Information Feudalism: Who owns the knowledge economy? by Peter Drahos with John Braithwaite, Earthscan, 拢12, ISBN 1853839175 Reviewed by Mike Holderness
ANY opinion about 鈥渋ntellectual property鈥� is invariably foolish according to Richard Stallman, the apostle of the free software movement. That鈥檚 because the term lumps together the different debates about authors鈥� rights, patents and trade marks. We wouldn鈥檛 mix up strawberries, toadstools and semen if bureaucratic convenience one day led to the formation of an International Reproductive Entities Organization in Geneva鈥� would we?
Peter Drahos, an Australian lawyer and researcher at the University of London, and his collaborator John Braithwaite are vulnerable to this criticism. Worse, their account gives only the barest nod of recognition to the 鈥渁uthors鈥� rights鈥� that protect the creators of words, music and images in most of the world 鈥� and are akin to human rights. They deal in depth only with the Anglo-Saxon anomaly that, in contrast, sees copyright as property and hence as commodity 鈥� and with patents.
Advertisement
But this narrow view is forgivable, given the highly informative core of the book. IT IS a detailed account of how some American corporations decided that they didn鈥檛 like the debates and tried to change the questions. As he tells it, the World Intellectual Property Organization, based in Geneva, was just too democratic, giving a voice to each member state, including developing countries and those with authors鈥� rights. These countries are apt to form alliances for compulsory licensing of essential patented medicines and against Hollywood.
The corporate campaign went public with an article in The New York Times by an executive of pharmaceutical GIANT Pfizer. Drahos documents meticulously how it progressed through subtle alliance-building and straightforward use of US trade clout, to shift the debate downhill from WIPO to the World Trade Organization. There, a participant told him, fewer than 50 people shaped TRIPS, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, and thus reshaped national laws 鈥� including the US鈥檚.
The book鈥檚 title promises a new category of social organisation. It鈥檚 hype. But if you HAVE ever done any kind of research, it鈥檚 worth making the considerable effort necessary to read this account of the ownership of information under late capitalism. Who owns and controls your writings? And who should own and control them? Separately, who owns, or should own and control your patentable inventions? These debates are much more alive than this rather fatalistic book makes out.