Access to Knowledge in the Age of Intellectual Property

Citation

Mason, D. (2011), "Access to Knowledge in the Age of Intellectual Property", Online Information Review, Vol. 35 No. 6, pp. 972-973. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684521111193238

This book is a wide‐ranging and provocative collection of invited chapters discussing the impact of intellectual policy laws on society and individuals. Most books in this area focus on copyright and the protection of creative works, but this book takes a much wider view, challenging the basic tenets of intellectual property, advocating a better framework for accessing knowledge, a movement called A2K. A2K sees itself as a broad movement that questions the “rights” of intellectual property owners, that challenges the fundamental assumptions of knowledge as property in an attempt to prevent intellectual property regulations morphing into a class rights simply because it suits some interests to have it that way.

There is no doubting the importance of the topic: IP is becoming the focus of global politics, especially in US international policy. There is considerable passion in many of the chapters, and it is hard not to agree with the sentiments. The chapters cover such topics as children dying because multinational drug companies refuse to reduce the price of medicine to something Third World countries can afford, when subsistence farmers cannot harvest their own seeds, and the issue of HIV‐positive adults who cannot afford drugs at artificially inflated prices. The chapters also look at less emotive issues: software patents designed to lock out innovation, the practice of companies charging higher prices in different countries for the same music downloads, the rights and wrongs of sampling fragments of copyrighted music in new music, the appropriation of indigenous knowledge, the continuous extension of the length of performers' rights, and the criminalisation of file sharing. All of these highlight the need to define the rights of “access” to knowledge in a world with instant access to everything.

The book is organised into four parts. The first two chapters are by the editors, outlining the scope of A2K and the main arguments. The second section outlines defining moments in the history of A2K that led to its emergence as a political movement. The third section examines legislation and protocols around IP and the current and future impacts of the growing movement to apply intellectual property restrictions to increasing numbers of information objects. The fourth section describes how advocacy groups have mobilised to change proposed laws, and their efforts to educate the wider public to the dangers of IP absolutism. An epilogue speculates on possible futures.

The contributions are all in one way or another advocating political activism in pursuit of A2K. The chapters are well researched and come from a wide range of authors. Some are from established academics and most are from a law or policy background. The book provides a way for those unfamiliar with the “access to knowledge” argument to appreciate the range of opinions on the matter, and a showcase for those with something to say. The book is stimulating, provocative and eclectic.