How Can We Secure Commons of Information?: A Consideration on Lawrence Lessig's Argument on Commons and Innovation

In the age of so-called information society, the protection of intellectual property rights is becoming increasingly strong. One of the greatest opponents of this trend is cyber-law jurist Lawrence Lessig, who argues that too much protection of intellectual property rights can suffocate creativity and innovation.

Lessig's argument is based on the distinction between commons of rivalrous resources and those of nonrivalrous (i.e. informational) resources. The former was the main theme of "the tragedy of the commons" presented by biologist Garrett Hardin, where resources should be controlled to prevent their overconsumption. In the latter case, however, it is all about giving people enough incentive to create the nonrivalrous resource. This is the reason why Lessig is against toughening up intellectual property rights.

Lessig's argument is very strong, but it also reveals why information does not get on with capitalist economy. Market needs rivalrous resources, so we have to treat information just as if it were rivalrous. In past days there was little worry about this problem because information was embedded in materials such as books, canvases, and records, but today information circulates freely apart from material objects, which makes intellectual property rights indispensable.

Given this kind of dilemma, Lessig's view of the free flow of information seems rather impractical, but things look different if we assume plural channels of information flows. What we are concerned about is creativity, not consumption of information. If we can separate creative communal sharing of information from consumption of information, we can secure creative informational commons, while giving creators enough incentives. This implies a system of multiple flows of communication in which capitalist market constitutes only one of such flows.