Learning Content in a “Free Culture”

• Coggno Inc.
• Sep, 24 2008
• Learning Content
• Free Culture Movement
• Intellectual Property Rights

Besides sites offering self-help learning content, what about other free programs? A group known as the “Free Culture Movement” believes that as the world evolves into an information society, strict copyright laws and intellectual property rights should be more lax. Such restrictions are, according to the movement, part of a “permission culture” that hinders creativity and is not healthy for the success of an information society. According to them, learning content is just one of many types of information that should be made available to the public.

Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford University professor who founded an organization associated with the movement, suggests in his book Free Culture that a compromise may be made between copyrights and intellectual property rights and the right to access information, including learning content. What do you think?