The most direct and obvious way that common assets drop into private hands is by government transfer. Government handouts of public assets, such as tax money or publicly-owned natural resources, to private interests are called Corporate Welfare. Check out the Corporate Welfare Search Engine.
The New Economics Foundation has projects on Social Energy, alternative currencies and other initiatives
Reports from the
The 8th Biennial Conference of the International Association
for the Study of Common Property (IASCP)
Are the Internet and Domain Names Common Assets, Private Assets, Both, or Neither?
Who governs the Internet and who should control domain names? Governing the Digital DNS Commons
