This term refers to both the property that is owned by the community in general and the social regime for governing usage of that resource.
Some historical commons were truly open to all, but some were governed by rules that limited access. However, despite what might seem like a complete lack of any rules for governing the maintenance and usage of a commons, they were historically at the center of a complex web of social norms, and were well-monitored and maintained.
In the late 1960s a school of thought emerged whcih claimed that any real commons would quickly be over-exploited by an economically rational user, and that only private ownership could successfully manage societal resources.
Although this idea was quickly and widely accepted, it has been challenged in recent years for misstating the facts surrounding historical commons, as well as for overlooking the real problems that can arise from complex webs of private ownership, a problem Michael Heller has called “the tragedy of the anti-commons.”
With respect to copyright, the commons is the enormous body of creative work to which all of society has access. Some is historical, some is contemporary. Everyone having access to them does not necessarily mean that no one holds copyright in the works that make up the commons. Some works are in the public domain, which means that not only can anyone access them and make use of them, but that no one has the right to restrict their usage in anyway. On the other hand, works existing under regimes such as Creative Commons, or the GPL license , as well as so-called “Open Access” journals, are examples of copyright-controlled information that is nonetheless part of the commons. For example, the works of Shakespeare, or a culture’s folktales, are part of the commons, as is any modern work which its author has dedicated to the public domain. Further, any work to which anyone has access, but for which the usages are restricted (usually with respect to keeping further uses of the work open to access) are still considered part of the commons.