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For the first time a wide audience has been educated in what the big corporations are doing to create new forms of "property" -- called intellectual property. Most of the public is blithely unaware of the fact that immortal and undead corporations are trying to transform basic rights to create and make art work for artists into a new form of "property" that they and they alone own.
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full at -
<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20071217/023907.html>
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Yes.
Critically, we must try to help people see and understand corporate efforts to define and re-define more and more artifacts, ideas and even events (see, for example, the NFL, MLB, etc vs. sports journalism) as "intellectual property" (IP).
As I've argued here before, I believe this to be the inevitable extension of neoliberal imperatives into ever more nooks and crannies (e.g. things previously owned become licensed IP from which rent can be extracted at any time using elaborate legal pretexts). Hollywood has been one of the key innovators and primary movers of IP enhancement. Its bad example casts a long shadow.
The entertainment industry's effort against the WGA is one part of a much broader campaign - of which digital rights management tech is also a key component.
.d.