Abstract
Information is increasingly becoming an important part of the global economy as well as people’s lives. Intellectual property regulation provides a limited-term enclosure of intellectual expressions in order to incentivize the creation of new ideas. By privatizing information, however, this system limits access to an inherently valuable shared resource, excluding people from making use of knowledge as well as creating inefficiency in its production. Addressing these issues requires that the intellectual property system balance individual rights with social obligations. In the tradition of the natural commons, the formation of voluntary, self-governed associations can help people develop social rules to govern the use of shared resources. To consider knowledge as a commons allows for a narrative that instructs the intellectual property debate in a way which better actualizes the collective values of the community.