by Philippe Aigrain (Get the Book)In this creative work, Aigrain (CEO, Sopinspace--Society for Public Information Spaces) and contributor Suzanne Aigrain (Oxford Univ.) have obviously spent a great deal of time imagining what the future holds for cultural interaction in the Internet age. They describe a new model of enhanced sharing of cultural resources, offering a tremendous array of ideas for readers to digest. One consistent point is that profit-centered, concentrated markets will limit access to and exposure of ideas, artifacts, and creative works. To prevent the predicted welfare losses, the authors imagine a commons where cultural riches can be shared absent the rent seeking of agents with undue control. The arguments include methods to compensate creative contributors adequately while keeping the cost to those accessing material low. Governments would collect fees to reward producers and encourage future developments. Apparently these would not be taxes, since the revenues would be directed to specific uses and not become part of the governments' general budgets. This "non-market" solution, with its lengthy discussion of payments by consumers and rewards to producers, with an impartial umpire determining the amounts after collecting a vast quantity of relevant data, sounds much like Oskar Lange's vision of a socialist marketplace. Provocative reading for sophisticated audiences. --Choice
