Intellectual Property in the Commons

About this event

This series of talks and workshops are to develop emerging research on the topic of cultural commons and how their deployment and development can address social and planetary justice.

Intellectual Property in the Commons

Thursday 17 June 2021, 5pm to 6.30pm

Nowadays that the means of intellectual production are widely dispersed in the population, everyone can literally be a creator. In this context, information, knowledge and culture are increasingly produced through sharing and collaboration between multiple individuals in communal unity. At the same time, scientific and technological breakthroughs are more and more based on access to prior state of the art. In this complex new world of borderless intellectual production, the commons gradually surpass industries and states in their capacity to achieve creativity and innovation. The intellectual property-related deficiencies of our global response to the Covid-19 pandemic elucidate more than ever the urgent need to re-imagine our contemporary institutions supporting the freedom of science and culture, not in terms of what is lost but rather of what could be possible with our combined capacities unleashed. Does intellectual property law fit in well with contemporary practices of creativity and innovation? How can we accommodate our communal practices of creating and innovating together in ways compatible with applicable legislation? Which reforms are necessary to unleash the potential of the emerging modes of intellectual production, distribution and consumption?

Antonios Broumas is a technology lawyer, academic researcher and social activist in the movements of the commons. He holds a PhD in critical legal theory and postgraduate degrees in philosophy of law and IT and electronic communications law. Antonios has published widely on social movements, commons theory, critical jurisprudence and critical media studies. His book "Intellectual Commons and the Law"; is out now from University of Westminster Press.