Questioning cultural commons

Cornell Law Review

Volumn 95, Issue 4, 2010, Pages 817-837

  Solum, Lawrence B ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA CHAMPAIGN   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 77953481439     PISSN: 00108847     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (84)

1. Michael J. Madison, Brett M. Frischmann & Katherine J. Strandburg, Constructing Commons in the Cultural Environment, 95 Cornell L. Rev. 657, 659 (2010).
2. See id. at 660-661
3. See id. at 661.
4. See id. at 662.
5. See id. at 663.
6. Id at 664.
7. Id.
8. See id. at 669.
9. See id. at 669 n.41.
10. See id.
11. See id. at 659-660
12. Press Release, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, The Prize in Economic Sciences 2009 (Oct 12, 2009) [hereinafter Press Release], available at http://nobelprize.org/nobel-prizes/economics/laureates/2009/press.html.
13. See Elinor Ostrom, Governing The Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action 58-87, 104-32, 144-178 (1990);
14. see also James M. Acheson, The Lobster Gangs of Maine (1988);
15. Madison, Frischmann & Strandburg, supra note 1, at 675-77;
16. Press Release, supra note 12.
17. See Garrett Hardin, The Tragedy of the Commons, 162 Science 1243 (1968).
18. Lawrence B. Solum, Legal Theory Lexicon 007: The Prisoners' Dilemma (Apr. 19, 2009), http://lsolum.typepad.com/legal-theoryjexicon/2003/10/legal-theory- le.html;
19. see also Steve Kuhn, Prisoner's Dilemma, in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (rev. ed. 2007), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/prisoner-dilemma/ (explaining the prisoner's dilemma).
20. Solum, supra note 15.
21. The full story is more complex. The tragedy of the commons is better described as a "volunteer dilemma" and not as a "prisoner's' dilemma." In addition, the "tragedy of the commons" as described by Hardin could involve what are called threshold effects, and if information about these effects were available, then overuse of the commons at the threshold of damage might be both individually and collectively irrational. See Kuhn, supra note 15.
22. See, e.g., Hardin, supra note 14, at 1245.
23. Lawrence B. Solum, Legal Theory Lexicon 029: Public and Private Goods (Sept 9, 2009), http://lsolum.typepad.com/legal-theory-lexicon/2004/03/legal- theory-le.html
24. see also B. Curtis Eaton & Diane F. Eaton, Microeconomics 563-564 (3d ed. 1995).
25. Solum, supra note 19; see also Richard G. Lipsey & K. Alec Chrystal, Economics 278-280 (11th ed. 2007).
26. See, e.g., Joseph E. Stiglitz, Whither Socialism? 50-51 (1994).
27. Property rights and contract law enable economically efficient exchanges by creating the legal mechanism by which parties can exchange private goods.
28. Solum, supra note 19.
29. Id.
30. See E.S. Savas, Privatization and Pubug-Private Partnerships 45-49 (2000);
31. Tyler Cowen, Public Goods, in The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics 431 (David R. Henderson ed., 2008), available at http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/ PublicGoods.html;
32. Charlotte Hess & Elinor Ostrom, Ideas, Artifacts, and Facilities: Information as a Common-Pool Resource, 66 Law & Contemp. Probs. 1ll, 118-121 (2003)
33. Vincent Ostrom & Elinor Ostrom, Public Goods and Public Choices, in Polygentricity and Local Public Economies 75, 76-79 (Michael D. McGinnis ed., 1999)
34. Solum, supra note 19.
35. See Savas, supra note 25, at 45, 51-53
36. Ostrom & Ostrom, supra note 25, at 78-79
37. Solum, supra note 19.
38. See Savas, supra note 25, at 45, 50-51
39. Ostrom & Ostrom, supra note 25, at 78-79
40. Solum, supra note 19.
41. See Solum, supra note 19;
42. cf. 7 Lawrence D. Smith, Food and Agric. Org. of the U.N., Reform and Decentralization of Agricultural Services: A Policy Framework 236 (2001) (discussing how club goods may be nonrivalrous between club members and non-members)
43. Ostrom & Ostrom, supra note 25, at 78 (discussing theater use).
44. I will use this gendered form throughout, reflecting usage among the community of lobster fishers. See, e.g., Maine Lobstermen's Association, http://www.mainelobstermen.org (last visited Mar. 12, 2010).
45. Madison, Frischmann & Strandburg, supra note 1, at 659;
46. see also James M. Acheson, Capturing the Commons: Devising Institutions to Manage the Maine Lobster Industry 20-23 (2003) (describing tactics lobstermen use to self-regulate their industry).
47. See Acheson, supra note 13, at 71-83;
48. Ronald Salz, Alternative Marine Resource Conflict Management Through Social Norms, Exclusive Fishing Rights, and Territoriality 7-8 (Dec. 7, 1998), www.umass.edu/hd/research/adrSun.pdf.
49. Salz, supra note 31, at 7 (internal citation omitted)
50. see also Acheson, supra note 13, at 74-75.
