| The methodology and the theory of this study are interpretive, qualitative, and personal. As such, the conclusions offered are reflective of a personal philosophy and no claim is made to warrant universal extrapolation.; In the Information Age, there is too much potential profit to be made from education to allow education to be controlled by educators. The questions being explored by educators are primarily technical and legal, not critical. Their concerns conflate intellectual property law with education as a fait accompli. I am concerned with continuing the critical humanistic exploration of the university's role in the expanding privatization of intellectual property. To accomplish this, I turn to Critical Theory to interrogate the culturally embedded historical roots of the narratives of the university and intellectual property.; I accept a contemporary definition of text to embrace all communicative forms. Therefore, I employ multidisciplinary syntheses of interpretive analyses to interrogate texts. Framing the historical examination by three non-legal variables---the university, the institution of intellectual property, and technologies of communication---I deny any deterministic conclusion to the present situation. This is not a problem that can be resolved by policy tinkering. There must be a humanistically centered discussion among corporations, researchers, ethicists, and educators in the public sphere. |
