This morning’s plenary session at the Yale A2K conference discussed the economics of A2K.

I was struck by a remark made by Jamie Love during the Q & A; that economists who see Intellectual Property as working need to reconsider their theories in view of what is actually happening in many countries; people are dying because they cannot afford medicines. They cannot afford medicines because of patents.

This is an important reminder, that no matter the elegance and theoretical complexity of an explanatory theory, if it doesn’t descibe reality,  a reality which includes the dusty streets of rural Africa , its not worth power point its presented on.

How do/should we frame “access to knowledge”?

That is the question which the plenary session opening the A2K Conference discussed.

Two statements struck me during this session.

One of the statements was made by Prof Benkler, a professor at Yale Law School who said

“Diverse Conditions demand diverse approaches”.

Trying to define “access to knowledge” begs questions of a theoretical, even philosophical nature. What is access? What is knowledge?

Trying to describe the access to knowledge movement in a way that gives the diversity of people and issues their due isn’t quite as hard, but I’m not going to attempt it in a blog post. The FOSS community, sensory disabled persons, educators, academics, human rights activists, even lawyers (or at least law professors) are all taking part in the conversation.

Diversity is strength.

No-one taking part in the access to knowledge conversation seems to see diversity as anything other than a strength. Diverse analytical frameworks; economics, human rights, consumer rights, philosophy of science, together create far richer stories about knowledge, and efforts to promote access to it.

It’s obvious that there are no universal solutions to all issues of access to knowledge. This doesn’t seem to have disappointed anyone engaged in the access to knowledge conversation. Instead the diversity of problems, disciplines, approaches and local contexts are exciting opportunities to learn from each other.

There are important global initiaves; such as an Access to Knowledge Treaty and the reformation of the World Intellectual Property Organisation. There are also important local initiaves working on issues that impact the day to day lives of ordinary people in more obvious ways.

Another statement which attracted my attention was by Prof. Mokyr, which suggested a division of knowledge into “useful knowledge” and “non useful” knowledge and that access to knowledge should aim to provide people with access to “useful knowledge”. I don’t have any argument with the idea that knowledge that the value of knowledge to a person or community depends largely on the relevance of that knowledge to the issues that they are dealing with. However the dichotomy between “useful” and “not useful” knowledge immediately means that someone will decide what is “useful” and what is “not useful”, whoever decides this immediately exercises considerable power. The creation of these categories seems so fraught with issues of political power that it seems at best unhelpful.

Appropriately I am sitting in sunny Bryant Park making use of the park’s free wifi to type this post.

I say appropriately since I am on my way to the Access to Knowledge Project hosted at the Yale Law School by the Information Society Project. Access to knowledge is governed by the codes, legal and digital, that govern content. It is equally dependent on communication networks.

The idea that wifi access should be, at least in some places, as publicly available a service as a drinking fountain, is compelling. Yesterday I used the wifi network at Johannesburg International Airport, a subscription service, I just happened to have free minutes from my. Even with the many South African and foreign business travelers thronging the airport I didn’t see enough laptops being toted, to represent a serious free rider problem. Perhaps free wifi would be equally appropriate in Johannesburg International.

Both the free and subscription wifi networks are open communication networks, demanding adherence only to a limited set of technical protocols to let me speak and listen. Something of this elegant simplicity should inspire the emerging open knowledge architectures.

Creative Commons Sweden (ccSweden) has been entered as a finalist in the Culture category of the prestigious Stockholm Challenge.

“It is an honour to be part of the Stockholm Challenge process and I am looking forward to meeting the other finalists at the ceremony. The competition has many finalists with many great merits so we think that being short listed is a victory in itself,” said Mathias Klang, project leader of ccSweden.

The Stockholm Challenge considers projects from all over the world that use Information and Communication Technology to improve living conditions and lead to economic growth. Themes of the competition range from education to public administration to the environment and telemedicine. In 1997, the Challenge opened the competition to global participants, and has to date build up a database of 3,000 projects.

Other open content-associated projects have also been accepted as finalists. StreamOnTheFly, an open source media network based in Austria competes with ccSweden in the Culture category. StreamOnTheFly provides open content for broadcasting and podcasting, using content supplied by community radio stations, and in 2004 started including work under Creative Commons licenses. The Freedom Toaster, which will be presented at the upcoming iCommons Summit, is also a finalist in the Education category.

According to Klang, “A factor which weighs heavily in Creative Commons’ favour is the fact that we have created an interesting and exiting movement. We hope to win but recognise that we are in excellent company.”

The award ceremony will be held on May 11 at the Stockholm City Hall (incidentally also the venue of the Nobel Prize ceremonies). iCommons will keep you updated on the outcome of the event, especially the progress of ccSweden and other cc-related projects.

In the meantime, as Klang said, “I guess that all we can do is keep our fingers crossed.”

A comic promoting the value of a freer public domain and explaining the maze of copyright law history and intellectual property rights?

This may be an unexpected topic, but law professors Keith Aoki, James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins released their comic, ‘Bound by Law? Tales from the Public Domain’, a month ago, with resounding success.

According to co-author of the comic, James Boyle, the William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law at Duke Law School and member of the board of Creative Commons, there has been a “great response” to the book.

“We have had between 50,000 and 60,000 visitors to the comic website who have been reading the comic online, more than 2 million page views. And they have come from all over the world - about 30% from outside the US,” he said.

Large batch orders of hard copies have also been bought for high schools, film schools and even courts.

“And there is about to be a commercial version of the comic released by a major publisher of graphic novels,” Boyle elaborated.

The comic tells the story of a young filmmaker who attempts to shoot a documentary on the city of New York, only to find that this process is marred by the tangle of copyright laws that must be taken into account before shooting even begins. The comic cleverly depicts the issues involved in clearing copyright, such as the issue of ‘fair use’, using real-life experiences of filmmakers and examples of court cases.

Comments on the success of the comic in explaining these complex issues have been complementary. The Centre for the Study of the Public Domain website sees Cory Doctorow from BoingBoing.net quoted as saying: “Bound By Law riffs expertly on classic comic styles, from the Crypt Keeper to Mad Magazine, superheroes to Understanding Comics, and lays out a sparkling, witty, moving and informative story about how the eroded public domain has made documentary filmmaking into a minefield.”

To view or download the comic for free, click here. Hard copies are available on Amazon or for educational purposes in batches greater than 50, from Duke Law School.

If you have read the comic and loved it, there is much to anticipate - the next comic in the series will be released in 18 months to two years, and will deal with music and copyright.