FREEDOM OF CULTURE REGULATION AND PRIVATIZATION OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND PUBLIC SPACE The growing number of conflicts relating to the public and private ownership and control of knowledge and culture has lent a certain urgency to our thinking about the 'common' in the public domain. 'Freedom of Culture' has become a pressing issue with legal and ethical implications. To what extent can culture be freely distributed, exchanged or appropriated? And what guarantee is there for the continued existence of places where the 'commons' can manifest themselves and be discussed? This issue of Open focuses on questions regarding the privatization of intellectual property and presents several alternative approaches to urban design that aim to restore the communal dimension to public space. Stephen Wright ponders what the growing privatization of knowledge means for art as a form of knowl¬edge. Brian Holmes looks at the priva¬tization of knowledge in relation to the technologically
