Just try taking a photo of your friends inside any Starbucks. It's not allowed. Or try to launch a local Olympicsthe unauthorized use of "Olympic" is a civil offense under Section 110 of the Amateur Sports Act. According to the author of this book, these are only two of the more innocuous examples of how patent law and intellectual-property tough guys are pushing around normal folks and potential entrepreneurs and muzzling the innocent exchange of ideas that should be part of free society. Corporate branding muscle on countless products, services, and even words and phrases is completely out of control, he argues, and it's time to fight back.
This book forms an engaging protest. It gives a nod to the corporate perspective, but it clearly takes the side of the little guy, as one would assume: David Bollier is co-founder of Public Knowledge, described here as a "public interest advocacy organization dedicated to defending the information commons." (He is also a senior fellow at the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication.) Incorporating many examples that are by turns ridiculous and rather chilling, as well as a dozen or so photos, it looks at brand control over three main areas: art and culture, public life, and open society. It also speculates on trends for the future.
In one terrific example, the author reprints a story (which he duly credits to another source) about how Groucho Marx literally outwitted his Hollywood studio adversaries when they attempted to stop him from naming his new Marx Brothers film A Night in Casablanca. The studio brass's rationale: Such a title might encroach on the rights of another popular film known just as Casablanca. "The dogged studio attorneys were no match for Groucho," Bollier writes with wry understatement.
The book's goal is to provoke discussion about fairness and perhaps to stoke courage. He writes, "We must strike a new and better balance between intellectual property rights and irreducible cultural and civic needs. In many cases, the only realistic human response to the many extreme expansions of copyright and trademark law is laughter." But it's not always funny, and as he concludes, corporations would do well to "learn to respect the cultural commons as an equal."Martha Lagace
Table of Contents:- The crusade to lock up music
- Creativity and captive images
- Appropriating the people's culture
- Trademark owners whine, "no making fun of me!"
- The corporate privatization of words
- Property rights in public image
- The theft of the public domain
- Stifling public dialogue through copyright
- The DMCA's attacks on free speech
- The quest for perfect control
- Intellectual property goes over the top
- Just kidding or dead serious?
Conclusion: reclaiming the cultural commons