2.5 What are commons? In our current consumer/capitalist framework is it possible to even have commons in this context? Is the online environment a digital commons?

Coleman and Dyer-Witheford describe commons as:

“resources that all in a specified community may use, but none can own. They contrast with commodities, exchanged for profit on the basis of privatized possession.” (Coleman and Dyer-Witheford 2007)P934

In this context I believe that we do in some ways have commons in our current consumer/capitalist framework although they are more likely to be referred to as public areas and are not for the exclusive use of a “specified community”. We have parks, national parks, roads, and footpaths, crowned land, a water supply, libraries, and public beaches. Although it could be argued that governments own these resources – the governments are voted in by the general public who fund the upkeep of these resources through the paying of taxes. Therefore these resources could be said to be owned by all or none, depending on how you would like to look at it.

There are laws and regulations that govern our public resources or commons: such as speed limits on roads, fire safety guidelines in national parks, summer time water restrictions and laws that stop you staking out your own private little piece of Bondi Beach but they are put in place to preserve the commons, to ensure fairness, and to keep the general public safe when on common ground. Could we have common land without rules and regulations? I would have to say no. Our capitalist society works by one person taking ownership of a resource and trading for the resources of others. We do not live in a society where we only take what we need to survive; we take what we think we can profit most from. Therefore in this day and age our commons are legislated to prevent profit based on “privatized possession”.

Much like the offline world I believe the online environment is largely privatized but there are small chunks of it that could be thought of as commons. The world wide web is one example – this system of hyperlinks and urls enables us to make use of the internet and it is free – anyone can learn and use the code needed to make a website, but putting the website online is once again privatized through ISP’s charging for domain names. If anything Coleman and Dyer-Withefords article shows is that digital commons are not cut and dry. Companies own the intellectual properly rights to code, characters and the visual style of games. They may embrace the public playing on their turf or they may forbid people from using their code or characters to create new content entirely. In either case the companies still have IP rights over the content, and can choose to litigate at any time they see fit which sends mixed messages, blurring the line between commons and profitable privatization.

Coleman, S., and N. Dyer-Witheford. 2007. Playing on the digital commons: collectivities, capital and contestation in videogame culture. Media Culture Society 29:  Sage publications. http://mcs.sagepub.com/content/29/6/934 (accessed 26/10/11).