Contested archives: contradictions in access and sharing of intellectual property

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the issues surrounding the reproduction, sharing, and free access to copyrighted works in digital spaces, taking as its central focus the legal dispute between the Internet Archive and Hachette. Through this emblematic case, we will examine different materials that point to a certain regularity in this problem, situated in the tension between property rights and the rights to knowledge, access, and information. We are interested in understanding how these digital spaces, through their technical and political mechanisms, mobilize projects that challenge hegemonic regimes of text circulation and archiving—regimes traditionally upheld by publishers, libraries, and other institutional actors. Furthermore, we will explore how these spaces, in their diversity of propositions and through these disputes, construct experiences that not only allow for the denial, revision, or reinterpretation of traditional norms concerning property rights or the right to knowledge but also engage with experimental practices that position the digital as a horizon for the production of the commons.