AUTHOR
Lee Gillam and Anna Vartapetiance Salmasi

ABSTRACT

Against a background of UK Government offices losing a variety of personal data, we consider the potential implications for the storage of DNA and its transmission across Europe. It is reported that the UK has the largest DNA database in the world covering 5% of the population, and that is 50% larger than the combination of data in all of the remaining EU member states. In addition, the UK has over 4 million CCTV cameras monitoring the movements of citizens, and producing significant volumes of potential video evidence. Under UK Law, appropriate signage is meant to be used to inform citizens of monitoring and surveillance, but there are a variety of questions regarding informed consent in the collection of DNA.

The intended purpose of data collection on such a scale is crime detection. Projects undertaken at this scale can be viewed to be broadly based on the following inference: criminals are the minority and anybody could be a criminal, therefore we can only know if crime is committed if we are monitoring everybody. Objections to such a line of reasoning can be made along inferential lines that if you object to such a collection, you must have something to hide, and therefore must be a criminal: thus we criminalize objectors with straw men.

DNA has a number of interesting features, from its structure as discovered by Crick and Watson, to figures regarding its uniqueness. But it has one additional feature of interest: it can travel to places its “owner” has never been. Consider, for example, swabs of saliva being taken from buses and used to trace individuals (Ross Lydall, 2007). Aside from the nature of this incident in itself, suppose that a crime were committed on a bus at some distance from where the saliva’s owner had departed the bus. The DNA trace would be uniquely identifying, implicating the owner, but the presumption of innocence of the latter crime would then become difficult to argue. Put another way, our DNA can travel to places we’ve never been, and stay there for a very long time.

This paper will discuss positive and negative consequences of DNA databases with reference to legal and ethical issues, but also in relation to the question for professional software developers: is it right to develop such software? Consideration of potential consequences is important to understand the possibility for harm to EU citizens, every one of whom may become more than merely a stakeholder in the DNA database. We will take account of doubts about the utility of DNA in fighting crimes the ways in which the database is being used and controlled, and how the information contained becomes a target for external attacks due to the high-value of information about health, family relationships, appearance, and associated data related to behavior, not just identity. Our intention is to explore what recommendations could be made for such systems, or whether it is indeed possible to make recommendations.

We will take account of arguments that a DNA database containing samples of acquitted suspects increases the number of samples but does not increase the likelihood of solving crimes (GeneWatch, Feb. 2007) or preventing wrongful convictions (Parliament Publications and Records, Mar. 2007). We consider that people are fighting for their DNA and rights in courts (OUT-LAW, Jul. 2004; OUT-LAW, Apr. 2007 ) while companies in charge of keeping the samples (Forensic Science Service) are fighting to retrieve stolen database information and DNA samples (Gallagher, Ian, Mar. 2007). We will also consider questions over privacy and human rights (Johnston P, Waterfield B, 2007), and broad viewpoints as emerge from the application of ethical theories to the notion of trading for civil liberties for personal protection.

Our main focus, however, will be on the question of whether software developers can follow codes of ethics that may preclude the development of such databases: whether these professionals are being honest and trustworthy about risks of database and providing sufficient protection for fundamental human rights and the privacy of others, unveiling the potential dangers of such systems to users or the public and managing the database to reduce the possible risks. According to the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) there is no specific framework proposed for an EU shared database (OUT-LAW, Jun. 2007). Those in the UK may be able to rely to some extent on the Data Protection Act, however the extent of protection beyond this needs to be considered.

It may be that we can only limit how much we invade privacy, but we have to balance this against intended use & unintended use and consequences.

