What is the public domain?

While working on my thesis I came along an article by Bryan Pfaffenberger [1] where he states

What is the public domain, and why is it so important to the growth and development of a democratic civil society? Yochai Benkler, a law professor at New York University, defines the public domain in these terms: \”Information is \”in the public domain\” to the extent that no person has a right to exclude anyone else from using the specified information in a particular way. In other words, information is in the public domain if all users are equally privileged to use it\” (Benkler 1999).

Just one but a strong argument to put creative work under a suitable Open Content License.

[1] http://www.linuxjournal.com/print.php?sid=4709

Update: Bryan has also a blog: http://pfaff.tcc.virginia.edu/pfaffenblog

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