Information commons
Encyclopedia
An Information Commons is an information system, such as a physical library or online community, that exists to produce, conserve, and preserve information for current and future generations. Wikipedia
could be considered to be an information commons to the extent that it produces and preserves information through current versions of articles and histories. Other examples of an information commons includes Creative Commons
and Facebook
, though the latter has come under criticism for preserving private information on users.
Some believe that the increasing control and commodification of information restricts our ability to encourage and foster positive developments in our cultural, academic, and economic growth.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
could be considered to be an information commons to the extent that it produces and preserves information through current versions of articles and histories. Other examples of an information commons includes Creative Commons
Creative Commons
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
and Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
, though the latter has come under criticism for preserving private information on users.
Introduction
The concept of the "information commons" refers to our shared knowledge-base and the processes that facilitate or hinder its use. It also refers to a physical space, usually in an academic library, where any and all can participate in the processes of information research, gathering and production. The term commons refers to the land (or common grounds) that villagers shared for grazing purposes in simpler times. The issues that fall under this topic are varied and include:- LicenseLicenseThe verb license or grant licence means to give permission. The noun license or licence refers to that permission as well as to the document recording that permission.A license may be granted by a party to another party as an element of an agreement...
s written to access digital content, - CopyrightCopyrightCopyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
law and similar intellectual propertyIntellectual propertyIntellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
, - Freedom of informationFreedom of informationFreedom of information refers to the protection of the right to freedom of expression with regards to the Internet and information technology . Freedom of information may also concern censorship in an information technology context, i.e...
, - International tradeInternational tradeInternational trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories. In most countries, such trade represents a significant share of gross domestic product...
, like the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property RightsAgreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property RightsThe Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights is an international agreement administered by the World Trade Organization that sets down minimum standards for many forms of intellectual property regulation as applied to nationals of other WTO Members...
from the World Trade OrganizationWorld Trade OrganizationThe World Trade Organization is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade , which commenced in 1948...
, - PrivacyPrivacyPrivacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...
, - Open source software,
- Open access (publishing),
- Academic Libraries integrated w/ CIT facilities, particularly in the U.S.A., but including:
- Information CommonsInformation Commons, SheffieldThe Information Commons is a library and computing building in Sheffield, England, and is part of the University of Sheffield. The architects were the Edinburgh-based RMJM...
, A learning and study space at the University of SheffieldUniversity of SheffieldThe University of Sheffield is a research university based in the city of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. It is one of the original 'red brick' universities and is a member of the Russell Group of leading research intensive universities...
opened April 2007. - Business/APES Information Commons, Indiana University, created August 2007.
- Information Commons, Loyola University Chicago,
Some believe that the increasing control and commodification of information restricts our ability to encourage and foster positive developments in our cultural, academic, and economic growth.
The Internet
The internet took the information commons to another level. The internet age empowered consumers to become creators, producers, and distributors of information. The internet facilitated a decentralized production and distribution of information. It bypasses the control of some of the more traditional publishing methods. These information are neither regulated by managers nor are they coordinated by price signals in the market. This result in a common-based production of knowledge that can be easily shared among individuals.Sofware Common
Many innovative programmers have started to share computer codes and released open source applications to the public. They are without the restrictive licensing provisions of commercial software. A very popular example is Linux, an open source version of the UNIX operating system. Although it is not as popular as its apple or Microsoft counterpart, it is available for little to no cost and it may be used and redistributed without restriction. The Google search engine runs its server on the Linux open source system.Licensing Common
Licensing is the process that copyright owners use to monitor reproduction, distribution, or other use of creative works. Majority of the license outside the commons are specific, costly, and restrictive. Licensing in the commons is quite different. Creators have begun to use the licensing model to grant permissions for many uses in advance. The GNU General Public License (GPL), developed by Richard Stallman at MIT in the 1980s is an example of such license. “The GNU Free Documentation License is a form of copyleft intended for use on a manual, textbook or other document to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifications, either commercially or non-commercially.” The GPL allow works in the common to be secured in the common.Scholarly Common
“In the 1980s, many professional societies turned over their journal publishing to private firms as a way to contain membership fees and generate income.” The financial gains are eventually offset by significant losses of access to research. Prices of scholarly journals dropped dramatically and publishing corporations restricted access to these journals through expensive licenses. Research libraries had no other choice but to cut many of their journal subscriptions. European and American academic communities began to find alternate ways to distribute and manage scholarly information. The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resource Coalition (SPARC) was founded in 1998. “It is an international alliance of academic and research libraries working to correct imbalances in the scholarly publishing system. Its pragmatic focus is to stimulate the emergence of new scholarly communication models that expand the dissemination of scholarly research and reduce financial pressures on libraries."See also
- Libre knowledgeLibre knowledgeLibre knowledge is knowledge which may be acquired, interpreted and applied freely. It can be re-formulated according to one's needs, and shared with others for community benefit....
- Knowledge commonsKnowledge commonsThe knowledge commons encompass immaterial and collectively owned goods in the information age. Normatively loaded, it promotes free share of knowledge...
- Open ContentOpen contentOpen content or OpenContent is a neologism coined by David Wiley in 1998 which describes a creative work that others can copy or modify. The term evokes open source, which is a related concept in software....
- Creative CommonsCreative CommonsCreative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
- CopyleftCopyleftCopyleft is a play on the word copyright to describe the practice of using copyright law to offer the right to distribute copies and modified versions of a work and requiring that the same rights be preserved in modified versions of the work...
- Open access (publishing)
Further reading
- Beagle, Donald Robert, with Donald Russell Bailey and Barbara Tierney (contributors). 2006. The Information Commons Handbook. Neal-Schuman Publishers. 247 p. ISBN 1-55570-562-6
- Collier, David. 2005. Brand Name Bullies: The Quest to Own and Control Culture. Wiley. ISBN 0-471-67927-5
- Burrell, Robert and Alison Coleman. 2005. Copyright Exceptions: the Digital Impact. Cambridge University Press. 426 p. ISBN 0-521-84726-5
- Free CultureFree Culture (book)Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity is a book by law professor Lawrence Lessig that was released on the Internet under the Creative Commons Attribution/Non-commercial license on March 25, 2004."There has never been a...
- Griffith, Jonathan and Uma Suthersanen. 2005. Copyright and Free Speech: Comparative and International Analyses. Oxford University Press. 426 p. ISBN 0-19-927604-8
External links
- Will Fair Use Survive - from the Free Expression Policy Project
- Information Commons - from the Free Expression Policy Project
- Information Commons Interest Group of the Canadian Library Association
- Information Commons - Uniting society’s public information into one massively distributed database to ensure its availability to all. - from Rhiza Labs
- Internet Archive A 501(c)(3) non-profit founded to build an 'Internet library', with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format.
- Global Voices Global Voices aggregates, curates, and amplifies the global conversation online – shining light on places and people other media often ignore.
- The Magic Behind the Information Commons A collection of papers on the technology of the Information Commons, a distributed peer-to-peer computer database developed by Rhiza Labs and MAYA Design intended to decentralize access to the world's knowledge.