Public Digital Estate: Role of Commons in Legal Education and Research

Abstract

With the advancement of technology, world witnessed rapid growth of research and development activities. Research and development activities ensued in huge literature outcome. Invention of internet and World Wide Web reduced distances among scientific institutions around the world. Research, education and policy making institutions started sharing scholarly and literary outcome around the world. Great initiatives like Budapest Open Access Initiative, Bethesda Statement and Berlin Declaration played important role in open access movement of digital information. Montreal Declaration during Law Via Internet Conference in 2002 resulted in dawning era for Free Access to Law Movement around the world. In 2010, Durham Statement adopted by law librarians of Law Schools at United States of America, is also counted an important development where all law librarians agreed to facilitate access of law reviews in open access to cut printing cost and greater accessibility of the scholarly articles published in law reviews. UNESCO guidelines for public government information also supported free access to governmental information to public which involves public money. The topic of the book “Public Digital Estate” is actually a combined idea of both the author based on the English law term used for copyright left or without copyright work “Public Domain”. Reveal their motivation and inspiration for writing the book. The idea of the book is based on our experiences gained working for law libraries since last fifteen years. Currently India has more than 2000 academic institutions including law universities, departments, affiliated colleges and research institutions. Uneven distribution of financial allocation for law libraries has made greater difference between institutional outcomes. Centrally and few state funded institutions facilitated access of legal information through subscription based databases, however, majority of law libraries have inadequate sources of information. The book is actually being coined for law students, faculty members, research scholars and law libraries in need of extensive research assistance. The idea of the book was not new and spontaneously conceived but a result of long journey of research to tag most authentic, reliable and scholarly assets available in public digital estate. We have contrived to compile this book to collate all best possible free access information including judgements, legislative material, parliamentary documents, law journals and scholarships and books. The book contains ten chapters based on intensive research done on timeline of public domain and open access initiatives around the world. First chapter propounds explanation of public domain, open access, evaluation of open access resources and explanation of relevant terms. Public digital asset or public domain is a term basically used and related to copyright laws. Though in second chapter, copyright laws under the regime of open access around the world and India, and creative common licences, is set forth. A timeline describing brief development of public domain and open access initiatives around the world is peddled for wider understanding and bridging relevance of initiatives in third chapter. Next six chapters postulate public domain legal resources around the world pertaining to parliamentary resources, legislative resources, judicial resources, law reform resources, journals and scholarship, and open access books. In the last chapter open access initiatives in India and various public domain resources useful for legal education and research are posited. We have tried over best to cope up best and scholarly resources available in public domain or open access for law students, faculty and research scholars. Statistical data upto year 2020 has been incorporated in the book. We hope the book would be beneficial not only for law students, faculty, and law librarians in India but also to overseas scholars. Electronic Books and journal databases are also useful for scholarly communities from verity of subject areas including science, humanities, technologies and social science. Corrections and suggestions are welcomed for incorporation in next edition. Full text is available at: https://archive.org/details/public-digital-estate-online-single-page