Creativity and Intellectual Property Rights

Copyright, the main form of intellectual property in cultural production, has played a key part in globalization. Although it is presented as an unalloyed good by its powerful defenders in corporations and states, this chapter argues to the contrary that copyright is of dubious value. In fact the expansive copyright regime which characterizes the present era threatens vulnerable cultures – both traditional and hybrid – around the world. The argument is made by refuting the conventional rationales for copyright, both economic and aesthetic. Supporting evidence is then drawn from the cases of music making in Jamaica, and the Bollywood film industry in India. Each, in a perhaps surprising parallel, suggests that creative cultures can flourish in, ...