The intellectual commons exhibit propensities with a positive potential for society, bearing ethical substance but are in need of protection and advancement under the auspices of law. Theories of the intellectual commons provide substantial justifications for the promotion of commons-oriented institutions in contemporary societies. In this chapter the author details afresh the tendencies, manifestations and moral dimensions of the intellectual commons and how the social research in this book provides empirical evidence about the existence of distinct sequences and circuits of social value circulating. This leads directly to the justification of an Intellectual Commons Law. What might be the fundamentals of such a new body of law? The crucial first step, it is argued, would be the reconstitution of the public domain as a common space of sharing, collaboration, innovation, and freedom of expression through policies for its protection, expansion and enrichment. Secondly, a commons-oriented legal framework ought to unconditionally recognise and protect the creative practices within commons-based peer production and guarantee the characteristics of societal constitutionalism encountered in intellectual commons communities. Finally, commons-oriented legal institutions ought to introduce sets of extensive rights to access, work upon and transform information, knowledge and culture for non-commercial purposes. The chapter concludes with recommendations for future legal research focusing on particular fields within commons-oriented policymaking reimagining the commons-based elements already present within intellectual property law proposing their reconstruction in a novel and systematic way into an independent commons-oriented body of law.
Social Democratic and Critical Theories of the Intellectual Commons: A Critical Analysis
