The Economics of Open Source Hijacking and Declining Quality of Digital Information Resources: A Case for Copyleft

Andrea Ciffolilli

Development and Comp Systems from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: The economics of information goods suggest the need for institutional intervention to address the problem of revenue extraction from investments in resources characterized by high fixed costs of production and low marginal costs of reproduction and distribution. Solutions to the appropriation issue, such as copyright, are supposed to guarantee an incentive for innovative activities at the price of few vices marring their rationale. In the case of digital information resources, apart from conventional inefficiencies, copyright shows an extra vice since it might be used perversely as a tool to hijack and privatise collectively provided open source and open content knowledge assemblages. Whilst the impact of hijacking on open source software development may be uncertain or uneven, some risks are clear in the case of open content works. The paper presents some evidence of malicious effects of hijacking in the Internet search market by discussing the case of The Open Directory Project. Furthermore, it calls for a wider use of novel institutional remedies such as copyleft and Creative Commons licensing, built upon the paradigm of copyright customisation.

Keywords: Economics of information and knowledge; intellectual property rights; copyright; copyleft; public domain; open source; open content; hijacking; customisation; Creative Commons; DMOZ; search engine; directory. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H4 K39 L15 L86 O31 O34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2004-04-14, Revised 2004-04-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-ino, nep-law and nep-pbe
Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 20; draft 29 April 2004
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwpdc:0404008

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