About

This is the home of Consumers International's (CIⁱ's) global projects to promote Access to Knowledge (A2Kⁱ) for consumers.

CI's work on Access to Knowledge (A2K) is predicated upon the fact that intellectual property rights (IPRs) are a consumer issue, not just an issue for business. For example, the expansion of the scope and enforcement of intellectual property rights at the behest of rights holders impacts on consumers by inhibiting the sharing and development of culture, by denying consumers the freedom to use goods in the way they reasonably expect to be able to (for example due to Digital Rights Management (DRMⁱ) technology), and by making learning materials unaffordable or simply unavailable to consumers in developing countries.

Although intellectual property rights are the focus of CI's work on Access to Knowledge, there are also a range of other communications policy issues that may bear upon consumers' ability to participate equally in the knowledge society. These include human rights issues such as freedom of expression, security and privacy issues such as spam and cybercrime, accessibility issues such as multilingualism and disability, infrastructure issues such as broadband availability and wireless access, and so on.

A knowledge society can be developed only when there is access to information on all fronts. Such a society is sustainable when access to knowledge is unhampered and inclusive, promoting co-operative forms of knowledge production as the basis for innovation and creativity. The new paradigm considering knowledge as a public common is a new chance to extend collective intelligence to deepen and enlarge cultures in their diversity. The role of consumer organisations in making this possible is vital.

To learn more, read about our activities and our working groups, or download a copy of the Terms of Reference for our A2K projects below.