‘Copyright World’ and Access to Information: Conjoined <i style="">via</i> the Internet

Abstract

Access to information, despite wide intellectual acceptance, is still a struggle for many in various quarters of the world. In today’s era there exist constraints in the way information is shared; dividing continents based on the way information is accessible to its people. This paper strives to understand the underpinning of the accessibility to information in the human right perspective, with a special mention of the current debate on accessibility of the Internet on the lines of concepts which constitute emerging access to knowledge coalition. The arguments of the present paper take the following form: It begins with an introduction to the oft-debated access to information question; goes on to elucidate the view of various scholars on why information needs to be free and extends the aspect of freedom of information to the human right paradigm; then expounds the activism of ‘access to knowledge’ advocates for access to information; and finally talks about European Union’s legalization of access to information on the Internet as a ‘fundamental right’ before conclusion.