Who Owns Culture? Why?
The rise of digital copying and of the internet has made the ownership of creative work a much contested topic. On the one side we have the entertainment industry trying to secure and enlarge its holdings; on the other we have a variety of open source models, not just in software but in cultural production generally (as with, for example, musicians who post their work on the internet in search of audience rather than income, or as with the Public Library of Science which now produces half a dozen open-access journals).
In the background lie questions that have been debated ever since the seventeenth-century: How exactly can incorporeal things be made into 'property'? What is the best way to balance the public good and individual incentive? When does the ownership of ideas become a form of speech control? How shall be distinguish piracy from simple access to knowledge?
Our discussion with Professor Hyde will explored these and other questions.