Zugangsregeln

In order to preserve the conditions for decentralized innovation IP rights have to be complemented by rules of access. Such rules have to be stated with reference to social communication systems in the context of which the protected works are created. Dan Wielsch links insights of economic analysis of IP with general systems theory and thereby provides with a concept of IP law that takes seriously the collective character of meaning and knowledge intellectual works build on. With the help of Hayeks theory of knowledge markets, firms, and networks are viewed as knowledge generating institutions in each of which epistemic capacity and selection authority are related in a specific way. Examples taken from EC competition law, open source licenses, and the Internet demonstrate how IP rights are reconfigured by competition-/network-/media-specific rules of access.