Publications

Governing Smart Cities as Knowledge Commons (Brett M. Frischmann, Michael J. Madison, and Madelyn Rose Sanfilippo, eds.) (Cambridge University Press, 2023) (available Open Access)

This collection of case studies takes a critical, balanced look at the data pooling and data governance that are the cores of contemporary “smart city” planning and practice. The project originated in the Smart Cities Workshop: Data, Tech, Institutions, and Trustworthy Governance, held on October 9-10, 2020. More information about that workshop and the Smart Cities as Knowledge Commons project is available here.

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Governing Privacy in Knowledge Commons (Madelyn Rose Sanfilippo, Brett M. Frischmann, and Katherine J. Strandburg, eds.) (Cambridge University Press, 2021) (available Open Access)

Governing Privacy in Knowledge Commons explores how privacy impacts knowledge production, community formation, and collaborative governance in diverse contexts, ranging from academia and IoT, to social media and mental health. Using nine new case studies and a meta-analysis of previous knowledge commons literature, the book integrates the Governing Knowledge Commons framework with Helen Nissenbaum’s Contextual Integrity framework. 

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Governing Markets as Knowledge Commons (Erwin Dekker and Pavel Kuchař, eds.) (Cambridge University Press, 2021)

Knowledge commons facilitate voluntary private interactions in markets and societies. These shared pools of knowledge consist of intellectual and legal infrastructures that both enable and constrain private initiatives. This volume brings together theoretical and empirical approaches that develop and apply the Governing Knowledge Commons framework to the evolution of various kinds of shared knowledge structures that underpin exchanges of goods, services, and ideas. 

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Governing Medical Knowledge Commons (Katherine J. Strandburg, Brett M. Frischmann, and Michael J. Madison eds.) (Cambridge University Press, 2017) (available Open Access)

Governing Medical Knowledge Commons makes three claims: first, evidence matters to innovation policymaking; second, evidence shows that self-governing knowledge commons support effective innovation without prioritizing traditional intellectual property rights; and third, knowledge commons can succeed in the critical fields of medicine and health. 

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Governing Knowledge Commons (Brett M. Frischmann, Michael J. Madison, and Katherine J. Strandburg eds.) (Oxford University Press, 2014)

“Knowledge commons” describes the institutionalized community governance of the sharing and, in some cases, creation, of information, science, knowledge, data, and other types of intellectual and cultural resources. It is the subject of enormous recent interest and enthusiasm with respect to policymaking about innovation, creative production, and intellectual property. Taking that enthusiasm as its starting point, Governing Knowledge Commons argues that policymaking should be based on evidence and a deeper understanding of what makes commons institutions work.

Read more about Governing Knowledge Commons and read the book (Open Access) (the official Oxford UP site for electronic access is here)

Jerome H. Reichman, Paul F. Uhlir, and Tom Dedeurwaerdere, Governing Digitally Integrated Genetic Resources, Data, and Literature: Global Intellectual Property Strategies for a Redesigned Microbial Research Commons (Cambridge University Press, 2016)

The free exchange of microbial genetic information is an established public good, facilitating research on medicines, agriculture, and climate change. However, over the past quarter-century, access to genetic resources has been hindered by intellectual property claims from developed countries under the World Trade Organization’s TRIPS Agreement (1994) and by claims of sovereign rights from developing countries under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) (1992). In this volume, the authors examine the scientific community’s responses to these obstacles and advise policymakers on how to harness provisions of the Nagoya Protocol (2010) that allow multilateral measures to support research.

Charles M. Schweik & Robert C. English, Internet Success: A Study of Open-Source Software Commons (MIT Press, 2012)

The use of open-source software (OSS)—readable software source code that can be copied, modified, and distributed freely—has expanded dramatically in recent years. The number of OSS projects hosted on SourceForge.net (the largest hosting Web site for OSS), for example, grew from just over 100,000 in 2006 to more than 250,000 at the beginning of 2011. But why are some projects successful—that is, able to produce usable software and sustain ongoing development over time—while others are abandoned? In this book, the product of the first large-scale empirical study to look at social, technical, and institutional aspects of OSS, Charles Schweik and Robert English examine factors that lead to success in OSS projects and work toward a better understanding of Internet-based collaboration.