REFERENCES

Gallagher, Ian (Mar.2007). “Five civil servants suspended over ‘DNA espionage’”. [Online] Daily Mail. (31 March 2007). http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=445902&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=&ito=1490 [Access data: January 2008]

GeneWatch (Feb. 2007). “Police Retention of DNA”. [Online] GeneWatch. (February 2007).http://www.genewatch.org/uploads/f03c6d66a9b354535738483c1c3d49e4/Councillorsbrief07_2.pdf [Access data: January 2008]

Johnston P, Waterfield B (2007) “DNA data deal ‘will create Big Brother Europe’”. [online] The Telegraph (18 February 2007) [Access data: January 2008]

OUT-LAW (Jul. 2004) “Police to retain DNA from acquitted suspects.” [Online] OUT-LAW.COM. (26 July 2004) http://www.out-law.com/page-4740 [Access data: January 2008]

OUT-LAW (Apr. 2007). “DNA database ‘will span most of the UK population’”. [Online] OUT-LAW. (11 April 2007). http://www.out-law.com/page-7945 [Access data: January 2008]

OUT-LAW (Jun. 2007). “Police will share data across Europe against privacy chief’s advice” [Online] OUT-LAW.COM (14 June 2007). http://www.out-law.com/default.aspx?page=8148 [Access data: January 2008]

Parliament-Publications-and-Records (Mar. 2007). “Memorandum by the Information Commissioner”. [Online] Parliament.uk. (1 March 2007). http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200607/ldselect/ldeucom/90/90we02.htm [Access data: January 2008]

(Ross Lydall, 2007) DNA kits to trace spitting passengers [online] London Lite (31 may 2007) http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23398753-details/DNA+kits+to+trace+spitting+passengers/article.do [Access data: January 2008]

AUTHOR
Anne Gerdes

ABSTRACT

It is generally acknowledged that trust plays an important role for the flourishing of collaborative relations in real life as well as in cyberspace. This paper analyses preconditions for trust in virtual learning environments. The concept of trust is discussed with reference to cases reporting trust in cyberspace (Jarvenpee & Leidner, 1999, Petitt, 2004, de Laat, 2005) and through a philosophical clarification holding that trust in the form of self-surrender is a common characteristic of all human co-existence (Løgstrup, 1997). This analysis of trust serves as a framework for explaining obstacles and possibilities in connection with building trust in virtual learning environments.

Despite didactic considerations and the best of intentions (Sherry, 2000, Sorensen, 2002, Salmon 2005), learners often find that online learning activities to a certain degree subject their surroundings to standardisation, self-monitoring and surveillance (Land & Bayne, 2005). When technology affords moves towards self and group- surveillance, identity moves towards being a question of how you are able to represent yourself in the learning system. Here, what you might call deliberated self-surrender could be a suitable way to respond to a design that offers you an opportunity to communicate and present yourself after always having reflected upon how to stage your communication. Such mechanisms of communication are well known from face-to-face situations as well (Goffman, 1959). However, here learners often participate in the negotiation of meaning through communication that is not reified, whereas online communication is often subject to reification, and accessible in logs. In the ideal sense, logs give rise to meta-reflections regarding learning processes (Fontaine, 2002), but at the same time, logs afford surveillance both between learners as well as between learners and teacher. Furthermore, the teacher traditionally possesses a role which reflects an asymmetric relation of power between being a facilitator of communication and at the same time representing a formal authority with a duty to evaluate students’ performance. This paradox is further reinforced in a virtual setting, since in most learning environments there are sophisticated surveillance tools available for tracking student activity (Land & Bayne 2005). This might gradually push the role of teaching towards one of learning management instead of one of facilitating communication. These circumstances might promote a competitive setting on behalf of a collaborative setting, and thereby negatively, influence the ethos of teaching.

Although concerned with the potential problem of surveillance, researchers and teachers as well as students often cherish logs in discussion boards as facilitating tools for scaffolding reflection and ongoing discussions during a semester. Nevertheless, it becomes relevant to raise the issue, whether there is a built-in tension between espoused theories that a didactic design is based on and theories-in-use in connection with e-tivities? How can we be sure that participation in such e-tivities constitutes evidence of reflection rather than of impression management? There might be a risk that learning environments actually strengthen and endorse the kind of communication in which learners are eager to perform rather than to be involved in engaged collaboration. To obtain the kind of unconditional commitment necessary for learning, one might benefit from the insights from open source communities, in which self-articulation of goals and volunteerism promote productivity (Benkler & Nissenbaum, 2006). Balancing free will in connection with study initiatives with inquiry teaching methods might encourage a practice, which favours mastery-oriented learning strategies and the seeking of knowledge for its own sake.

