Access to knowledge

CI [1]'s work on Access to Knowledge (A2K [2]) 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 (DRM [3]) technology), and by making learning materials unaffordable or simply unavailable to consumers in developing countries.