Intellectual Property Rights

Abstract

The prevalence of computer mediated communication has expanded the field of intellectual property (IP) to practically all interaction contexts. The business of IP exploded in the West during the industrial age, with robber barons creating private empires in new communication technologies based on intellectual property rights (IPRs). When the United States government needed to intervene on behalf of a strategic new communication technology, such as radio, it did not hesitate to create and enforce “patent pools” led by national champions of industry. IP came to characterize the primary mode of production for the information society by the mid‐twentieth century. The rise of law and policy studies within communication and media disciplines reflects the expansive juridification and codification of IPRs since the 1980s, when personal computing, digital media, and biotechnology began to diffuse. Revisions to IP law follow and sometimes anticipate technological changes affecting copyrights and patents. Current research and theory emphasizes the practical difficulties of building “leak‐proof” IP for media producers and distributors, the economic valuation and devaluation of IP, and the social consequences of asymmetrical media trade relationships and strong IP rights enforcement. This entry emphasizes attempts, frequently led by the US private sector and supported by the US government, to promote a maximalist approach to IP, and addresses some of the issues raised for trade with other regions, especially the European Union.

Urheberrechtspolitik in Deutschland.

“…Monica Horten (2012: 103ff) zeigt, wie Telekommunikationspolitik die Durchsetzung von Urheberrecht im Internet -aus Sicht der Rechtsinhaber -erschwerte und gerade deshalb zum Ziel eines Kopplungsprozesses wurde. Larsson und auch Burkart sprechen -ohne theoretische Bezüge -sogar von einer Kolonisierung einer Policy durch eine andere (Larsson 2011;Burkart 2015).…”

“…Vielleicht erkennt die Schwedin Engelbrekt wiederum in der EU-CRM-Direktive einen radikalen Wandel, weil vor allem Schweden -ganz anders als Deutschland -sein massiv divergierendes System anpassen muss (Bakardjieva Engelbrekt 2016). Und netzaktivistische oder piratennahe Forscher*innen erkennen eine brutale Privatisierung und restriktive Verschärfung, mit einer "anti-a2k-orientation", 7 im Lichte ihrer eigenen paradigmatischen Vorstellungen (Hofmann 2012; Andersson Schwarz und Burkart 2015).…”