Who Owns Knowledge with Lila Bailey

In this episode of Educating to Be Human, host Lisa Petrides is joined by Lila Bailey, Senior Policy Counsel at the Internet Archive, to explore what it means to truly own something in a digital world, continuing this season's central theme of protecting and preserving open and decentralized access to information and knowledge. Together, they trace how human culture evolved as a communally shared experience - and how modern copyright law and digital gatekeepers have gradually closed off public knowledge, owned and created by the community. Lila unpacks the tension between traditional intellectual property, commercialization, and the foundational human drive to create, share, and remix ideas. Looking toward a more equitable future, Lila calls for efforts towards building public AI infrastructure - toolsets hosted by a diversity of entities such as libraries, schools, and civic institutions - that honor the ideals behind the "open" movement valuing community-built and -shared knowledge and culture. Key Topics Covered The Human Default: Why open sharing and collective culture long predate copyright law. Digital Ownership: How licensing agreements distort what it means to "own" books and media. AI & The Commons: Navigating corporate extraction, reciprocity, and the pushback against Big Tech data harvesting. Public Knowledge Infrastructure: The vital role of memory institutions like the Internet Archive in protecting public data and open source tools. Rebranding "Open": Shifting the conversation away from legal jargon to focus on shared human values, community, and equitable access. Lila Bailey is Senior Policy Counsel for the Internet Archive. A seasoned attorney and copyright expert, Lila leads the library's policy work.