| Current trends in intellectual property policy are examined as part of the broader social theory relating to information and society. The underlying framework that informs intellectual property policies are rooted in a set of assumptions about the nature and character of information, information technology, and information work that relies on notions of economic efficiency, and which results in pressures for heightened levels of commodification and proprietary restrictions on the use and dissemination of information. Because information can now be used and distributed without the previous limitations of its physical container, the current economic model of copyright that is premised on scarcity and physical limitations needs to be reconceptualized. While advances in information technology enable the enhanced production, dissemination, and use of information resources, proprietary restrictions constrain the potentialities of these advances.; The drive towards sui generis legislation for databases is presented as a case study that exemplifies the expansionary nature of the contemporary intellectual property policy environment. The economic efficiency model that informs current policies is explained and critiqued, and a critical theory of intellectual property policy is proposed in its place. The alternative theory is rooted in Marxian political economy, and is centered on an analysis of the commodity form as applied to information. The contradiction between use-value and exchange-value, present in any commodity, is particularly acute in the case of the information commodity because of the non-rivalrous nature of information. The proposed theory also applies the labor theory of value and the concept of surplus value to information production, considers the contradiction between the forces of production and the relations of production in advanced informational capitalism, and argues for the need to decouple the notions of innovation and economic incentives. Relying on the commodity exchange theory of Evigeny Pashukanis, the critical theory of intellectual property policy seeks to avoid the limitations associated with both liberal pluralist and orthodox instrumentalist theories of policy analysis.; Concluding that the proprietary trend in intellectual property policy, as exemplified by the drive towards sui generis database legislation, acts as a fetter on the productive forces of society, an alternative set of copyright rules is proposed. |
