Unlocking IP conference 2006: creating commons

The conference covered many of the main areas of research related to the \u27Unlocking IP\u27 research project, and in particular these five key themes: Analysing public rights How should we understand public rights, commons and the public domain, and their role(s) in intellectual property and in public policy? What interests, policies and theories should underpin efforts to expand and protect them? To what extent is there an Australian public domain? Optimising educational access What approaches best assist educational institutions to licence materials produced in the \u27outside world\u27, or to self manage access to materials they produce? How is sharing and trading of IP best balanced within education? Licensing for public rights How can licences which create public rights achieve goals such as consistency, simplicity, and effectiveness? What difficulties currently exist, and how can they be overcome? Finding the public domain How can we find works with public rights more effectively? What tools do we need to enable us to do so? How can we find what is in Australia\u27s public domain? Expanding public rights What types of incentives are effective to encourage IP owners to create public rights? When should law impose requirements to create or not impede public rights ? What effects to existing or proposed laws have on the scope of public rights