Participants in the Free Culture Forum (Barcelona, October 29-November 1, 2009) developed this Charter for Innovation, Creativity and Access to Knowledge:
We are in the midst of a revolution in the way that knowledge and culture are created, accessed and transformed. ...
In spite of these transformations, the entertainment industry, most communications service providers governments and international bodies still base the sources of their advantages and profits on control of content and tools and on managing scarcity. This leads to restrictions on citizens’ rights to education, access to information, culture, science and technology; freedom of expression; inviolability of communications and privacy. They put the protection of private interests above the public interest, holding back the development of society in general.
Today’s institutions, industries, structures or conventions will not survive into the future unless they adapt to these changes. ...
We have identified gaps that exist in national regulations and international treaties concerning the dissemination of culture and knowledge, both in private, contractual relations and in international public policy. We propose reforms which we believe are necessary to overcome these flaws. These weaknesses of existing regulations and treaties are detrimental to the public interest and to a modern, democratic cultural industry.
In this context, the public interest is best served by supporting and ensuring continued creation of intellectual works of significant societal value, and to ensure all citizens have unfettered access to such works for a wide variety of uses. ...
Publicly funded research, and intellectual and cultural work should be made available freely to the general public. ...
Open Access publications assure access to the results of scientific research, for scientists as well as the general public; they boost the possibilities for learning and they enable diverse research disciplines to discover and use each other’s results. Universities and research centres therefore should embrace the Open Access model for the publication of research results. ...
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.
