Information feudalism
"In a few short years, the battle over intellectual property rights has emerged from obscurity to become front-page news. The continent-hopping, three-year court battle fought by activists to bring cheap versions of desperately needed AIDS drugs to South Africa is but one example of how this seemingly arcane area of international regulation has become a crucial battleground in the twenty-first century and is animating activists the world over. This powerful book is the definitive history of how the new global intellectual property regime - the rulebook for the knowledge economy - came to be. Drawing on more than five years of research and more than five hundred interviews with key figures - including negotiators for First and Third World countries, leaders of multinational corporations, and public-interest experts, Information Feudalism uncovers the story of how a small coterie of multinational corporations wrote the charter for the global information order. Information Feudalism is an authoritative history of the demise of the world's intellectual commons, and a potent call for democratic property rights."
Stats for nerds
4recommend
9mentions
4people
2013–2023years
89% recommend11% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- > Nobody dies
Yes they do. Copyright and patent trade agreements kill and they kill a lot people.
If anyone is interested in the topic, a good first entry point paper to understand how this works and impacts:
> "What is the impact of intellectual property rules on access to medicines? A systematic review"
> "With very few exceptions, the articles in this review found that the introduction of patents following implementation of TRIPS rules and pharmaceutical-related TRIPS-plus IP provisions are associated with an increase in drug prices, consumer welfare losses and increased costs to consumers of pharmaceuticals and national governments."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9013034/
This paper alone should probably get you depressed, but if that gets you going, read "Information Feudalism" by Peter Drahos, then you'll understand how people in power truly have no respect for human lives in developing countries.
- In Europe you can vote for the Pirate Party in several countries, including for European parliament.
There are problems with such parties at the local level because it's hard to unite on other issues, but at the EU level, the Pirate Party representatives consistently have presented (in my view), the most technically correct interpretations of internet laws and regulations for example, all the topics around data privacy, etc. They are not "hurr durr I wanna get free stuff" at all, and most other representatives remind me of my grandpa that had no clue what a computer even was.
To me, donating and voting for people who are technically correct is a way better way to effect change than just trying to have some mass coordination around piracy / boicots, those never work.
Outside of Europe I have no idea what something effective would be. Unfortunately the patent / copyright apparatus is very very strong and the political pressure US groups put on the world is very hard to combat.
A good book about the subject of patents and this apparatus and how they basically muscled the world into abidding to US lobbies, including massively fucking poor countries with respect to pharmaceutical patents is "Information Feudalism: Who owns the knowledge economy?" https://thenewpress.com/books/information-feudalism
- See also the book "Information Feudalism", which does a good job of looking at this from an IP perspective.
- Where in the world are there no patents today and that also has any significant positive impact on society
Due to the Berne convention, we don't get to have that comparison. Although lots of people argue that China's weak enforcement of non-Chinese IP has had rather a positive influence on their industry.
There's a good history of patents and cartelisation in "Information Feudalism" http://www.amazon.co.uk/Information-Feudalism-Owns-Knowledge...
- A "data property" system that gives the majority of people rights over their personal data is never going to be built. We're far more likely to see "data feudalism", in which the systems you require to get by in the world extract your data as a toll for living in the modern world. In return, you get a certain limited amount of security against other*, nastier, agents trying to get at your data. See https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/12/feudal_sec.ht...
(there's an excellent book called "Information Feudalism" on related IP issues)
- It's not just my distinction; it's a distinction made in courts too. The law is quite clear. Copyright infringement is not theft.
> And, from my perspective, something is actually lost, that cannot be replaced. The right of the IP creator to be repaid by the person who grabbed it.
Well, yes... Supposing that IP rights should exist!
Instead of getting dragged into a big long debate, I'll just give you two sources. The first, "Information Feudalism: Who Owns the Knowledge Economy?" by Peter Drahos and John Braithwaite chronicles the harm brought by IP with real world examples. The second, "Against Intellectual Property" by Stephan Kinsella is a philosophical/libertarian argument.
(The authors of Information Feudalism don't think IP should be abolished, so you may find it more credible.)
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