Information as Public domain. A Philosophical Argument against Intellectual Private Property

The idea of code as a commons is usually asserted in relation with two specific, technical fields: software and genetic code. The question of intellectual property may appear very specialized, indeed. However, as it concerns the wider subject of freedom of information, it may be useful to see it from the perspective of Western philosophy tradition. In it, communism of knowledge is a marginal opinion, or is it intertwined in the mainstream? It is possible to outline arguments for the idea of knowledge as a commons both in Kant's and in Plato's thought. An analysis di those arguments shows the continuity of a tradition that is much more respectable and ancient than the claims of intellectual private property.