<nettime> Re: Indigenous IPR

[Danny Butt <db@dannybutt.net>]

And defending "freedom" against "bureaucracy" also always sounds like a good
idea on Euro-Gringo mailing lists, but these kinds of rhetorical stances
aren't really arguments.

1) Indigenous people rarely have much trouble defining themselves. The
"problems of definition" are overwhelmingly proposed by those from outside,
with the intention of denying them access to something. Anyone wishing to
promote "questions" about how to define a given ethnic or racial group that
they don't belong to should just stop.

2) My simplistic reading of Ned's point is that IPRs are a major force
shaping the world, and that the legal-political *form* of these IPRs
unfairly excludes certain types of knowledge production, such as those
associated with indigenous peoples. I don't really see any problem with
opposing the spread of these regimes in a general sense while asserting the
need for a fairer system.

Otherwise, you're basically saying "commodification is ruining everything,
so we should stop giving money to the poor". Let's not underestimate how
little anyone outside the first world gives a shit about theory in the face
of obvious inequality.

Danny
-- 
http://www.dannybutt.net

Richard Sewell wrote on 16/10/02 1:44 AM:

> Defending the weak against the strong always sounds like a good idea, but
> on the other hand building complicated rules to grant ownership of certain
> kinds of knowledge to poorly-defined groups sounds like a truly terrible idea.
> 
> IPR seems (at least to me) to have a core of good sense - it defends the
> creators of new ideas & works - and a vast cloud of terrible side-effects.
> Extending IPR - finding more ways to deem knowledge to be property - will
> add more stupid side-effects.


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