Knowledge Production and Dissemination in the Digital Era

[Knowledge Production]

[Scarcity]

[… and then came the Internet]

[Digital Abundance]

[Artificial Scarcity]

[… and more]

[Copyright Laws]

1710: British Parliament adopted the first “copyright” act

• The Statue of Anne

• Copyright term: 14 years, renewable once if author is still alive

1774: The Public Domain was born

1790: Congress enacted first copyright law, based on the same principles of The Statue of Anne

1831: Copyright term increased from 28 years to 42 years

• 28 years term + 14 years renewal

1909: Copyright term increased from 42 years to 56 years

• 28 years term + 28 years renewal

1976: All existing copyrights were extended by 19 years

1998: The Sonny Bono (Mickey Mouse) act extended all existing and future copyrights by 20 years

Current copyright protection term: 95 years!

2842567595

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[Fair use]

READREADGIVE AWAY READ

RE-SELL

GIVE AWAY

Unregulated

Unregulated

Regulated

Unregulated

Regulated

Fair Use

[New perspectives]

[The GNU GPL]

Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.

Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (Access to the source code is a precondition for this).

Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour.

Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.

[The GNU FDL]

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.

[Creative Commons]

[Case Study]

Thank You.