REFERENCES

Arendt, H. (1973), Remarks by Hannah Arendt, Advisory Council, Princeton University, Princeton.

Aristotle, transl. by L. H. G. Greenwood (1909), Nicomachean ethics: book six. University Press.

Benkler, Y., Nissenbaum, H. (2006) Commons-based Peer Production an Virtue, The Journal of Political Philospfhy, 14(4), 394-419.

de Laat, P. B. (2005), Trusting virtual trust, Ethics and Information Technology, 7, 167-180.

Dillenborug, P. (1999), Introduction: What Do You Mean By “Collaborative learning”? In: (ed): Dillenbourg, P., Collaborative Learning – Cognitive and Computational Approaches, Pergamon, 1- 19.

Fontaine, G. (2002) Presence in Teleland. In: K. Rudestam & J. Schoenholtz-Read (eds.) A handbook on teaching in the virtual classroom: A guide to excellence in online education, Thousand Oaks.

Gadamer, H. G. (2004), Truth and method, Continuum.

Goffman, E. (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Anchor.

Jarvenpaa, S.L., Leidner, D. E. (1999), Communication and Trust in Global Virtual Teams, Organization Science, 10(6), 791-815.

Kirschner, P., Strijbos, J-W, Kreijns, K., Beers, P.J. (2004), Designing Electronic Collaborative Learning Environments, Educational Technology Research & Development, 52(3), 47-56.

Kling. R, Courtright, C. (2004), Group behaviour and learning in electronic formus: a socio-technical approach. In: (eds.): S. A. Barab, R. Kling, J. H. Gray, Designing for Virtual communities in the service of learning, Cambridge University Press, 91-120.

Land, R., Bayne, S. (2005) Screen or monitor? Issues of surveillance and disciplinary power in online learning environments. In: R. Land, S. Bayne (eds.), Education in Cyberspace, RoutledgeFalmer, 165-179.

Levey, M. D. (2007), No time to think: reflections on information technology and contemplative scholarship, Ethics and Information Technology, 9, 237-249.

Løgstrup, K. E. (1997) The Ethical Demand, University of Notre Dam Press.

MacIntyre, A. (1999), After Virtue, Duckworth.

Pettit, P. (2004), Trust, Reliance and the Internet, Analyse & Kritikk, 26, 108-121.

Platon, transl. with notes by C.C. W. Taylor (1991), Protagoras, Clarendon Press.

Salmon, G. (2005), E-tivities the key to active online learning, RouthledgeFarmer.

Sherry, L. (2000), The nature and purpose of online conversations: A brief synthesis of current research, International Journal of Educational Telecommunications, 6(1), 19-52.

Sorensen, E. (2002), Distributed CSCL – a Situated, Collaborative Tapestry. In: In: (eds.): L. Dircknick-Holmfled, B. Fibiger, Learning in Virtual Environments, Samfundslitteratur, 165-192.

AUTHOR
Roberto Garigliano and Luisa Mich

ABSTRACT

Users who take part in online communities often develop deep attachments that have a series of consequences on their lives. We argue that in order to understand this long-term loyalty and its effects, it is useful to analyse it as a form of switching cost, often generated by specific features of the sites.

Online Markets are often supposed to be very fluid, i.e. very open to competition. However, the high level of profits that some online business achieve, and the extremely high valuation that the financial markets assign to some online business shows that some form of barriers to competition are at work. The paper starts by analysing the traditional barriers to entry in the offline world. It suggests that most of these barriers have little effect online, with the exception of User Preferences (a specific form of switching costs). In particular, User Investment – a form of User Preference characteristic of the web – is often so strong to represent a Barrier to Exit (BtE) for the users. Data analysis shows that such BtE are particularly active in the presence of online Communities (defined here in the wider sense of sites where users exchange something such as information, goods, services, money etc) among themselves. The paper analyses the forms of these BtE in details, showing when and how they work. Recent developments in the online business world discussed in the paper fit very well with this analysis. Since these BtE based upon User Investments, especially in an online community context, have a strong emotional element, and tend to expand both in terms of time spent and in terms of personal commitment, they obviously have a major impact on the social and personal well being of the users. The paper discusses these elements, putting them in a relationship with the business needs on one side, and on users’ mass behaviour on the other.

