Common as Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership
Last updated October 31, 2026
By Lewis Hyde
Lewis Hyde argues that art and ideas belong to a cultural commons that everyone draws from and adds to. He looks back to the American founders, especially Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. He shows how they treated knowledge as something shared rather than owned, and uses their views to question modern copyright and patent laws that lock up ideas for long periods, and to defend the public's stake in culture.
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