Welcome

Photos of Larryblakeley
http://www.royblakeley.name/larry_blakeley/larryblakeley_photos_jpeg.htm

(Contact Info: larry at larryblakeley dot com)

Important Note: You will need to click this icon to download the free needed to view most of the images on this Web site - just a couple of clicks and you're "good to go."

I manage this Web site and the following Web sites: Leslie (Blakeley) Adkins - my oldest daughter

Lori Ann Blakeley (June 20, 1985 - May 4, 2005) - my middle daughter

Evan Blakeley- my youngest child

Understanding the Landscape

One of the most urgent but unacknowledged challenges of our time is the preservation of a large and robust public domain. The public domain is the cultural space in which we share information, creativity and ideas. Like an ecosystem, the public domain can remain healthy only if its relationship with the market -- as embodied in intellectual property law, technology and social practice -- is in balance. In recent years, sweeping changes in markets, technology and law have upset this balance. The results challenge the vitality of artistic creativity, academic research, technological innovation, and our democratic culture. This affects creators and innovators because new work depends critically upon the body of work that precedes it.

Even as the Internet and global commerce are democratizing access to art, science and other kinds of information, they are also rapidly converting content that was once freely available to everyone into closed, proprietary "product." The kinds and amount of information that can be privatized and commercialized have dramatically expanded. Knowledge that was previously unpatentable -- ranging from crop strains and genetically engineered mice to business method ideas -- are now routinely patented. Copyrighted works are now protected for longer periods of time and more draconian penalties are imposed for infringement. New technological protection measures and unprecedented licensing arrangements are also curtailing people's rights to use information in the digital environment.

The paradoxical result is that legal regimes that are meant to foster innovation, creativity, competition and public access to knowledge are frequently having the opposite effects. People's ability to express themselves, research and exchange information, debate public issues, maintain a zone of privacy, and influence our culture and politics, are being restricted. In a broad range of fields -- pharmaceuticals and genetics, software and new information technologies to music, culture and academic research -- knowledge that belongs in the information commons and ought to be accessible as part of our shared heritage, is being fenced off into private preserves.

What We Do

The Center for the Public Domain, a philanthropic foundation based in Durham, North Carolina, is dedicated to addressing these diverse challenges. Through grant making, original research, conferences, and collaborative programs, the Center seeks to call attention to the