'Viral Spiral' & digital commoners

Public Knowledge cofounder David Bollier’s new book is "Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own". [10mar09]

Published in January for Free Press and available under a Creative Commons license the book serves as an introduction to and argues for the ideals behind a digital commons - pointing out that a radically different order of society based on open access, decentralized creativity, collaborative intelligence, and cheap and easy sharing is ascendant.

According to the Creative Commons blog, the book can be considered a "definitive guide for those seeking to understand and discover the key players and concepts in the digital commons. From the beginnings of the Free Software Movement, to Wikipedia’s Inception, to Lessig founding Creative Commons at Harvard Law School, Bollier thoughtfully examines the principles and circumstances that helped nurture our digital commons from idea to (meta)physical reality."

Now the same Creative Commons blog has an excellent interview with David Bollier — just a couple of quotes here: "After traveling in the worlds of free software, copyright activism and the commons for nearly ten years – mostly as a policy activist – I became acutely aware of how much of this history was invisible to mainstream political culture. ... So long as the Internet remains an open-access infrastructure, new commons will keep arising, and growing stronger. I remain optimistic that the viral spiral will be a potent force for improving democratic culture in the years ahead."

Check Viral Spiral website.