The traditional barriers to entry can be categorised as:

• Investment: advantages deriving from the fact that it requires a large investment for a new entry to catch up.
• Technology: advantage based on the use of proprietary technology.
• Regulations: advantages due to the effect of some market rules.
• Network Effect: this is the well-known effect by which some products are useful only when they reach a critical mass of users (e.g. the telephone system).
• Switching Costs (including Users’ Preferences): advantages due to the fact that the users prefer to stay with their existing supplier, because of advantages in staying or of disadvantages in moving.

For each category, a definition is provided in the full paper, and it is then shown how that particular barrier applies in general to the online world.

Various aspects of User Preference are discussed in the paper: inertia, inducements, personal investment. The paper then concentrates on User Personal Investment, which our analysis shows to be the biggest factor in users’s retention. This is thus shown to be a major Barrier to Exit (BtE).

Users’ Own Investment is a very special form of Users’ Preference, as it is not based on giving something extra to the user, but on the principle that the user has invested heavily in the site and would lose the investment if they switched. This effect can be observed in the offline market too, but it is very marginal. In the online world users may have invested the equivalent of several hours a day for a year or more (plus the emotional and social investments), so the switch can be traumatic. The mechanism in the online enviroment which causes such investment is examined in details, followed by a description of the social, emotional, psychological effects on the users.

Of course such mechanisms are present in the offline world, but usually outside the business sphere. The novelty is that in the online world such features are crucial in the business world too.

the online world is fundamentally discrete, unlike the offline world, which is fundamentally continuous in our perception. E.g., if a consumer buys an item offline, by and large they can take it with them wherever they want. If they establish relationship in a particular environment (e.g. work or study), those relationships can easily carry on in other environments; if they make a reputation for themselves in a field, that reputation travels with them and so on. Online, it is very different: virtual objects bought or created in a site usually exist only there; relationships acquired in a site usually remain there, unless an external contact is made (which is why many sites try to stop that to happen); reputation, power, image etc. exist only in a particular site and cannot be carried outside and so on.

The User Investment (UI) can be categorised as follows:

• Relations networks
• Public Image (prestige, leadership etc.)
• Power
• Virtual Objects Possession
• Specific Knowledge
• Evolution from below

Each of the UI categories can in turn be described in terms various subcategories as follows (which are fully described in the paper):

Relationship networks
Simplified
Idealised
Re-structured

• Image
  • Organised social structure
  • Explicit rules with clear consequences
  • Hierarchies/careers’ structure
  • Variety of roles (creation, control, entertainment, enterpreneurship, information, deviancy etc.)
• Power
  • Recognisability
  • Emergence of elites
  • Precise duties and limits
• Possession of virtual objects
  • Guarantee of ownership
  • internal transfer
  • Social use/sharing (even outside)
  • New trend: external convertibility
• Specific knowhow
  • Social
  • Creative
  • Technological
• Evolution from below
  • Technology
  • Rules
  • Structures
  • Economy

Observable trends support our theoretical forecast that more and more sites, and in particular all the very successful and profitable ones, must move towards some form of community, or see their market share attacked and their profit levels reduced. The most recent observations about this in the fields of online retail and email use patterns are quoted. Also, the web sites which are based on some community are bound to attempt an increase in User Investment, which is also pushed by the users’ dynamics. Finally, some impacts of this process on the users, both personally and socially, are discussed.

