[Commons-law] The daily life of Intellectual Property Ver 1.0

[Roopa Madhav]

Hi there, too

Was researching for material for Babu and I cam across this piece in the 
Human Rights Quarterly...Robert L.Ostergard - IP: A Universal Human Right? 
You may want to add that to the list of guiding questions listed below, to 
maybe steer the debate a 'lil' that way...

Hope things are good with you. A big hi to Namita!

Love,
Roopa
>From: lawrenceliang at vsnl.net
>Reply-To: commons-law at sarai.net
>To: commons-law at sarai.net
>CC: nsg at cusat.ac.in, jeebesh at sarai.net, sudhir75 at hotmail.com,   
>lawrenceliang at vsnl.net
>Subject: [Commons-law] The daily life of Intellectual Property Ver 1.0
>Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2002 13:15:29 +0530 (IST)
>
>
>Hi all
>
>We at Sarai and ALf are planning to have a two day workshop sometime in 
>December to think through the theme of "The daily life of IPR". I have 
>written out a small concept note that outlines what we mean by the daily 
>life of  IPR and would like to welcome any suggestions, comments etc. on 
>the theme, suggestions for speakers
>
>We would also like the workshop to throw up some concrete sugggestions etc 
>on some of our existing projects like the copyleft registry, the IPR 
>archive and database, a manual on IPR for vendors etc. Will provide more 
>details of the same later but for now please send in your comments etc on 
>the note
>
>regards
>
>Lawrence
>
>=====
>THE DAILY LIFE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
>
>“If I don’t sell these books at 200 rupees, how will students afford to buy 
>them for more than 2 thousand rupees”
>
>- Street vendor selling photocopied medical textbooks outside AIMS while 
>being arrested
>
>"The conclusion that emerges is that though social factors like illiteracy, 
>unemployment etc. influence piracy, the phenomenon occurs more because of 
>economic reasons than anything else. For pirates it is an easy way of 
>making quick bucks. For the endusers it is a gainful arrangement for 
>buying/using a variety of info-entertainment products which otherwise 
>remain unaffordable at least to a vast majority.  Basically, this 'Win-Win' 
>situation for pirates & end-users keep the piracy alive and active in the 
>society. Other socio-economic variables like poverty and high prices etc. 
>only add to the degree of the problem. But piracy entails a high cost to 
>the creative people and also to those who invest their scarce resources in 
>bringing out copyrighted materials for use by millions. Until the pirates 
>are scared by giving exemplary  punishments in cases of copyright 
>violations and the common end-users realize that in the long run protection 
>of copyright is beneficial not only to tho!
>se who are involved in creation and commercialization of intellectual 
>properties, but to all including themselves, piracy will prevail. What is 
>needed, therefore, is an effective enforcement machinery along with a wide 
>spread propaganda highlighting the adversities associated with piracy".
>- Study on Copyright piracy in India, Ministry of Human Resources and 
>Development
>
>1. Introduction:
>
>It is a truism to say that the language of intellectual property (‘IP”) has 
>entered into the realms of our everyday life both as consumers and 
>practitioners living in the material conditions of globalization. This 
>movement away from the initial description of IP as an esoteric techno 
>legal field into a discourse around property rights, legality and 
>illegality has been facilitated to some extent by the hype created over the 
>importance of IP in the new economy.
>
>IPR is both a product as well as a constituent factor in the formation of 
>the contemporary, a contemporary shaped within the realities of that geo 
>spatial arrangement which we call globalization. A survey of recent events 
>reveal to some extent the mode and manner in which IPR forms a part of our 
>contemporary.
>
>Ø	Our everyday activities are now mediated by our consumption of and 
>interaction with various signs protected by IP law, from the toothpaste we 
>use to the clothes we wear.
>Ø	The contemporary urban space is saturated with billboards and 
>advertisements, or what someone has called the landscape of the modern
>Ø	Popular cultural icons like Rajnikant to Manisha Koirala to the Indian 
>cricket team have suddenly begun to articulate their interests in the 
>language of IPR.
>Ø	The enforcement of IPR has also taken on an almost performative  
>character with copyright raids occupying a sizeable portion of the page 3 
>crime reportage of most newspapers.
>Ø	From the back alleys of New York to the Palika bazaars of New Delhi and 
>the national markets of Bangalore, there is an economy of the “informal 
>sector”,  which engage and sustain “illegal” activities of “piracy”
>Ø	Chief Ministers of various states compete to portray their states as 
