Links

 

Reclaim the commons movement

 

http://www.reclaimthecommons.net/
Initially formed to oppose Bio2004, RECLAIM THE COMMONS has quickly grown from a single mobilization into a movement. This movement aims to “teach and demonstrate sustainable, life-affirming alternatives to biotechnology and corporate power in general: organic food, community gardens, water reclamation, urban transformation, a gift economy, and so much more”. There are various working groups attached to this movement.

 

http://www.nologo.org/
Naomi Klein’s website with a wide range of articles including – many referring to both the enclosure of the commons and reclaiming the commons movement.

 

http://www.ecoplan.org/
The Commons Open Society Sustainability Initiative. This is an independent platform for new thinking & world-wide collaborative problem solving that relates to the commons

 

http://freeculture.org/
Freeculture is an international student movement for free culture and has a wide range of information about the cultural commons.

 

http://onthecommons.org/
OntheCommons.org is web portal and blog that explores activism on behalf of the commons in all its variety. This organisation argues that the commons is a powerful organizing principle for understanding countless aspects of nature, creativity and knowledge, local community and everyday experience. One of the great problems of our time, however, is the enclosure of the commons by market forces, often with the support of government. The majesty of the commons is being neglected.


Creative commons projects

http://www.creativecommons.org.au/
iCommons.au is the Australian derivative project of the Creative Commons project in the United States of America. We are porting the Creative Commons licences into Australian domestic law and fostering a creative community premised on remixable creativity.

 

http://www.lessig.org/blog/
Lawrence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the school’s Centre for Internet and Society. Professor Lessig was named one of Scientific American's Top 50 Visionaries, for arguing "against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation and discourse online." He is also of a number of articles and books and this site contains very useful information.

http://creativecommons.org/
Creative Commons is a non-profit that offers an alternative to full copyright.

http://www.indymedia.org/en/index.shtml
Indymedia offers independent news worthy stories – reminding us that the Internet is a commons that belongs to us all. Indymedia is far from a perfect forum – but unlike other spaces on the web, resists enclosure.

 

http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2005/07/20/the-creative-commons-as-a-default-rule/
Economist John Quiggen argues that a creative commons license should be the default...



Progressive views regarding the commons

http://www.tompaine.com/
http://www.commondreams.org/
Both TomPain.com and Common-Dreams are US based websites that provide a wide range of alternative and progressive views and articles including information about the commons.

www.newmatilda.com
New Matilda is an online magazine and policy portal. It is an independent media voice, delivering accessible, informed comment on significant issues in Australia and abroad. New Matilda promotes: truth in public life; independent political commentary; policy based on the public good; and, citizen power in decision making. It has published a number of articles regarding the commons including their campaign titled 'OUR COMMON WEALTH'.

Promoting the commons

http://www.cooperationcommons.com/about
The Cooperation Project has convened expert workshops, published a syllabus, launched online discussion communities, compiled reports, created and published video lectures, and built software prototypes

 

http://www.commoner.org.uk/
This is a web journal for those with ‘other values’. It is a journal is about living in a world in which there is an aim to end the enclosure of the commons.

http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/
The Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School is the first university centre in the world devoted to the public domain (or commons). The public domain is the realm of material—ideas, images, sounds, discoveries, facts, texts—that is unprotected by intellectual property rights and free for all to use or build upon.

http://www.friendsofthecommons.org/
Friends of the Commons is a citizens’ group that reports on the state of the commons and supports other citizens working to protect and expand the commons. Based in the United States, the Tomales Bay Institute aims to develop an intellectual framework that includes the commons as well as the market and the state, and to inject that expanded framework into America's vision of possibilities. The organisations long-term objective is to leverage system-wide change by creating an easy-to-grasp intellectual framework that leads to such change.

http://www.gci.org.uk/
The Global Commons Institute (GCI) is an independent group concerned with the protection of the global commons. The focus here is the ‘global commons’ that are the common heritage of all humanity. The focus of GCI comprises the features of the geo-biosphere - such as forests, biodiversity, oceans and global atmosphere.- that in combination form the global climate system



Challenging Biotech

http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/
The Oakland Institute is a policy think tank whose mission is to promote fair debate and increase public participation by bringing dynamic new voices into policy debates on critical economic and social issues.

http://nano.foe.org.au/
Friends of the Earth (FoE) have launched a project investigating the issue of nanotecnology, which is being heralded as the basis of the next industrial revolution. Yet, amidst the hype there are serious questions about the impacts of this powerful new technology. The FoE nano project aims to catalyse debate on what is set to be one of the defining issues of our time.