Surprising Commons

28 Pages Posted: 18 Jan 2015 Last revised: 10 Dec 2015

See all articles by Carol M. Rose

Carol M. Rose

University of Arizona - James E. Rogers College of Law

Date Written: December 7, 2015

Abstract

“Tragedies of the commons” due to overuse and underinvestment have long been known to affect open access resources. Yet decimation of open access commons often catches everyone by surprise. Why the surprise? Among other reasons, overuse may occur in very small increments, or may be an accidental byproduct of seemingly unrelated technology; more generally, a resource’s common status undermines investment in learning about it. Open access to intellectual achievements does not destroy physical resources, but may undermine creative effort — but, in a happy surprise, may instead enhance creativity. An interesting surprise is that the drive to privatize creative achievements has generated a counter-movement to defend open access to these achievements. Scholars following Elinor Ostrom study common resources that are not left in open access but rather limited and managed; here surprises also show a mixture of attractive and unattractive features both in physical and intellectual domains, but they also generate lessons for such modern day developments as crowdsourcing and citizen science.

Keywords: open access, common property, limited information, intellectual property, environmental change

JEL Classification: K11, K32

Suggested Citation

Rose, Carol Marguerite, Surprising Commons (December 7, 2015). 2014 Brigham Young University Law Review 1257 (2015), Arizona Legal Studies Discussion Paper No. 15-04, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2551265

Carol Marguerite Rose (Contact Author)

University of Arizona - James E. Rogers College of Law ( email )

P.O. Box 210176
Tucson, AZ 85721-0176
United States
520-621-5544 (Phone)
520-621-9140 (Fax)

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
319
Abstract Views
2,559
Rank
173,352
PlumX Metrics