Evidence of the benefits of public domain

Via Boing Boing proof that the copyright and patents do not guarantee innovation and its absence has no effect on production, distribution and circulation of scientific and cultural knowledge.

His name is WorldWideWeb , the first browser that existed in the world to explore the network.

WorldWideWeb later renamed Nexus to avoid confusion with the network, the World Wide Web.

For 18 years the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) gave up the property rights of source code and software binary WorldWideWeb for anyone to use, modify, duplicate and redistribute it.

The result of this liberation of knowledge for the good of the whole society is unquestionable.

Its creator Tim Berners Lee not only created a way of navigating through hypertext, but opened the door for the development of standards and communication protocols such as HTML or HTTP.

No doubt the quantity of works and inventions in the public domain may not be more than the vessels which are privatized by copyright and patents, but, much more relevant and particularly of greater benefit to society.

Images via CERN

Proof of the benefits of the public domain written in ALT1040 on 1 May, 2011 by geraldine
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