51. Clarke Canfield, Lobster Dispute Turns Violent on Maine Island, Philadelphia Inquirer, Septl3, 2009, http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache: Yq6FSArXLBEJ:www.philly.com/inquirer/world-m/20090913-Lobster-dispute- tams+philadelphia+inqmrer+maine+lobster&cd=l&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl= us&client=firefox-a.
52. See id.
53. Salz, supra note 31, at 8.
54. When I say that self-restraint is rational, I mean to invoke a conception of rationality that includes preferences that are shaped by social norms. On this conception of rationality, behavior that is not profit maximizing may nonetheless be individually rational because each individual prefers conformance with the social norm to profit maximization.
55. I have used scare quotes around the word "property" to indicate that the lobsters are not de jure (legally sanctioned) property.
56. Madison, Frischmann, and Strandburg describe the structure of Ostrom's framework in detail. See Madison, Frischmann & Strandburg, supra note 1, at 675-681
57. See Elinor Ostrom & Charlotte Hess, A Framework for Analyzing the Knowledge Commons, in Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice 41-81 (Charlotte Hess & Elinor Ostrom eds., 2007).
58. See Madison, Frischmann & Strandburg, supra note 1, at 681.
59. Id. at 675-683
60. See id. at 666, 672-73, 694-695
61. This fact is one source of the slogan, "Information wants to be free." Roger Clarke, "Information Wants to be Free. . .", http://www.rogerclarke.com/II/IWtbF.html (last visited Jan. 30, 2009).
62. The origin of the phrase is obscure. A precursor, "Information should be free," has been attributed to Peter Samson, a member of the MIT Tech Model Railroad Club. Id.
63. The slogan, "Information wants to be free," is usually attributed to Stewart Brand. Id.
64. To be more precise, wild lobsters are produced by nature. Farmed lobsters would be produced by human activity.
65. See supra Part I.B.
66. This interpretation of their core thesis-limiting the relationship of cultural commons and natural-resource commons to family resemblance-does not seem plausible. Although they acknowledge that they "adapt, extend, and distinguish [Ostrom's work] to account for important differences between constructed cultural commons and natural resource commons," that work would not even be relevant to their project if the relationship between the two types of commons were mere family resemblance. Madison, Frischmann & Strandburg, supra note 1, at 660.
67. See Hardin, supra note 14, at 1244-1245 (using the example of a group of herdsmen sharing a pasture to feed their respective cattle to illustrate the concept of the commons).
68. See Madison, Frischmann & Strandburg, supra note 1, at 706.
69. Government funding of research is usually understood as a public-good arrangement and not as a commons.
70. Id. at 659.
71. See Madison, Frischmann & Strandburg, supra note 1, at 690-691
72. See id. at 690-695
73. I use the fact-value distinction to mark the familiar dichotomy. By using scare quotes in the text, I mean to indicate that I do not endorse the claim that there cannot be "moral facts." See generally Hilary Putnam, The Collapse of the Fact/Value Dichotomy and Other Essays (2002) (discussing the fact-value distinction).
74. Madison, Frischmann & Strandburg, supra note 1, at 664-665
75. See Roberto Mangabeira Unger, False Necessity: Anti-Necessitarian Social Theory in the Service of Radical Democracy (1987).
76. See id. at 5.
77. SeeYochai Benkler, Siren Songs and Amish Children: Autonomy, Information, and Law, 76 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 23, 59 (2001)
78. William Fisher, Theories of Intellectual Property, in New Essays in the Legal and Political Theory of Property 168 (Stephen R. Munzer ed., 2001).
79. See Madison, Frischmann & Strandburg, supra note 1, at 664-665
80. See, e.g., Louis Kaplow & Steven Shavell, Fairness Versus Welfare 15-38 (2002).
81. See Wendy J. Gordon, A Property Right in Self-Expression: Equality and Individualism in the Natural Law of Intellectual Property, 102 Yale LJ. 1533, 1549-1552 (1993);
82. Lior Zemer, The Making of a New Copyright Lockean, 29 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 891, 892-893 (2006).
83. McNollgast, Legislative Intent: The Use of Positive Political Theory in Statutory Interpretation, 57 Law & Contemp. Probs. 3, 11, 16-21 (1994) ("McNollgast" is a hybrid pseudonym for Mathew D. McCubbins, Roger G. Noll, and Barry R. Weingast);
84. see generally Charles M. Cameron, Veto Bargaining: Presidents and the Politics of Negative Power (2000) (presenting a study of vetoes in the federal system and analyzing how presidents use vetoes to prevent and alter legislation).