Peer Property

Peer Property is a concept coined by Michel Bauwens to indicate the innovative nature of legal forms such as the General Public License, the Creative Commons, etc... Whereas traditional forms of property are exclusionary ("if it is mine, it is not yours"), peer property forms are inclusionary. It is from all of us, i.e. also for <you>, provided you respect the basic rules laid out in the license, such as the the openness of the source code for example. Peer property modes are therefore a 'third mode of property' which is neither private nor state-based, and is aligned with Peer Production as a third mode of production, and Peer Governance as a third mode of governance.

Peer Property create universal common-access property regimes.

Key Book to Read

Alexander, Gregory S., Commodity and Propriety: Competing Visions of Property in American Legal Thought, 1776-1970 (University of Chicago Press, 1997).

Recommended by Bollier, David: "A magisterial history of the concept of property in American law, and therefore a useful investigation into the basic assumptions embedded in property law discourse."