The concept of copyright or other ownership rights has been discussed in the literature as an impediment to the free flow of information within an institutional context (e.g., Rice, 2001; 2002) This impediment is often presented as a rubric of two conflicting rights: property rights (copyright) and communicative rights (free speech), which we are calling rights of inquiry, in the context of the academy, though these rights of inquiry are not limited to the academy alone but embody a public-wide plethora of rights to inquire, read, receive, discuss and debate, and share information. To illustrate the position of developing threats against these rights of inquiry, we use developments in the United States.
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