Saving Public Knowledge with the Wikipedia

In "Reclaiming the Commons", David Bollier introduces his vision of the shrinking commons and identifies the privatization of public knowledge as part of the incremental process which is encroaching on the information commons. Legal and technological measures have been taken by corporations to commercialize the control of the public knowledge and commodify information. The Digital Rights Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and encryption have been used by corporations to prevent the sharing of knowledge and creative works. Microsoft used the DMCA to prevent information which was critical about its Kerberos software from being shared on the internet¹, while encryption has been used to restrict access to electronic books and the DMCA criminalizes the creation and dissemination of software to circumvent this encryption. These actions are threatening the survival and role of public knowledge.

Despite the legitimate concerns over the credibility and authority of the Wikipedia’s information, the online ‘encyclopedia which anyone can edit’ is an effective means to preserve public knowledge.

This hypertext was created by Daniel Tan as an assignment for the Winter 2006 Writing 139W class at UC Irvine.
Last Update: 12.28 p.m. 20 March 2006