"The most powerful and interesting media model will remain raising money from members who don't just permit but <em>insist</em> that the product be given away for free."
On Betraying Principles
Why Creative Commons must be about more than reducing friction on reuse This week, I had the experience of being told the work we are doing at Creative Commons right now is betraying the founding principles of the organization. This is not the first time and it won’t be the last.
Reclaiming the Computing Commons
Hunter writes: The commodification and exploitation of nature; the enclosure of the intellectual and informational commons in medicine, agriculture, and other areas of technical knowledge; the expropriation of public space to secure profit-all define an economic system supposedly premised on freedom.
Funding the Commons | Public Goods Funding
We convene researchers, builders, and institutions to develop the funding mechanisms, governance systems, and coordination tools that public goods need in an age of AI.
Digital Commons: Our Shared Right to Knowledge and Culture
As the volume of cultural and scientific works produced and available on the internet continues to expand, the question of freedom to consult and use this immense ‘digital commons’ is becoming a critical one, particularly as cutting off access could entail serious consequences for education, cultural exchange, and even the health of European citizens.
Think Like a Commoner | A Short Introduction to the Life of the Commons
In our age of predatory markets and make-believe democracy, our troubled political institutions have lost sight of real people and practical realities. But if you look to the edges, ordinary people are reinventing governance and provisioning on their own terms. The commons is arising as a serious, practical alternative to the corrupt Market/State.
Introducing the Permissive License Stack
We believe open-source values are critical to free societies, especially in the digital age. To that end, we’ve created a new approach to licensing invoking the principles of the Default Open Pledge
Donate to #FreeOurFeeds - help secure the future of social media, organized by Free Our Feeds
Free Our Feeds | A campaign to keep social media open, people-po… Free Our Feeds needs your support for #FreeOurFeeds - help secure the future of social media
The 2023 Voice Referendum Outcome: A Messaging Guide
The Commons is an online library for the change makers of the world and for those interested in social change, activism, organising, advocacy and justice.
mai ishikawa sutton
My work lies at the intersection of technology and the solidarity economy. I’m passionate about strengthening the digital commons, in which people control and steward communication technologies as collective goods.
Sorting out the Ethical Licensing Mess
Software developers who give the world, for free, usage rights to the code they write often use open source licenses to make this gift legally explicit. These free usage rights (and then some) are …
How markets coopted free software’s most powerful weapon (LibrePlanet 2018 Keynote)
Several months ago, I gave the closing keynote address at LibrePlanet 2018. The talk was about the thing that scares me most about the future of free culture, free software, and peer production. A …
Company as a Commons
What if excess wealth derived from business couldn't be privatized? Through the levers of steward-ownership, companies can protect their purpose-oriented long term mission from the maligned incentives of absentee stakeholders.
A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator
