The presence of a robust public domain is an essential precondition for cultural, social and economic development and for a healthy democratic process. But the public domain is under pressure as a result of the ongoing march towards an information economy. Items of information, which in the old-economy had little or no economic value, such as factual data, personal data, genetic information and pure ideas, have acquired independent economic value in the current information age, and consequently become the object of property rights making the information a tradable commodity. How and to what extent does the commodification of information affect the free flow of information and the integrity of the public domain? Does the freedom of expression and information, guaranteed inter alia in the European Convention on Human Rights, call for active state intervention to 'save' the public domain? What means - both legal and practical - are available or might be conceived to guarantee and foster a robust public domain? These were the main questions that were addressed in a major collaborative research project led by the Institute for Information Law of the University of Amsterdam (IViR) in co-operation with the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society (TILT) of Tilburg University, and funded by ITeR, the Dutch National Program for Information Technology and Law. Thirteen contributions from academia worldwide make up the present book, addressing the future of the public domain from a different angle. In addition, all authors were invited to reflect upon the notion and role of the public domain in the context of information law and policy. Should this concept be limited to that of a 'negative' image of (intellectual) property protection, i.e. all publicly available information not subject to a property right, and therefore freely (i.e. gratis) available, or should a broader approach be taken, e.g. all information available from public sources at affordable cost? Should information policies be aimed at maximizing the public domain or optimizing information flows? To what extent are these aims congruent? This book takes a broader, 'information law' oriented approach towards the question of preserving the public domain, in which a wide range of interrelated legal questions converge. Issues treated in this book include: economic analysis of the public domain; fundamental rights analysis of the public domain; impact of the application of technological protection measures and contractual restrictions on the public domain; the impact of the expansion of copyright, database right and patent rights on the public domain; the impact of the commodification of private data, government information, indigenous knowledge on the public domain; and the capacity of the Open Source and Creative Commons Movements to preserve the integrity of the public domain. "The Future of the Public Domain" is an important work for all those interested or involved in the regulation of the knowledge economy. Legal scholars, academic and research institutions, corporate counsel, lawyers, government policymakers and regulators - all these and more will benefit enormously from the thoughtful and incisive discussions presented here.

Open source software licences are based on two fundamental principles: the possibility for users to use the software for any purpose and the possibility to modify and redistribute it without prior authorisation from the initial developer. Some open source software licences, like the General Public Licence (GPL), also impose a corollary obligation on the licensee: to make the source code available to other developers. The idea behind this form of licensing is that when programmers can read, redistribute and modify the source code for a piece of software, the software evolves. A number of legal challenges need to be addressed in order to ensure the most efficient deployment of open content licences in Europe and in the Netherlands, not least because most open source licences originate from the United States. This study gives an overview of the current legal situation regarding the use of open source software licences and investigates how the most commonly used open source software licences measure up to Dutch and European law. How does the distinct production and distribution model of open source licences fit in the current legal framework? Does the current legal environment support the use of open source licences or does it rather impede their use? In this last case, would certain adaptations to the law or to the licence terms be appropriate? By its in-depth analysis and clear conclusions, Unravelling the Myth around Open Source Licences amply contributes to the understanding of this complex field that policy makers, regulators, and academics so crucially require. Taking the provisions of the GNU GPL, the BSD, and the Mozilla Public Licence as examples, it investigates the implications of open source licensing from a private law, copyright law and patent law perspective. It also takes a brief look at the issue of the enforcement of these licences. To facilitate the use and enforcement of open source software licences in Europe, and more particularly in the Netherlands, the authors conclude their study by making a number of recommendations for the adaptation of the licence terms with a view to enhancing their compliance with the legal requirements. Lucie Guibault is Senior Researcher at the University of Amsterdam's Institute for Information Law (IViR). Ot van Daalen is an attorney with the firm of De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek in Amsterdam. This is Volume 8 in the Information Technology and Law (IT&Law) Series

This book is the result of a long-term comparative research project on intellectual property, with topics ranging from patents to copyright, examined across 16 jurisdictions. It does not aim at commenting on current policy issues. The country reports unearth the culturally, morally and historically imprinted thought patterns across Europe which underpin current discussions on the appropriation of information, and which do not change quickly. The research results question the common narratives of the distinctiveness of private and public law, of contracts and property, and of morality and the law. The point of departure is the public good character of information, with the focus being on public interests pursued when assigning information as property. The 14 selected cases, based on recent, and in some cases futuristic when the project began in 2001, scenarios, aim to identify how boundaries to information property emerge, the areas of law that are applied and the principles that are followed in order to balance the conflicting interests at stake. The issues discussed revolve around well-known interfaces such as IP and competition law, monetary interests versus personal interests in human genome data, individual freedoms-to-operate versus collective action models as found in basic research or ‘creative commons’. The book shows how some national discussions appear similar on the surface, in terms of resorting to parallel principles, but subsequent domestic policy answers vary greatly. Even legislation which aims at harmonisation may result into more diversity. Inversely, we found legal institutions applied which install contrasting legal rules which however aim at exactly the same behavioural change. The national reports in Part III are complemented by comparative analyses by the editors, whilst the chapters in Part II are dedicated to an analysis of the submissions from a theoretical point of view, departing from the editors’ own research interests. The chapter in Part I describes the overall ‘Common Core’ research method, which splits the national reports into operative, descriptive and metalegal formants. Boundaries of Information Property is aimed at researchers in IP and practitioners interested in the foundational theory of their subject. It is an inspiring read for those interested in the deeper structures of regulating information. With a foreword by Sjef van Erp (em. University of Maastricht) and contributions by Christine Godt (Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg), Geertrui Van Overwalle (University of Leuven), Lucie Guibault (Dalhousie University), Deryck Beyleveld (University of Durham), Mike Adcock (University of Durham), Ramūnas Birštonas (Vilnius University), Maja Bogataj Jan�i� (Intellectual Property Institute, Ljubljana), Konstantinos Christodoulou (University of Athens), Teresa Franquet Sugrañes (University Rovira i Virgili), Pablo Garrido Pérez (University of Barcelona), Christophe Geiger (Luiss Guido Carli University), Silvia Gómez Trinidad (University of Barcelona), Mariona Gual Dalmau (University of Barcelona), Aleksei Kelli (University of Tartu), Tomaž Keresteš (University of Maribor), Maja Lubarda (Lawyer, Ljubljana), Thomas Margoni (University of Leuven), Jan Mates (Attorney-at-Law, Prague), Maureen O’Sullivan (NUI Galway), Andrea Pradi (University of Trento), Martina Repas (University of Maribor), Giorgio Resta (University of Rome 3), Ole-Andreas Rognstad (University of Oslo), Cristina Roy Pérez (University of Barcelona), Jens Schovsbo (University of Copenhagen), Agnes Schreiner (University of Amsterdam), Simone Schroff (Plymouth University), Tobias Schulte in den Bäumen (Hapag-Llyod, Hamburg), Simona Štrancar (University of Maribor), Tomasz Targosz (Jagiellonian University), Elżbieta Traple (Jagiellonian University), and Gabriele Venskaityte (European Commission, Brussels).