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Understanding Access to Things: A Knowledge Commons Perspective

Madison, Michael J (2016) Understanding Access to Things: A Knowledge Commons Perspective. In: Intellectual Property and Access to Im/material Goods. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham UK, pp. 17-43. ISBN 978 1 78471 661 5

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Abstract

This chapter explores the related ideas of access to knowledge resources and shared governance of those resources, often known as commons. Knowledge resources consist of many types and forms. Some are tangible, and some are intangible. Some are singular; some are reproduced in copies. Some are singular or unique; some are collected or pooled. Some are viewed, used, or consumed only by a single person; for some resources, collective or social consumption is the norm. Any given resource often has multiple attributes along these dimensions, depending on whether one examines the resource’s physical properties, its creative or inventive properties, or its natural, factual, or ideational properties. Access questions are, accordingly, diverse. That diversity is compounded by the proposition that access is itself a property of a resource, in the sense that resource characteristics are, to a substantial extent, socially and culturally constructed. Social construction means not only that boundaries among properties of a resource may be blurred but also that those properties and boundaries may change over time. By virtue of that diversity, investigating access to knowledge resources creates the risk of producing a conceptually fragmented and unhelpful landscape of theory and application on a resource-by-resource basis. This chapter suggests that the investigation of access to knowledge resources may be unified under the umbrella concept of knowledge commons, the study of governance of shared knowledge resources. It presents a framework for understanding knowledge commons and illustrates its application to several questions of access to the material and immaterial dimensions of specific knowledge resources.


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Details

Item Type: Book Section
Status: Published
Creators/Authors:
CreatorsEmailPitt UsernameORCID
Madison, Michael Jmadison@pitt.eduMADISON0000-0001-6503-754X
Date: 2016
Date Type: Publication
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Place of Publication: Cheltenham UK
Page Range: pp. 17-43
Schools and Programs: School of Law > Law
School of Law > Law > Faculty Publications
Refereed: No
Uncontrolled Keywords: Intellectual property, property, objects, things, works, commons, knowledge commons, access, materiality, governance
ISBN: 978 1 78471 661 5
Title of Book: Intellectual Property and Access to Im/material Goods
Editors:
EditorsEmailPitt UsernameORCID
Lai, Jessica CUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIED
Dominicé, Antoinette MUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIED
Related URLs:
Date Deposited: 17 Jun 2019 14:38
Last Modified: 17 Jun 2019 14:38
URI: http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/36920

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