Intellectual Property Law Commons^™

The link between IP and poverty may not be obvious, but as Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, ‘societal inequality was a result not just of the laws of economics, but also of how we shape the economy - through politics, including through almost every aspect of our legal system’. Stiglitz is concerned that ‘our intellectual property regime… contributes needlessly to the gravest form of inequality.’ He maintains: ‘The right to life should not be contingent on the ability to pay.’ In Australian Federal politics, there have been significant debates about intellectual property in the fields of information …

Of late, there has been a spate of popular and academic books decrying that copyright law has a detrimental impact upon freedom of expression. Most notably, in Free Culture, Lawrence Lessig has tilted at the comforting, consoling fiction of the Supreme Court of the United States in Harper & Row that ‘copyright is an engine of free expression’. He complains:

"Now that technology enables us to rebuild the library of Alexandria, the law gets in the way. And it doesn’t get in the way for any useful copyright purpose, for the purpose of copyright is to enable the commercial market …

"There is a whole constituency out there with a strong view against copyright term extension and we are arguing that case." Mark Vaile, Minister for Trade (December 2003)

"Extending our copyright term by 20 years doesn’t really protect our authors, yet it still taxes our readers." Professor Andrew Christie, Director, Intellectual Property Research Institute of Australia, the University of Melbourne

"Perpetual Copyright On An Instalment Plan" Professor Peter Jaszi, Washington University

"A Piracy Of The Public Domain" Professor Lawrence Lessig, Stanford University

"A Gift To Intellectual Property Producers" Henry Ergas

"Intellectual Purgatory" Justice Stephen Breyer, Supreme Court of the United …