Digital commons: Difference between revisions

{{a|devil|

}}The central irony of the [[digital commons]]: since the practical means of separating of [[information]] from its [[substrate]] became available to all,<ref>The [[JC]] dates this to the widespread introduction of [[email]], but the fabulous {{author|James Burke}} makes a good argument that it started 200 is years ago with the [[Jacquard loom]].</ref> ''any'' digital artefact — any [[Code is Law|code]] — can be instantly ''and costlessly'' replicated. No consumables, no materials,<ref>Barring a trivial amount of electricity and no I am not including [[Blockchain]] in that sweeping generalisation.</ref> no labour, no storage, no transport cost. Thus: ''problem'': unless someone trying to make money out of the materials she finds lying around on that common can [[Rent|extract ''rent'']] somehow, her profit margins will quickly tend to zero — if they don’t ''start'' there — as the code she wishes to use in her product, and being its sole value, is freely reproducible to anyone else who cares to bend down and pick it up.