Ongoing changes in the scenario of knowledge production and dissemination as well as some of the important issues that induced them are pointed out. The main one is an increasing shift of balance from the interests of society to those of the culture industry promoted, these last years, by successive amendments to the intellectual property rights. These were passed under the pressures of that industry whose business model is nowadays threatened by the practices supported by the new information and communication technologies and the Internet in particular. Such shift of balance specifically limits schools in their choices of the most appropriate resources to educate their students. A counter-movement is promoting "open contents" through an environment, presented here, designed to support the school community in publishing and sharing tasks. It is aimed at helping that community promote an education with more democratic and better-suited parameters for the transformations under way.
Digital contents; Education; Authorship; Copyright; Cultural industry; Internet