Some monopoly status is key---complete openness cements corporate-led inequality
McCann 20, researcher at the New Economics Foundation interested in systemic and radical reform of the economy and the creation of a twenty-first century commons. He is co- author (with Stewart Lansley and Steve Schifferes) of Remodelling Capitalism: How social wealth funds can transform Britain. He is also part of the movements to reform money, author of Scotpound: A digital currency for the common good and co- author of the book People Powered Money; to reform land, writing about Common Ground Trusts and a founder of the Land Justice Network; and the digital economy, with recent publications including Blocking the Data Stalkers and Digital Self Control. (Duncan, “Commoning Intellectual Property: Public funding and the creation of a knowledge commons,” Common Wealth, https://assets-global.website-files.com/62306a0b42f386df612fe5b9/637dfe77345b29128b30d9e0_Commoning%20Intellectual%20Property.pdf)//BB
It is therefore vital that any Public IP commons does not act to overly restrict access to the IP that it holds even though this may be a way for it to maximise its revenue. However, as the following section outlines, just making the IP fully open is also not the answer, as this would be likely to have similarly negative consequences.
— Fully open regimes have downsides
Although making all IP from publicly funded R&D fully open would ensure that anyone could freely use it, while also encouraging more innovation that could build on the freely available IP from the Public commons, this strategy is not without issue, and risks the most powerful companies benefiting disproportionately. The primary issue with fully open IP regimes is that the benefit tends to be captured most effectively by the most powerful players in a sector. This is often at the expense of the individuals who have dedicated time and effort to produce the IP, quite often in an unpaid capacity.