Digital commons

Abstract

Commons are holistic social institutions to govern the (re)production of resources, articulated through interrelated legal, socio-cultural, economic and institutional dimensions. They represent a comprehensive and radical approach to organise collective action, placing it "beyond market and state" (Bollier & Helfrich, 2012). They form a third way of organising society and the economy that differs from both market-based approaches, with their orientation toward prices, and from bureaucratic forms of organisation, with their orientation toward hierarchies and commands. This governance model has been applied to tangible and intangible resources, to local initiatives (garden, educational material), and to resources governed by global politics (climate, internet infrastructure). Digital commons are a subset of the commons, where the resources are data, information, culture and knowledge which are created and/or maintained online. The notion of the digital commons is an important concept for countering legal enclosure and fostering equitable access to these resources. This article presents the history of the movement of the digital commons, from free software, free culture, and public domain works, to open data and open access to science. It then analyses its foundational dimensions (licensing, authorship, peer production, governance) and finally studies newer forms of the digital commons, urban democratic participation and data commons. Issue 4This article belongs to Concepts of the digital society, a special section of Internet Policy Review guest-edited by Christian Katzenbach and Thomas Christian Bächle.

Commoning Semantic Interoperability in Healthcare

“…Here, more nuanced frameworks are still needed to capture the possibilities of collective governance of data (as opposed to the current models of data pools as private property of states of surveillance capitalism) while considering the demands of personal privacy. Such frameworks would need to go well beyond the notion of open data (Dulong de Rosnay & Stalder, 2020).…”

Open Data

“…Substantially, digital commons include Open Data in that it includes resources maintained online, such as data. [70] Overall, looking at operational principles of Open Data one could see the overlap between Open Data and (digital) commons in practice. Principles of Open Data are sometimes distinct depending on the type of data under scrutiny.…”

“…[71][70] The key elements that outline commons and Open Data peculiarities are the differences (and maybe opposition) to the dominant market logics as shaped by capitalism. [70] Perhaps it is this feature that emerges in the recent surge of the concept of commons as related to a more social look at digital technologies in the specific forms of digital and, especially, data commons.…”

The Plan S Rights Retention Strategy is an administrative and legal burden, not a sustainable open access solution

“…Once a CC licence has been granted, anyone else who receives the CC-licensed material as a 'downstream recipient' then 'automatically receives an offer from the Licensor to exercise the Licensed Rights' under section 2(a)(5) (A) of the CC licence. 37 For such a downstream recipient, just as for a publisher in receipt of an RRS manuscript, the grant of a CC licence is not automatic. The licence has been offered, but it has not been granted.…”