Thank you all for this fascinating discussion!  I particularly appreciate the kind words from past (and future) customers.

You're right, Cinly, this thread is as close to an advertisement as is possible on NITRC, and I am on Andy's marketing team — I'm the whole team!  We signed up early on to be actual advertisers on NITRC, but it is not allowed.  Even so,  I think the ideas expressed here are important.

I have been itching to respond to each reply, but in holding back, it appears that most of what I would have said has been said, so I'll only add a few clarifications.

Ged, Neuromorphometrics isn't suing anybody!  I was happy to openly provide data for the MICCAI Challenges because I want you to get hooked: this stuff is so good you'll want more once you get a taste.  The thing is, that data is so last-year.  We're constantly combing through the entire database, fixing problems, improving consistency and adding new regions of interest, along with additional subjects.  The 2013 subscription will include 30 ADNI scans along with 15 more test-retest subjects (scanned twice and labeled twice).

But enough with the advertising already!

This is not a hypothetical philosophical debate for Neuromorphometrics: we can't work for free (we tried that). Neuromorphometrics is not a lab, we are a company that labels brains. That's all we do. We've invested years in creating the database we now have available. The philosophical issue of free / libre assumes that somehow the resource will exist in any event. But if we are not paid for our work, we won't be able to do that work: no more brain will be added to the subscription.

My claim is that we'll be able to label more brains faster by charging a fee instead of releasing them for free and charging for other services.  If you disagree and have specific ideas on how the latter might work, I'd love to hear them.  Free release would encourage widespread use that would be helpful in achieving the goal of maximal benefit to the common good, but widespread use is not itself a goal. The ultimate goal is improved human health and increased neuroscientific knowledge.  The poor but brilliant postdoc doesn't have the resources to start with a database of labeled brain scans and end up with a FDA approved medical device, but a well-funded corporation does.

A single company is responsible for making the majority of the labeled scans in the subscription available because they paid $1500 for each scan (63 scans = $94,500). From that perspective, $1500 is a shockingly small amount for access to all of those same scans.  We charged them less than the full price, $2449, with the understanding that we'd make up the difference by licensing the scans to others.

We're providing data as a subscription because our goal is the sustainable ongoing labeling of brains so that we approach an understanding of human brain variation.   At a gross level, each brain is similar, but at finer scales, they are as different as fingerprints.  Most of the subjects in the subscription so far are from the OASIS MRI scan repository and thus represent a limited geographical region. We have yet to add subjects from India or China, for instance.  And we want to start adding diffusion scans so we can understand white matter regions.

As Luis points out, the exact licensing terms are important.  I have tried to make our intent clear there: the lower fee is for academic purposes (publishing, etc.) and distributing derivative works is specifically allowed if done under a similar license, but if some revenue is expected as a result of using our database, we want a one-time cut of that up front in the form of the higher fee. It all goes to making the resource better.

I pains me to know that brilliant minds could be hard at work mining our database but cannot due to the fee.  There are labeled scans available for free (see this NITRC discussion).  Maybe the "Labelled individual images" at the bottom of the SPM WikiBook on atlases will provide what you need.  Or, since our fee goes toward improving our database, perhaps we can wave it if you provide something else that will help in that goal.  I am not a monster!  :)

Andy.