AUTHOR
Angel Luis Garcia and Porfirio Barroso

ABSTRACT

This year we will be celebrating the tenth edition of ETHICOMP (Ethics and Computer). Ten editions in which this congress has become one of the most important and relevant congresses in the world about Computer Ethics and it has also become a central reference within the field of Computer Ethics. Some time has passed since the first edition that took place at the University of Leicester in 1995 and many papers have been sent along with over 600 documents. Due to this wealth of material, it is necessary to do a qualitative and a quantitative analysis of the documents sent in the last nine congresses to come up with conclusions about the historic evolution of ETHICOMP and, by extension, of the past, present, and, why not, of the future of Computer Ethics.

Deepening on this idea, it would not be wrong to point out that the main objective of this article is to discover the key to the growth and development of the first nine editions of ETHICOMP. That is, we need to do an analysis of all documents sent to the various editions of the congress that due to the important list and participants, bringing together the best people of Computer Ethics, represent all possible views of the different areas Computer Ethics.

To accomplish this task, the chosen material could be no other than the more than 600 articles that have been submitted in the first nine editions of ETHICOMP emphasizing the evolution of Computer Ethics through the analysis obtained from the conferences sent over the years allowing us to see how interests, views, and the treatment of the articles have changed and evolved.

We began by getting the official Books of Proceedings of the nine congresses, work that would allow us to extract the entire database from which we can perform our qualitative and quantitative analysis. We continued to the reading, analysis, and categorization of all articles submitted. This process was conducted in a systematic way to extract patterns and common modes of analysis to frame all presented articles in a series of common levels comparable among them. To accomplish such a task, we developed a thematic categorization of the articles according to a series of forty ethical principles that served as a basis on which to frame and observe the range of thematic categories that appeared more frequently over the several congresses. Building on this work, in addition to the thematic categorization of the articles, we also highlighted other qualitative aspects such as the possible relationship of the articles to both their historical circumstances and the proposals by ETHICOMP. We also studied other purely quantitative aspects such as the evolution of the number of sent articles and the number of authors present in the conferences.

Once we categorized the articles and having in our hands the important database, we needed to put together the data to carry out our analysis that could reach the conclusions that would help us understand the evolution of the first nine editions of ETHICOMP. To do this, we decided to first analyze each of the congresses separately in an effort to extract dominant trends and relationships with thematic or historical circumstances in each conference, thus facilitating subsequent comparison of different editions. After completing each of the nine separate analysis, we moved to the second stage: a complete analysis of the entire group of articles sent to all editions with the goal of drawing more global conclusions observing the variation of some variants such as the predominant theme in ETHICOMP, the proposed theme by ETHICOMP, the trend in the number articles sent, or the profiles of the authors.

After completing this analysis, we obtained a series of results that can be used to reflect the evolution of ETHICOMP in this period of time. Thus, it was possible to identify three different timeframes with respect to the most discussed subject. First, up to 1999 the prevailing concept was the “Necessity of the existence of some ethical aspects and deontological guidelines.” Subsequently, more attention was given to the “Academic preparation and continued education.” Finally, from 2002 to the present, the most prevailing theme has been the “Development, promotion, and access to Computer Science.” In these trends the proposed themes by ETHICOMP have not been very influential, since the sent articles did not keep up with the proposed themes by the ETHICOMP organization.

Extrapolating these most discussed topics to all the nine editions we see that the most prevalent issues in the three phases of ETHICOMP are also the predominant ones among the total of the more than 600 presented documents. Thus, the most historically present topic in ETHICOMP would be the “Development, promotion, and access to Computer Science” with 18.34% of the articles, the second would be was “Necessity of the existence of some ethical aspects and deontological guidelines” with 14.83 % of the articles, and the third would the “Academic preparation and continued education” with 13.24%. Finally, in the analysis of quantitative character, we looked at the profiles of the authors who submit their articles to ETHICOMP, focusing on the authors who attended ETHICOMP the most, and also focusing on the authors who submitted the highest number of articles. Moreover, to complete our analysis, we conducted the evolution of the number of sent papers to each edition of the congresses, noting that after the first stage of expansion and strong growth until 1999, the congress has stabilized around the 80 articles per edition.

These are some initial results and conclusions that, with a more detailed vision, will help us analyze and show, through the study of ETHICOMP, the major trends, centers of attention, and, more generally, the evolution of Computer Ethics in the past decade.

AUTHOR
William M. Fleischman

ABSTRACT

For ten years now, we have been participating in a collaborative effort with students and teachers of the Julia de Burgos Elementary School in North Philadelphia designed to overcome some of the obstacles to technological inclusion and educational progress that affect young students from low-income families. Those of us engaged in this effort understand our purpose to be that of striking an appropriate balance between two competing foci that have dominated thinking and practice in public education in the United States. These foci are represented in the two formulations 1) strong schools produce strong citizens and 2) strong schools produce a strong economy. Although the past century and a half has seen successive periods in which one of these two foci displaced the other in the foreground of public education, there has been an underlying commitment to the principle that public education, as a portal to productive citizenship, is a public good that should be available equally to all children. The problem, of course, comes from the thorny question of achieving equality or, at the very least, a measure of equity when the basis for school funding is so badly skewed against the interests of students in the public schools of our largest cities.

In this context, our effort represents an investment of resources, on behalf of students and teachers at one city school, to level, at least to a small degree, a badly tilted playing field. The further circumstance that this effort is going forward within the frame of reference provided by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 has complicated the mechanics of the collaboration in several ways. At the same time, our awareness of the pressures imposed by NCLB has served to deepen our commitment to the children and teachers involved and to direct our attention to fundamental issues and values associated with the role of computer technology in public education and to consideration of the valence of the World Wide Web, especially as a resource for poor children.

As characterized by Professor Larry Cuban of Stanford University, the prevalent view of educational reformers holds “that increased availability [of technology] in the classroom would lead to increased use. Increased use … would then lead to more efficient teaching and better learning which, in turn would yield able graduates who can compete in the workplace.” The only obstacle to this smooth and inexorable process of transformation appears to be the need of many urban public school teachers to invest their time urgently in preparing students for the high-stakes examinations mandated by NCLB. Thus, apart from exam preparation drill, the use of technology in the classroom has the air of a discretionary activity reserved for teachers and students in more fortunate circumstances.

Against this background, we have been able to implement, in collaboration with the eighth-grade teaching team at our partner school, a year-long curriculum leading to completion of multi-disciplinary exit projects by all the eighth-grade students at the school. The exit-project curriculum combines experience with a variety of software packages, the introduction of concepts of life expectancy and average length of healthy life (formally, disability adjusted life expectancy) and research on student-selected topics related to life expectancy and risk factors that are of immediate relevance to the students by virtue of social and environmental conditions affecting them and their families. This effort has been recognized as of sufficient value that, even in the face of NCLB-mandated pressure of maintaining adequate yearly progress (AYP) the newly-appointed principal of the school has asked us to implement a second iteration of the exit- project curriculum in the current school year.

Returning to the question of striking an appropriate balance between the desiderata of preparing students for the twenty-first century economy and helping them understand the challenges and possibilities of their role as citizens, we recognize that the deeper and longer-lasting effects of education for citizenship are, to some extent, purchased by means of the more readily apparent value of technological education for the near-term marketplace. On the one hand, exposure to and practice with important software packages helps develop a sense of confidence in grade school students that can propel them in the direction of more interesting futures, thus converting them from victims of inequities in access to technology to potentially more resilient contributors to the national economy. On the other hand, the nature of the research and reflection incorporated in the exit-project curriculum encourages students to think like independent citizens, not mere interchangeable economic units.

In the course of our work with the eighth-grade students, we have had the opportunity to observe their changing attitudes toward technology and the possibilities of connectedness through access to information available on the World Wide Web. In this paper, we discuss some of the encouraging, but occasionally contradictory and confounding, aspects of this interaction. In particular, we consider the ways in which increased self-confidence through the use of technology helps counteract the potentially negative effects of the computer as the site of educational humiliation in connection with the administration of high-stakes exams. We discuss also, and in the words of the young students themselves, the complicated valence of the World Wide Web as a medium of individual social expression, a resource for interpreting one’s role as citizen and responsible family member, and a source of both passive and active entertainment.

AUTHOR
László Fekete

ABSTRACT

It goes without saying that knowledge and information are the most valuable com-modities in the new economy. Though knowledge and information as private goods could provide great business opportunities for rights holders in the global communications network, they exhibit the distinctive characteristics of public goods (Samuelson 1954, 387-389; Stiglitz 1999, 308-325). Therefore, the commodification of knowledge and information requires a strict proprietary regime which restrains free access to them and enforces effective legal pro-tection over their production, use, and dissemination. If the accessing and using rights of the individual users were free and unlimited the legal entitlements of rights holders would be worthless.

The pervasiveness of the new information and communications technologies as power-ful learning and knowledge sharing systems and the digitalization of knowledge and informa-tion goods facilitate their production, use, and dissemination, and at the same time make diffi-cult and expensive to enforce effective proprietary regulation and control over them. In addi-tion to the difficulty and the high transaction costs of the legal enforcement of proprietary rights, the social climate does not seem to be particularly supportive to the propertization of knowledge and information in the global communications network. In spite of the current trends of restrictive legislation and jurisdiction as well as of expansive and unprecedented private legislation of the rights holders, society persistently tends to believe that knowledge and information mainly belong to public goods and resists accepting their growing private appropriation and effective proprietary control over their production, use, and dissemination. Briefly, knowledge and information are usually conceived as a common pool of symbolic resources for the cultural reproduction of society. So, people are not willing to pay for knowl-edge and information goods to regain what they believe to be rightfully entitled to know, use, and contribute to. Without the empowerment of the possession and exercise of these individ-ual rights and freedoms, people merely are kept aloof from becoming the autonomous mem-bers of political-cultural community.

The rights holders also endeavor to control the flows of all forms of computer-mediated contents by means of the private ordering of accessing and using rights of users in combination with copy-protection technologies, digital rights management systems, platform dependent applications, micropayment system, zoning, and so forth (Benkler 2006, 397-459). They go well beyond the initial rights and legal entitlements originally assigned to them by the law and habitually infringe the basic constitutional rights of the users, like freedom of expression, the right to privacy, and the right to fair trial by taking advantage of the opportu-nity of forum shopping (Balkin 2004, 19-22; Boyle 2000, 345-350; Netanel 2000, 1879-1886; Walker 2003, 24pp). These private encroachments on the users’ individual rights and liberties further incite discontent and resistance. It is not surprising that hackers, cyberpunks, outlaws, and code breakers are usually regarded as public heroes and heroines in urban folklore who fight the enclosure of the public domain and the infringement of constitutional rights and lib-erties of the users. They are rarely stigmatized as villains therein.

The Tragedy of the Commons or the Anticommons?

Besides this common belief, many legal scholars, philosophers, scientists, and social scientists also emphasize that knowledge and information are social and cultural products made, shared, settled, and revised in democratic discourses, open scientific debates, and the pragmatic self-understanding of society. Therefore, the basic notions of mainstream economic paradigm about scarcity, exhaustibility, rivalry, and excludability, which are the distinctive characteristic of tangible goods, can be hardly applicable to the production, use, and distribution of knowledge and information (Kaul et al. 1999). In some respects, knowledge and information are not fit into the framework of neoclassical economics. Each individual can maximize the use of knowledge and information goods without exhausting the original re-sources, passing an excessive cost burden onto others, leaving anybody worse off than before, or excluding anybody from parallel exploitation and enjoyment. The overexploitation of knowledge and information does not bring about economic shortage and social threat; mean-while, their underexploitation could lead to economic backwardness and social degradation (Vanneste et al. 2004, 13-14). An open-access regime does not have inevitably harmful effect on social welfare, artistic, cultural, and scientific advancements as some law and economics scholars endeavor to argue against the public domain referring to Demsetz’s theory on the impact of externalities in the development of property right system and Hardin’s popular metaphor about the tragedy of the commons (Demsetz 1967, 347-359; Epstein 1989, 1488-1489; Hardin 1968, 1243-1248; Landes and Posner 2003, 471, 487-488). As a consequence of positive externalities and network effects, knowledge and information will never be exhausted under an open-access regime. In lack of rivalry, an open-access regime does not cause con-gestion or overcrowding in the use of knowledge and information, either. The opposite is the case: hedonistic and flamboyant behaviors in the consumption of knowledge and information goods are quite desirable. Therefore, converting Adam Smith’s frequently quoted proposition, every prodigal man appears to be a public benefactor, and every frugal a public enemy in the production, use, and dissemination of knowledge and information goods. Under an open-access regime, knowledge and information will be continuously proliferated. Meanwhile, un-der a proprietary regime, the strict private control of the production, use, and dissemination of knowledge and the flows of information can cause scarcity, underprovision, inefficient re-source allocation, endowment effect, holdup problems as well as deadweight social losses and cultural entropy (Heald 2007, 35-41; Gordon 1992, 153-163, 177-180; Netanel 1996, 306-336; Posner 1992, 277-278; Schultz 2002).

