Issues in the economics, politics, and ideology of copyright in the global South

Much of the dominant discourse around intellectual property (IP) – whether legal or sociological – starts from some largely unexamined assumptions. These are first that both the concept and the system are ‘good things’ socially and juridically, second that there is no alternative, and third that the system has worked well and continues to work well in pretty much the same way regardless of the specifics of time and place – in other words, through history and all over the world. There is, however, also a venerable and well-developed tradition of critical thinking about intellectual property – especially copyright and patents – which argues that as a system for rewarding creators it is inefficient, as an economic mechanism it amounts to a restraint on free trade, and over time it has increasingly placed more and more control over recorded human knowledge in fewer and fewer corporate hands. This is the dissident intellectual tradition from which the Copy/South project has emerged, and it is one that is increasingly gathering support across the political spectrum.....

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