Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own
(due to be published in January 2009)
"Viral spiral" is a term to describe the almost-magical process by which Internet users come together to build digital tools and share content on self-created online commons. Using free software, Creative Commons licenses and their own imaginations, ordinary people have invented an astonishing online social order and economy that are free of customary commercial constraints - and robust enough to challenge traditional institutions. This new order can be seen in thousands of collaborative websites and archives, the blogosphere, social networking sites, Wikipedia, craigslist, remix music and video mashups, and a flood of innovations in open education, open science and open business models. Viral Spiral is the first comprehensive history of the attempt by a global brigade of techies, lawyers, artists, and many others to create a digital republic committed to freedom and innovation.

"The Commons as a New Sector of Value-Creation," plenary remarks at "Economies of the Commons: Strategies for Sustainable Access and Creative Reuse of Images and Sounds Online," De Balie Centre for Culture and Politics, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, April 12, 2008.

Re-public [Greek online journal], "The Commons and Emergent Democracy," October 2007.

Renewal magazine (U.K.), "A New Politics of the Commons," December 22, 2007

My film debut (as a talking head) in the 2007 film about Ralph Nader, "An Unreasonable Man," produced by Henriette Mantel and Steven Skrovan.

Click here for articles and speeches about the commons.