Many feel that, through legislation on issues that range from intellectual property rights to copyright on databases, attempts to turn scientific information into private property have gone too far. The WSIS [World Summit on the Information Society, Dec. 2003] presents an ideal opportunity to highlight this issue before the world's political leaders, and help forge an international consensus that urgent measures are needed to redress the balance between public access to, and private control over, scientific data...Developing nations are at particular risk from these trends.