David Bollier posted an essay this week which focuses on how best to protect the public commons online. No one can argue against the principle that academic knowledge grows and evolves best when it is readily available to other academics. Yet, in the absence of the Internet as a publishing medium, academic publishing has turned academic knowledge into a commodity. Unfortunately, the academy took the direction that Bollier warns against when talking about the public commons online,

The key challenge is not how to devise better business models per se. Our challenge is to recognize socially created value as a powerful force in its own right—and then find the best ways to protect and sustain that value over the long term. . . . let us start by recognizing and honoring the sovereignty of the commons as a separate category of value-creation, and work from there. Otherwise, we will squander a rich opportunity.