The Macro-economic Challenges of Building a New Commons-Based Economy
As commercial interests try to convert what has essentially been a commons into a total market order, the Internet is experiencing a mid-life crisis. The open Internet is in the process of being...
View ArticleImagining New Commons-Friendly Economies
The debate over the commons used to focus on how to protect shared resources from private predators. Now, increasingly, the focus is shifting to how the commons and market forces can constructively...
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A User's Guide to the IP Wars
In the 1990s, a variety of industries dependent on copyright, trademark and patent law decided that the Internet and new digital technologies were getting way too dangerous. Upstart competitors with...
View ArticleAn Open Letter to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff
Two weeks ago, I blogged about how Brazil is turning its back on the free software and free culture movements, and moving to defend entrenched, proprietary cultural industries: a terribly...
View ArticleSustainable Models for Creativity in the Digital Age
One of the recurrent questions that people have about the future of the Internet is, So how are creators going to make money in the digital environment? The good news is that the Free Culture Forum –...
View ArticleThe City of Linz Pioneers a Regional Information Commons
The City of Linz in Austria has long been in the forefront of civic-minded uses of the Internet and digital technologies. In 1979, it started the Ars Electronica festival, a showcase for cutting-edge...
View ArticleGoteo.org: Crowdfunding the Commons in Spain
The infrastructure for starting and maintaining new commons just got a big boost in Spain with the founding of Goteo.org, a new crowdfunding website. The explicit mission of Goteo.org is to help...
View ArticleMichel Bauwens on the Sharing Economy’s Impact on Capitalism
On the Al Jazeera website, Michel Bauwens of the P2P Foundation has a terrific big-picture assessment of the impressive growth of the sharing economy and peer production, and its serious long-term...
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The Problem with Corporate Platforms for Sharing
Josh Wallaert, writing at the Places Journal (at the Design Observer Group) – “the online journal of architecture, landscape and urbanism,” has a wonderful post about nominally public spaces on the...
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The Death of a Hacktivist
Aaron Swartz’s death is a sobering story about the collision of free culture activism with vindicative prosecutorial powers. It’s also about an amazing tech wizard and the personal costs of his...
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The FLOK Society Vision of a Post-Capitalist Economy
Michel Bawuens, Founder of the P2P Foundation, has recorded four short videos describing the FLOK Society’s pioneering research project in Ecuador. FLOK stands for “Free, Libre, Open Knowledge,” and...
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CommonsFest in Greece: A Movement Expands
For a country suffering from economic devastation and political upheaval, Greece is not accustomed to bursts of optimism. But last weekend provided a showcase of hopeful, practical solutiions at the...
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