The fact that items that once had little or no economic value, such as factual data, personal data, genetic information and pure ideas, nowadays have become a tradable commodity has caused a debate on the state and future of the public domain. Whereas this discussion has already led to the production of a rich body of scholarly literature concerning the expansion of intellectual property rights, other aspects have so far received less attention.

Published in the context of a workshop on the “Commodification of Information: the Future of the Public Domain”, held in Amsterdam in 2004, this book aims to provide an “information law”- oriented approach towards the question of preserving the public domain.