Some highly visible groups have focused on the need for access and the freedom to use works. There are also discussions about new "business models" for knowledge goods, and the need to address the problems of earning a living. How do we reconcile the need for access with the need for investments and paychecks?
...I think we can learn from the environmental movement in both of those areas.
At its best, the environmental movement has worked because of the size of its big tent, and the diversity of the approaches being used within it. Greenpeace is very different from the Environmental Defense Fund, and both are different from the Audubon Society or a land trust. The combination of methods and perspectives is actually a strength not a weakness. The Access to Knowledge (A2K) movement strikes me as having many of the same virtues. As for business models and economic underpinnings, one of the interesting things about this movement is that a set of social justice movements (for example, those focused on Access to Medicines) and a set of groups who are interested in different business models based around distributed creativity (for example, open source software developers) have found common cause in criticizing aspects of the current "1 size fits all" model of intellectual property.
My own view is a very pragmatic one. Environmentalists initially distrusted market mechanisms. I think that a majority would now say that market based systems such as "cap and trade" are valuable tools in reducing emissions. The same goes for working with groups who aim to profit from distributed creativity. If companies such as IBM find shortcomings in our current system of intellectual property and knowledge transfer, then it is much more likely that those criticisms will be heard. This will be a much more effective attempt at legal reform if people are unable to tar it as anti-business or econophobic.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
