Dictionnaire d'économie politique

Market, culture, and open access

“…But with digital technologies, the immateriality of arts and culture paradoxically becomes a tangible reality, as a concrete medium is no longer necessary. Digital cultural goods are non-competitive and non-exclusive, and as such, challenge the classical regime of property and the very possibility of their commodification (Courmont and Galimberti 2018). Digitalisation brings into the picture a new set of values that comes along the Internet culture, which is open access, symbolised by the free software and open source movements, the practices of pirating copyright-protected content, and hacking (Broca 2012(Broca , 2016, and as such, deeply opposed to commodification.…”

“…As Courmont and Galimberti (2018) explain, with digital technologies we move from an economy of ownership to an economy of access. It thus questions the copyright model as an instrument of balance between the protection of culture and market regulation.…”