Digital commons (economics)

This article is about a form of distribution and communal ownership. For the institutional repository platform, see Digital Commons (Elsevier).

The digital commons are a form of commons involving the distribution and communal ownership of informational resources and technology. Resources are typically designed to be used by the community by which they are created.[1][2]

Examples of the digital commons include wikis, open-source software, and open-source licensing. The distinction between digital commons and other digital resources is that the community of people building them can intervene in the governing of their interaction processes and of their shared resources.[3]

The digital commons provides the community with free and easy access to information. Typically, information created in the digital commons is designed to stay in the digital commons by using various forms of licensing, including the GNU General Public License and various Creative Commons licenses.

  1. ^ Stalder, Felix. Digital Commons: A dictionary entry. http://felix.openflows.com/node/137. 22 April 2010.
  2. ^ Bauwens, Michel, Kostakis, Vasilis, and Alex Pazaitis. 2019. Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto. London: University of Westminster Press
  3. ^ Fuster Morell, M. (2010, p. 5). Dissertation: Governance of online creation communities: Provision of infrastructure for the building of digital commons. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/14709