Lecture

The Commons: A Governance Approach

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In course

DH-405: Foundations of digital humanities

This course introduces the core concepts and methodologies of Digital Humanities, integrating both theoretical and practical perspectives. Students learn to work with large-scale cultural datasets, acquiring the tools and techniques required for their proc ...

Description

This lecture explores the concept of the Commons, focusing on the coexistence of two worlds: one where free and common knowledge is created collaboratively, and another dominated by large companies protecting proprietary content. It delves into historical examples like the tragedy of the enclosures and the tragedy of the commons, contrasting different views on common goods. The discussion extends to the public domain, intellectual property rights, and the evolution of software patents. Famous disputes, such as Von Neumann vs. Eckert, Mauchly, and the creation of the GNU General Public License, are also analyzed. The lecture concludes by proposing a governance model based on the commons to foster collaboration and financial sustainability.

Instructor

Frédéric Kaplan

Expertise Digital Humanities, Big Data, Models of language acquisition and evolution, Innovative Interfaces, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Developmental Systems, Intrinsic Motivation, Multi-agent system, Joint attention, Gesture Interaction Expertise Digital Humanities, Big Data, Models of language acquisition and evolution, Innovative Interfaces, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Developmental Systems, Intrinsic Motivation, Multi-agent system, Joint attention, Gesture Interaction Short biography Pro

Official source

Related concepts (27)

Tragedy of the commons

The tragedy of the commons is a metaphoric label for a concept that is widely discussed in economics, ecology and other sciences. According to the concept, should a number of people enjoy unfettered access to a finite, valuable resource such as a pasture, they will tend to over-use it, and may end up destroying its value altogether. To exercise voluntary restraint is not a rational choice for individuals - if they did, the other users would merely supplant them - yet the predictable result is a tragedy for all.

Creative Commons license

A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work". A CC license is used when an author wants to give other people the right to share, use, and build upon a work that the author has created. CC provides an author flexibility (for example, they might choose to allow only non-commercial uses of a given work) and protects the people who use or redistribute an author's work from concerns of copyright infringement as long as they abide by the conditions that are specified in the license by which the author distributes the work.

Public-domain-equivalent license

Public-domain-equivalent license are licenses that grant public-domain-like rights and/or act as waivers. They are used to make copyrighted works usable by anyone without conditions, while avoiding the complexities of attribution or license compatibility that occur with other licenses. No permission or license is required for a work truly in the public domain, such as one with an expired copyright; such a work may be copied at will.

GNU General Public License

The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general use and was originally written by the founder of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), Richard Stallman, for the GNU Project. The license grants the recipients of a computer program the rights of the Free Software Definition.

Public Domain Mark

Public Domain Mark (PDM) is a symbol used to indicate that a work is free of known copyright restrictions and therefore in the public domain. It is analogous to the copyright symbol, which is commonly used to indicate that a work is copyrighted, often as part of a copyright notice. The Public Domain Mark was developed by Creative Commons and is only an indicator of the public domain status of a work – it itself does not release a copyrighted work into the public domain like CC0.

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