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Panelists Nancy Kranich, Ann Wolpert, and Steven Pinker discuss the possible future of the Digital Commons.

Arguments and legal confrontations over the control of music, writing and visual materials have become a permanent feature of contemporary life and will almost certainly enlarge and intensify in future years. As corporate producers and distributors including some universities and private libraries move aggressively to claim ownership of digital content of all kinds and as some industries lobby for building surveillance principles into the operating systems of computers, others defend an alternative vision. This alternative embraces ideals of sharing and civic community and warns that recent extensions of copyright threaten creativity and the free exchange of ideas. Is there a future for this idea of a digital commons? Is the American tradition of free public libraries a valuable precedent for the digital age? Is the commercialization of cyberspace already a problem for those seeking reliable information? Are there features or tendencies inherent in digital technology that will always challenge and even undermine efforts to control information or charge a fee for accessing it?

Nancy Kranich served as president of the American Library Association in 2000-2001, focusing on the role of libraries in democracies. In 2003-2004, she was a senior research fellow at the Free Expression Policy Project in New York, where she wrote The Information Commons: A Public Policy Report . Previously, she was associate dean of libraries at New York University where she managed NYU's libraries, press, and media services.

Ann Wolpert is director of MIT Libraries and a member of the MIT Committee on Copyright and Patents. She also chairs the management board of the MIT Press and the board of directors of Technology Review, Inc., which publishes Technology Review.

Steven Pinker has long been committed to the democratic and civic uses of technology, especially the Internet. He is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, and the author of many essays and books, including The Language Instinct (1994) and The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (2002).

Find out more about the digital commons by visiting MIT Communications Forum.