WG4: Economic analysis and new business paradigms (ECONOMICS)

WG4 will focus its work on economic analysis of the digital public domain and the related issues of interest to the COMMUNIA project. More specifically, WG4 will work on what would be the proper analytical methods and tools when dealing with the public domain and/or "sharing" licensing frameworks in their interaction with existing and established business models (e.g. the "new" role of publishing intermediaries as agents that either act as an interface to the market for authors/rightsholders, providing distribution channels, legal advice, marketing efforts, etc.; or use the public domain as a resource for their activities). Furthermore, WG4 will devote its attention to how new business paradigms could emerge when different policies related to the public domain, and more specifically the public domain in its intersection with information and communication technologies, are put in place. On this topic, WG4 will devote specific care to the analysis of so-called "user-centered innovation", i.e. business processes and policy decisions that put end-users in a position to create and innovate information-intensive goods, and how the digital public domain and the "information commons" interact with this kind of phenomena.