Free Knowledge: Confronting the Commodif

Alarms are being sounded around the globe over the increasing commercialization of public knowledge for private profit. Whether you are a farmer, a university student, a medical patient, or a library user, these developments impact your daily life. Knowledge privatization holds growing sway over the choice of the foods you eat, the medicine you take, the software you use, the music you hear, and even the flowers you plant in your own backyard. This is the result of a world where plant seeds have become subject to patents, medical research has migrated into the domain of pharmaceutical giants, universities are beholden to corporate funders, and Indigenous knowledge is expropriated.

The good news is that people are fighting back, working to create spaces where humanity’s knowledge can be reclaimed and shared for the public good and for the environment. Composed of fifteen essays from seventen writers--ranging from academics to farmers to indigenous knowledge keepers, Free Knowledge is more than a scholarly collection; it is a book on the front lines in the shared global project of creating and protecting our Knowledge Commons.

Daryl Hepting is an associate professor of Computer Science and an associate member of the Film department at the University of Regina. He is also the associate director of the Regina Integrative Cognitive Experimentation (RICE) lab, and coordinator of the Farming and Local Food Working Group for RCE Saskatchewan.