This conference will examine the interaction of enabling infrastructure and legally-based systems of control as they affect the generation, management, exchange, and utilization of knowledge. This will be an interdisciplinary, international conference held in Washington, DC in 2006. It will be the 4th in a series of major conferences that address the social and economic implications of IT by presenting high-quality academic research in a manner accessible to an international policy community. The major intellectual contribution is a focus on the growing tension between collaboration and proprietary rewards in open technologies and infrastructures. Such a conference can have significant impact on public policy.
