An Introduction to the Digital Commons: From Common-Pool Resources to Community Governance

Abstract

This article proposes an introductory analysis of digital resources and commons-based peer production online communities with the framework of the common pool-resources. Trying to go beyond the classic economy dichotomy between physical resources scarcity and informational resources reproducibility, the approach allows to focus not only on the nature of the resources, but mostly on the governance by the communities to produce resources which remain available for all to share and build upon, while avoiding risks of pollution, degradation, underuse or enclosure by the market.