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PDF
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Type:
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Working Paper |
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Author:
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Hyde, Lewis |
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Date:
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1998 |
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Agency:
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The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., New York |
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Series:
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Paper Series on the Arts, Culture, and Society, no. 8 |
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URI:
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https://hdl.handle.net/10535/5233
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Sector:
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Information & Knowledge |
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Region:
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Subject(s):
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copyright
intellectual property rights
public domain
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Abstract:
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From p. 1:
"The creative wealth of the past exists in the present as a commons, a special kind of commons that cannot be worn out no matter how many citizens use it. There was a time when 'commons' meant land communally held, fields where all citizens might pasture their sheep, for example, or woodlots where all might gather firewood. These have mostly disappeared; only so many sheep can be grazed and only so much wood removed before the grass will not return, the trees fail to reseed themselves. But creative wealth has no such limits; its carrying capacity is endless. The technology for making eye glasses cannot be exhausted by its use, nor would the works of Homer or Consfucius be diminished should every man and woman on earth have read them."
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