Intellectual property rights

[Charles Brown]

Seems to me libertarians should be much more concerned about the mind control system of Corporate Big Brother than that of Government Big Brother. As an example, intellectual "Private Property" rights are a cover for Corporate Big Brother to master and dominate individual freedom and steal from the initiative of individuals, yet another method of exploitation.  We need an international  Bill of Rights protecting freedom of thought, speech, expression, and science of the individual from Corporate repression like that which the Constitution places on Government. The repressive bureaucrats of today are in the "Private" sector in the main. Government is more and more the handservant of Big Biz.

Charles Brown


>>> Rakesh Bhandari <bhandari at phoenix.Princeton.EDU> 02/22/99 01:16AM >>>
Michael Perelman got me thinking about this some time ago as did Alan Freeman.

Intellectual property rights, trademarks, copyrights, patents, and
licensing fees. There has been explosion since the 80s in the number of
patent lawsuits filed and the percentage of patents recognized. They have
become the main point of contention in international trade agreements.

Workers no longer alienate their labor power only; they must also
re-alienate their brains upon switching employers to avoid legal
harrasment.

The rights of private property or excludability are being reinforced even
as they degenerate more and more into simple rites, archaic cultural
institutions that serve no purpose.

Research and development is fully socialized; the development of ever
greater productive forces requires public subsidization of both science and
technology and the participation of talent the world over. We then allow
new knowlege to be commercialized and turned to private profit for
companies and nations. Companies fantastically claim that ever tighter
property regimes are required to protect "their" investment in research and
development. The connections between university research and commercial
application are however ridiculously close in pharmaceuticals, certain
other chemical technologies, various fields of electronics nad
biotechnology.

The wide dissemination of new knowledge though the outcome of a social
process is systematically blocked even when there are network externalities
to be realized; mind boggling resources are spent on the devlopment of a
police legal apparatus to protect trademarks, copyrights, licensing fees,
patents, etc. The gains of new knowledge are thus dissipated in the
unproductive expenditures required to maintain private appropriation
against further leaps in social production.

I would hope that we would develop a critical examination of this
particular aspect of the contradiction between the forces and relations of
production. Analytical attempts at the reconstruction of Marx's theory of
history may be little help here.

best, rakesh