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north-south issues
The debate about 'North-South'
issues for many encapsulates tensions in thinking about
copyright, digital or otherwise. Who benefits from copyright?
For how long? And how? Is copyright the cutting edge of
"information colonialism" within advanced economies
and within the third world?
Ronald Bettig, in Copyrighting Culture: The Political
Economy of Intellectual Property (Boulder, Westview
96) and Peter Drahos, in the challenging A Philosophy
of Intellectual Property (Aldershot, Dartmouth 96),
provide a view from the left to complement Michael Ryan's
Knowledge Diplomacy: Global Competition & the Politics
of Intellectual Property (Washington, Brookings
98) and Bruce Doern's Global Change & Intellectual
Property Agencies: An Institutional Perspective (London,
Pinter 99).
Drahos' collection Intellectual Property: Essays in Law
& Legal Theory (Aldershot, Ashgate 99) can be read
in conjunction with the less demanding Intellectual Property:
Moral, Legal & International Dilemmas (Totowa, Rowman
& Littlefield 97) edited by Adam Moore.
Admirers of Drahos may enjoy David Koepsell's The Ontology
of Cyberspace: Philosophy, Law & the Future of Intellectual
Property (Chicago, Open Court 00). In contrast Brian
Martin's
"information liberationist" polemic merely appears
naive.
Susan Sell's Power & Ideas: North-South Politics
of Intellectual Property & Antitrust (Albany, State
Uni of New York Press 98) echoes Bettig. Intellectual
Property Rights In The Global Economy (Washington, Institute
for International Economics 00) by Keith Maskus takes a
dissenting view.
Deborah Halbert's Intellectual Property In The Information
Age: The Politics of Expanding Ownership Rights (Westport,
Quorum 99) unfortunately covers copyright rather than IP
as a whole and largely echoes Drahos and Bettig. Her dissertation
Weaving Webs of Ownership: Intellectual Property in an
Information Age is online.
Seth Shulman's Owning The Future: Inside the Battle To
Control the New Assets That Make Up the Lifeblood of the
New Economy (Boston, Houghton Mifflin 99) and E.Con:
How The Internet Undermines Democracy (Toronto, Stoddart
99) by Donald Gutstein are arguments against privatization
of the IP 'commons' from a US and Canadian perspective.
Shrill but thought provoking.
Carlos Correa's Intellectual Property Rights, the WTO
& Developing Countries: The TRIPS Agreement & Policy
Options (London, Zed 00) is another view of intellectual
property as information colonialism, in line with John Tomlinson's
Cultural Imperialism: A Critical Introduction (Baltimore,
Johns Hopkins Uni Press 91) and the essays in Borrowed
Power: Essays on Cultural Appropriation (New Brunswick,
Rutgers Uni Press 97) edited by Bruce Ziff & Pratima
Rao.
There's more value in Edgardo Buscaglia's US Foreign
Policy & Intellectual Property Rights in Latin America
(Stanford, Hoover Institution 97), William Alford's sparkling
To Steal a Book is an Elegant Offense: Intellectual Property
Law in Chinese Civilisation (Stanford, Stanford Uni
Press 95) and Peter Yu's 2001 paper
From Pirates to Partners: Protecting Intellectual Property
in the 21st Century. Christopher
Arup's The New World Trade Organization
Agreements: Globalizing Law Through Services & Intellectual
Property (Cambridge, Cambridge Uni Press 00) is also
of interest in understanding international dynamics.
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