Will we preserve?
• Strategy develop simple framework that
• Identifies key decision-making roles in digital
  preservation
• Characterizes set of core scenarios
  representing possible ways decision-making roles
  can be organized in a digital preservation
  activity
• Apply economic theory to core scenarios to yield
  qualitative descriptions of the incentives to
  preserve in each scenario

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Incentives to Preserve
(1) Recognition of a value or benefit in
preserving a set of digital materials need to
preserve demand for digital preservation
services
(2) Willingness to implement and carry out
processes necessary to preserve digital
materials willingness to preserve supply of
digital preservation services
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Digital PreservationDecision-Making Roles
Archive
Beneficiary

• Implements and manages
• preservation process

• Benefits from preservation
• Directly as end user
• Indirectly on behalf of end-users

Rights Holder

• Holds intellectual property rights
• Right to initiate preservation
• Can cede or grant right to another entity

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Roles and Incentives

• Decision-makers are roles, not distinct entities
  (Entity library, publisher, person, etc.)
• Multiple entities can share the same role
• Beneficiary embodies need to preserve
• Archive embodies willingness to preserve
• Rights Holder empowers incentives

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Core Scenarios of Digital Preservation
Beneficiary
Archive
Rights Holder
Centripetal Model
Rights Holder
Archive
Beneficiary
Centrifugal Model
Rights Holder
Archive
Beneficiary
Supply-Side Model
Rights Holder
Archive
Beneficiary
Demand-Side Model
Rights Holder
Archive
Beneficiary
Consolidated Model
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Economic Theory and Incentives

• Core scenarios highlight
• Relationships among key decision-making roles
  associated with digital preservation
• Relationships between need to preserve,
  willingness to preserve, and right to preserve
• How do these relationships impact incentives?
• Economics rich literature dealing with
  incentives in settings similar to core
  scenarios
• Prospects for sufficient incentives to emerge
  factors that may diminish incentives
• Policies to enhance incentives where needed

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Example

• Licensed/Subscribed digital content
• e-journals, e-books, online databases
• Common features
• Accessed over network (Rights Holders server)
• Ownership/physical possession of bits resides
  with Rights Holder

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Benefits from Preservation

• For some period of time, Rights Holder is also a
  Beneficiary from preservation
• Digital materials economic life
• But collecting institutions may perceive benefits
  from preservation beyond this period
• E.g., preserving scholarly or cultural record
• At some point, Rights Holder ceases to be
  Beneficiary, but other institutions continue in
  that role
• I.e., Rights Holder becomes entity distinct from
  Beneficiary

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Positive Externalities
Person B
Person A

• Examples
• Vaccination
• Digital Preservation

Benefits
Cost
Benefits
Economic Activity
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Back to Core Scenarios

• Rights Holder is distinct from Beneficiary
• Need to Preserve separate from Right to Preserve
• Centrifugal Model RH, B, and A all separate
• Supply-Side Model RH, A same B separate
• Consolidated Model B, A same RH separate
• In each of these models, economically sustainable
  digital preservation must overcome the incentive
  gap created by the positive externality

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Textbook Solutions

• Government Intervention
• Provide the activity
• Fund the activity through subsidies
• Legal Environment
• Force Rights Holder to undertake activity
  (compensated through subsidy)
• Force Rights Holder to grant right to preserve to
  another entity
• Negotiation
• Beneficiary persuades Rights Holder to undertake
  preservation (Beneficiary pays)
• Beneficiary persuades Rights Holder to grant
  right to preserve (Beneficiary pays)

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And a Real-World Example
Archiving Journal Content in Digital Form
Libraries (Beneficiaries)
Publishers (Rights Holder)
Centrifugal Model

• Free up space
• Eliminate redundancies
• Lower long-term storage costs
• Facilitate access

?

• Negotiates with Publishers
• Reformats content
• Manages storage access
• Charges access archiving
• fees to libraries

JSTOR (Archive)
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Summary

• Incentives to preserve fundamental to developing
  economically sustainable digital preservation
  activities
• For any set of digital materials, need to examine
  underlying motivations to undertake digital
  preservation
• To analyze incentives, characterize organization
  of decision-making roles for a particular digital
  preservation activity
• Identify relationships between incentives to
  preserve (need to preserve, willingness to
  preserve) and right to preserve
• Use these relationships to identify potential
  misalignment of preservation incentives and
  objectives. This will inform
• Organization of digital preservation activities a
  priori
• Design of policies to enhance incentives ex post

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For More Information

• Paper
• http//www.oclc.org/research/projects/digipres/inc
  entives-dp.pdf
• Contact
• lavoie_at_oclc.org