Managing user-generated content as a knowledge commons

Abstract

In the era of mass-participation content creation (MPCC) through social networking and pervasive computing, a different approach to intellectual property regarding user-generated content is required. One possible approach is to consider the intellectual property rights of MPCC from the perspective of a knowledge commons. Management of knowledge as a commons can then be based on the socio-economic principles of self-governing institutions for common pool resources, and formalised as a self-organising dynamic multi-agent system. In this paper, we describe a testbed for representing MPCC as a knowledge commons, and formalise three management principles, using the Event Calculus, for regulatory compliance, conflict resolution, and collective choice arrangements. Although a preliminary description of work in progress, we believe this approach has potentially significant impact on the use of collective intelligence and knowledge sharing to address systemic problems which threaten the sustainability of institutions and physical infrastructure. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.