Kellan Elliott-McCrea's blog post discusses the importance of data access, ownership and opposing data lock-in in social software engineering, using Flickr as an example. The article outlines that all data a user inputs into Flickr can be extracted in its entirety via their API, emphasizing that complete data ownership is a minimum standard for user-friendly platforms. While data gets enriched as it moves through Flickr's system, users still retain full access to and control of their data.
Data Access, Data Ownership, and Sharecropping. — laughingmeme.org — Readability
http://laughingmeme.org/2010/05/18/minimal-competence-data-access-data-ownership-and-sharecropping/