There are two main opposing conceptions of how a just society ought to look. One
There are two main opposing conceptions of how a just society ought to look. One strand stresses the aspect of individual freedom whereas the other focuses on equal distribution of natural resources. There have been attempts to reconcile these views, for example by John Rawls (1999). I will show in this last chapter that the concept of intellectual commons can be endorsed from both sides.
As we have seen in the previous chapters, there are good reasons to claim that neither natural rights nor personality rights arguments provide enough justification for intellectual property rights of the sort implemented today through a repressive global legal framework. So there is only the utilitarian argument left — which says that granting intellectual property rights serves the just society as such, as outlined in Chapter One. I assert that for all types of just society it is desirable that human communication, cultural productivity and scientific progress serve the development of society in a sustainable way. Sustainability here means that the just society can be developed in line with its values while maintaining its resources for the following generations. There is disagreement of course about values, and about how resources can be maintained in such a way. There is also a lot of disagreement about whether a political structure is needed, how such a structure should be constructed, and how much interference with individual freedom would be acceptable to create wealth equality amongst its members. And values are of course not static but are always in slight modification. My aim is not to try to solve these fundamental problems but to show that a society where intellectual property is common property has a better chance to prosper, independently of the question whether its basic values are more libertarian or more egalitarian. The premise is that the more cultural artefacts and the more scientific ideas are developed and produced, and the more freely human communication can happen, the more sustainable a society grows. This is the classical liberal argument for freedom of speech.[1] Supporters of intellectual property rights argue that because these temporary monopoly rights are granted, more cultural artefacts are produced (Moore 2011). There would be less medical research without patents and fewer new books, songs or movies without copyright, because exclusive income rights are a necessary incentive for individuals to be creative. This is an empirical argument and there are many observations which show us that there is not much evidence for its truth.
The missing evidence for the incentive argument
First of all, there exists a huge body of cultural and scientific artefacts which have not been created to gain monetary incentives but just because of personal intrinsic motivation. There are millions of musicians, writers, painters, photographers out there, who create wonderful pieces of artwork every day. But they are not doing it because intellectual prope