Creative Commons

Although it is generally understood that private ownership provides incentives for efficient stewardship not found under a common property system, often known as the “tragedy of the commons,” it has been suggested recently that the ‘public goods’ aspect of intellectual products might eliminate or overturn the value of such stewardship.

There has been a great deal written in the academic community about the value of having common property ‘ownership’ of intellectual creations, as opposed to having private property rights for granted to the creators. It has also been claimed that creativity might be impeded by intellectual property laws. Even though the intent of these laws is to increase the rewards to creativity, the claim has been that “re-creators,” those who use the works of others in creating derivative works, have their creativity diminished by requiring re-creators to acquire permission from the creator of the original work.

The members of the Center intend to carefully examine the veracity of these claims.