Sergio Amadeu da Silveira - Cidadania e Redes Digitais

eng
c i t i z e n s h i p a n d d i g i t a l n e t w o r k s
ating in a market regimen, but whose population obviously needs Internet access.
Anyway, local governments will often depend on partnerships with federal and
state governments, private companies and nonprofit organizations to ensure the
necessary infrastructure for their city. Ultimately, regardless of the model that is
adopted for the network and its management, the local government represents the
interests of the population, and is therefore responsible for striving for connection
systems that are radically in favor of open and free communication.
Finally, the way society deals with content requires radicalization of the choices
about intellectual production. Benkler brilliantly demonstrates how current communication
networks can somehow lead a culture that is founded on the concept
of ownership to an impasse (BENKLER, 2006). It is such a complex issue that the
same article on the Declaration of Human Rights which affirms the right to culture
and to the technological achievements of society (Article XXVII) reminds, right
after that, the need to preserve copyrights (UN, 1948).
The challenge, in a local and in a global level, is not to abolish copyright, but to
ensure the promotion of collaborative processes for content production with open
licenses, of which Creative Commons licenses (http://www.creativecommons.org.
br) are only one of the possible examples. For cities, the hypothesis is simple: if there
is public money involved, either through direct funding or indirect subventions, it is
mandatory for authors to arrange in advance forms of socialization and collaborative
use of such content, as taxpayers have financed its creation.
The way local government and the city both deal with local content puts at stake
not only the socialization of knowledge, but also another key issue: the public transparency
of governmental actions. In a radical way, the government must be transparent,
favor the participation of citizens and ensure collaboration between its various departments,
so as to generate innovation and the resolution of the problems of the city.
Dealing with all that content production and collaborative processes requires
courage. Specifically on the topic of information organization, the eight principles
published by the Public.Resource.Org offer clues to good practices (PUBLIC.RE-
SOURCE.ORG!, 2007). The data produced by the government have to be integrally
published, with free access to primary data (i.e., without any kind of editions),
immediately after they are produced. They should be accessible to the largest number
of people and the largest range of purposes, in a non-discriminatory way, and be
available in public domain and non-proprietary formats, so that they are processable
by anyone. Of course, special situations foreseen by the Law — such as the secrecy
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