According to the mainstream economic paradigm, non-rivalry and non-excludability of knowledge and information goods are especially serious impediment which could frustrate the rights holders to recover production costs and to earn return on investments even if de-mands are sufficient and society attributes high cultural and economic values to innovative knowledge and novel information goods. For the reason that each additional user can con-sume knowledge and information goods, whether it is on-line newspaper article, scientific paper, symphony, or software once have been produced, at almost zero marginal costs, market itself is not a proper mechanism to set price above them. Knowledge and information as pub-lic, non-rival, and non-exhaustible goods are truly idiosyncratic to the established system of the market economy and the basic tenets of neoclassical economics. Therefore, knowledge and information as proprietary goods entirely rely on the existence of intellectual property laws and the effective legal enforcement of rights holders’ proprietary claims. Indeed, the law itself transforms knowledge and information into commodities. By marking out the boundary corners of knowledge and information goods in the elusive fields of culture and staking out the legitimate claims of rights holders in terms of the scope and length of protection, govern-ance, excludability, and exclusivity, the law makes knowledge and information scarce, rival, exhaustible, and excludable economic resources in order to recover the production and devel-opment costs and to ensure the economic gains and further commercial opportunities of pri-vate beneficiaries. The imposition of legal, judicial, and technological constraints on the pro-duction, use, and dissemination of knowledge and information goods serves the aims of the refutation of the basic feature of culture, science, and communication as collaborative enter-prise and the reinforcement of the well-established division between producers and consumers (Barthes 1974, 4-5). If the law provides individuals and business entities with proprietary rights and legal entitlements over the production, use, and dissemination of knowledge and information goods, non-owners’ rights and freedoms will be inevitably circumscribed.

The rise of the global communications network as a new public forum for collabora-tive enterprises, creative endeavors, and information exchange is juxtaposed with the private appropriation of knowledge and information goods from the outset. The enormous success of the global communications network demonstrates that it can very efficiently fulfill the func-tions of production, use, and dissemination of knowledge and information. Since the global communications network has become a cornucopia of knowledge and information in the last fifteen years, it proves that the digital amplification and global accessibility of the public do-main do not fade the spirit of innovation away. The exponential increase of cultural and tech-nological innovation renders the well-established economic argument inapplicable, that is to say, exclusive proprietary rights over knowledge and information goods are necessary to cre-ate suitable incentives for owners to produce them and efficiently exploit their inherent eco-nomic values. Economic data do not support the fear of underproduction of knowledge and information goods owing to the liberal or relaxed intellectual property rights regime as the advocates of strict and extended regime complain. And what is more, its smooth and evolving operation is also feasible from the economic point of view. However, it still needs to be proven that the expanding propertization of knowledge and information goods – ranging from gene sequences and mathematical theorems to scientific databases, software algorithms, and cartoon figures – and the complete internalization of the benefits of their inventions and uses will enhance social welfare in general; their private appropriation and the creation and enlargement of exclusionary anticommons will further stimulate the amplification of their production, use, and dissemination (Balkin 2004, 26-31; O’Rourke 2000, 1178-79).