Knowledge covers all manner of scientific, medical, and technical data in “science commons” and “innovation” commons; computer programs and artificial intelligence systems and related “data commons”; “cultural” commons and “cultural heritage” commons in music, film, literature, and other arts as well as “GLAM” institutions (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums); “infrastructure” commons such as the Internet and telecommunications networks; and knowledge-, information-, and data-dimensions of “material” commons such as shared environmental resources (water, forests, fisheries, pasturage), cities (“urban commons”); institutions conventionally understood as legal abstractions (companies and corporations and/as commons); economic phenomena (markets and/as commons); and/or social practices dominated by individual rather than shared interests (privacy, confidentiality, and security).
Knowledge commons means governance of shared knowledge, information, and data resources in some community or collective setting. “The basic characteristic that distinguishes commons from noncommons is institutionalized sharing of resources among members of a community.” Michael J. Madison, Brett M. Frischmann & Katherine J. Strandburg. “Reply: The Complexity of Commons,” 95 Cornell L. Rev. 839, 841 (2010).
Knowledge, information, and data are typically shared either by design or by circumstance or both. Its shared character both creates and solves social dilemmas. (The so-called “tragedy of the commons” is one example of a possible social dilemma, but it is far from the only possibility.) Governance institutions address those dilemmas. Thus:
Knowledge commons is governance. That simple statement explains why GKC-based research does not search out instances that meet some definition of “commons” and explore its dimensions. Instead, GKC-based research searches out instances of shared knowledge, information, and data that prompt the need for, even the demand for, governance: mechanisms for people to get along in creating, using, and storing it. Material in a knowledge commons system is not simply fully free and open; there are rules and guidelines indicating and sometimes determining appropriate production and contribution, appropriate extraction and use, and appropriate curation, preservation, and even destruction. Knowledge commons is governance by a community or collective of shared knowledge, information, and data resources. Governance consists of systems (plural) of formal and informal rules and norms by which members of that community or collective coordinate to resolve problems, plan their affairs, and achieve their goals. Governance sometimes consists entirely of “law,” sometimes entirely of “social norms,” sometimes of sociotechnical devices, and often of blends of the three. Governance sometimes exists by design and intentionality; governance sometimes emerges out of history, culture, path dependence, and accident.
Source: Michael J. Madison, “Knowledge Commons Past, Present, and Future,” 28 Lewis & Clark L. Rev. 303, 307-308 (2024)
Society typically looks to governance systems to help us address those dilemmas. For knowledge, information, and data, many governance systems, including intellectual property law and privacy law, usually recommend governance anchored in core concepts of exclusivity and ownership. For much of the same material, knowledge commons usually recommends governance anchored in core concepts of collaboration and community.
Neither style of governance and related law and public policy is inherently better. Both, in context, can be effective in addressing social dilemmas and advancing social goals. Knowing when and knowing how require empirical research as well as theory and ideology.
Last updated: June 2026
