About The Forum

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There are many things that we assume to be ‘ours’ - from our immaterial thoughts and material bodies, to parks and pensions, hospitals and highways, and the land we may have long inhabited - until one day we find that they are no longer ‘ours’ but the ‘property’ of someone else: they have been privatized.

Privatization takes many forms, from selling off a public utility to the contracting out of social services. It takes the form of claiming ‘property rights’ over genetic material isolated from a human and the patenting of seeds.

      See 'Seed Policy Project' under 'Agriculture' for information on this new (summer 2008) project.

Privatization also describes the ‘intellectual property’ (copyright) claims of the Entertainment Industry and the ascendancy of corporate control over and benefit from university research and intellectual endeavours.

The privatization and commercialization of the public domain has changed the nature of our social and political relationships. This may best by symbolized by the marginalization, if not demolition, of the village square and Main Street by privately owned and policed shopping malls where citizenship is redefined as a matter of ‘consumer choice’ and ‘lifestyle.’

A healthy society, however, requires a healthy public domain with a diversity of structures, spaces and management to nurture common interests and provide for the public good. These may take the form of public libraries, open source software, farm-saved seed, community gardens, public schools, roads, parks, and socialized health care.

It is not just a question of private versus public, individual versus the state. There is much collective activity in between that has historically been described as ‘commons.’ Indeed, in our daily lives we participate, perhaps unknowingly, in a variety of formal and informal ‘commons.’ These commons - material and immaterial - need to be recognized if social health is to be nurtured and restored and the economics of privatization brought under public scrutiny and examined in the context of broader social values and interests.

How cultural workers (including writers, musicians and artists) should be compensated for their contributions to society, if not by copyright royalties, shares common ground with the question of how indigenous peoples are to conserve their culture, language, spirituality and ecology without being forced to ‘own’ it according to the property laws of the dominant culture.

The Forum on Privatization and the Public Domain has been established to counter the destructive forces of privatization and promote a strong public discourse on the relationship between private property, various forms of commons, the public domain and public good.

The goals of the Forum are to:

Create a public voice on the issues raised by:
- the privatization of public spaces and government functions
- the relentless expansion of what are considered to be patentable products, processes, discoveries and appropriated goods
- the extension of “intellectual property rights” to an increasing body of “information” including music, literature, traditional knowledge and human and non-human genetics

Foster strong public consciousness and conversation about:
- what constitutes the public good
- the implications of privatization and the social purposes and values of public goods
- alternative mechanisms of management and compensation for discoveries, inventions and creations of public benefit

Provide:
- A base of speakers and resource persons for meetings, conferences and consulting
- Public education on current issues in cooperation with other groups and organizations
- Documentation and resources on social, economic and legal aspects of intellectual property and the broader issues of privatization and the public domain

About user/membership and posting material:

Registered users may post documents to this site, but they must be approved by the moderator before actually appearing on the site. See FAQ for details. Material may be one page or less, or many pages. Submissions are to be identified as to relevant categories according to index (categories and sub-categories). There is no user fee, but please note that financial contributions to the work of The Forum are always welcome.