Who owns knowledge?

TOK Talk · Who Owns Knowledge?

39 Prompt 29. Who owns knowledge?LY’s first response: “Those who study, those who learn, those who share” is not a bad start. I wish this were the world we lived in, but somehow I think the answer is far more complicated and often influenced by power (for good and for bad) more than we care to acknowledge.

What is ownership? That it ‘belongs’ to you? Can knowledge even be owned? Pioneers, inventors, artists, discoverers of new knowledge - do they own the knowledge they produce, create or discover? If whoever was first gets the credit, does that mean they own the knowledge? Once knowledge is shared, does it belong to other knowers that know it too? What knowledge belongs to the common good? Is knowing something the same as owning it? This discussion raised Issues of social responsibility that comes with creating and sharing (or not sharing) new knowledge.
After we think about the question: Who owns knowledge? So many other important questions get raised: What do we do with it? How do we care for it?  …LY asks but “so what”? We discussed the ways we value original ideas in different cultures. Zooming out, thinking about the implications of ownership and access, but also the responsibility for protection and upkeep that comes with ownership. Is the onus on the creator or user of knowledge? In a sense, are both ‘owners’? 
Links to dig deeper referenced in this talk:

• Polio vaccine unpatented
  
• Tang and Song Dynasty Artists  - CORRECTION - I was wrong about some details in our discussion - there are many individual artists known during the Song Dynasty (960–1279). What is interesting about it is how much their work built on tradition - shared knowledge of painting at the time seems to be of utmost importance.
  
• Kaizen The act of always improving

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Guests: Donna Gee, Liu Yu 
Music: Hilary Ng playing in the hallway at school