Intellectual property and the next generation of the commons

With the emergence of new forms° of the commons, there is more content available than ever for practitioners to use everyday. The problem is, how can users know if any given asset has already been used?

This is where it helps to be early and often, and humble as far as quantity of commons assets consumed. It has been said before that as far as intellectual property goes, the commons is not endgame, but without such a pool of resources, there would be an enormous outflow of innovative activity.

In some markets, where its difficult to create assets because of geographical or jurisdictional constraints, the commons is a lifesaver; just be aware of the tragedy of the commons and that without contributions in some manifestation to that market, new participants won’t be able to enjoy the startup benefits at all.