>being tech savvy by declaring their states to be “zero piracy states”.
>Ø	The book industry lobbies for stricter regulation of book piracy and “the 
>promotion of theft” amongst students un universities who freely photocopy 
>books.
>
>Along with this totalizing effect of intellectual property there are other 
>critical movements and practices that have emerged to strongly contest the 
>dominant tradition of intellectual property.
>
>Ø	Despite the fact that there are strong penal sanctions against the 
>infringement of IPR, vendors continue with their trade. This has raised 
>pertinent questions especially for those interested in the political 
>economy of the “informal economy” about questions of livelihood rights and 
>what the discourse of IPR means for those living on the fringes of the 
>regulated economy.
>Ø	Legal scholars like Coombe, Aoki etc have attempted to depict the 
>cultural life that IPR signs have and the ways in which dominant signs 
>continue to be used, appropriated by more marginalized groups.
>Ø	Beginning with the free software and open source movement, and gradually 
>spilling over to the ways in which knowledge and culture are produced there 
>is an increasing demand for a rearticulation of the public domain.
>
>
>2. The Problem
>
>Very clearly the process of globalization and the accompanying 
>restructuring of capital and intensification of flows of capital, goods, 
>imagery, people, and ideas raise serious questions about the relationship 
>between IP law and contemporary economic and cultural practices. 
>Globalization is a process “with spatial co-ordinates that links and 
>relates particular places through flows of people, information, capital, 
>goods and services. These spatial co ordinates are more often than not 
>located in the informal network of production and distribution within 
>cities. Thus The regardless of how global a process is, it has to be 
>realized very locally, in transformations in the social, demographic, 
>economic, and political structures of contemporary urban space. Some of the 
>question that need then to be asked include: What are the modes through 
>which the globalization unfolds in terms of the ways in which this global 
>flows of capital, goods, and information are managed. How do these pro!
>cesses produce and deal with "informal economies" and how do the economies 
>become a particularly "legal" problem”? How do these material practices 
>link up with discursive challenges to the very basis of IPR?
>
>The problem can therefore be posed in the following manner:
>
>Ø	At the material level IPR has emerged in the context of the global 
>economy as one of the important modes of ensuring that cultural and 
>economic flows occur within a given set of rules and regulations. This 
>necessitates the disciplining of the activities of those who operate beyond 
>the boundaries of the regulated formal economy. Thus IPR unfold itself 
>through in the lives of people on a day to day basis, determining what 
>economic activities they may or may not engage in. These boundaries are 
>also backed by an omnipotent threat of coercive violence in the fork of the 
>use of the police force as the agents enforcing IPR.
>Ø	At the conceptual level there have been a number of challenges posed to 
>the philosophical basis and material basis of IPR. These range from the 
>open source movement in software to the “open” revolution in content, 
>music, publishing etc. (the broad movement that can be called the movement 
>of the “creative commons”).  What clearly inspires the open revolution is a 
>dissatisfaction with the philosophical premises of IPR (romantic 
>authorship, incentive theory, monopoly rights etc) as well as a recognition 
>that given the distribution of inequality implicit in the global economy, 
>how does one articulate a  praxis that allows for more democratic modes of 
>participation within the global economy?
>
>3. Some themes and questions for us to explore
>
>1.	How do we begin to understand the relationship between IPR and the 
>material basis  of the global economy. (This could be done through an 
>analysis of the work that Sarai has carried out in relation to the informal 
>economy) ( Prof. NSG could also elaborate on Sec. 52 of the Copyright Act 
>and the attempts being made to restrict its scope in India)
>2.	What do these practices mean in our understanding of the idea of the 
>“contemporary” and the “public domain”?
>3.	How do we link these the conceptual challenges posed to IPR to these 
>material practices?
>4.	How do we theorize or conceptualize an alternative framework outside of 
>the current language of IPR to accommodate these different practices?
>5.	In the event that we have to work within the framework of IPR as it 
>exists, what legal innovations can we think of which will address the 
>concerns of the existing material practices as well as the challenge of the 
>new creative commons.
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