The first day of the Yale A2K conference saw a great many interesting presentations. Luckily, most of them are summarised in the conference wiki, thanks to the thrifty students doing this important legwork.
For example, Jack Balkin gave an overview of the many different topics that the slogan "A2K" refers to. Davinia Ovett showed how Access to Knowledge relates to human rights - and why the protection of intellectual monopoly powers (IMPs) is not a human right.
The following panel I attended was about measuring Access to Knowledge. This is an important one: You can't manage what you can't measure.
The upshot is that presently there is a lack of economic theory upon which to build research. This is being worked out. Researchers will need to focus on a micro-level perspective. It's no use to describe the situation of access to knowledge on a country-by-country basis, when there are enormous differences and inequalities within each country.
While the Yale Law school with its great resources provides great organisation, there is one thing I am sort of missing: As far as I can tell, there is noone attending from the conservative side of the debate. This usually livens the discussion even more.
But then, there's no lack of opposition in the world outside the conference venue.
