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Steal This Idea: Intellectual Property Rights and the Corporate Confiscation of Creativity

Steal This Idea: Intellectual Property Rights and the Corporate Confiscation of Creativity
By Michael Perelman

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Product Description

This book describes how corporate powers have erected a rapacious system of intellectual property rights to confiscate the benefits of creativity in science and culture. This legal system threatens to derail both economic and scientific progress, while disrupting society and threatening personal freedom. Perelman argues that the natural outcome of this system is a world of excessive litigation, intrusive violations of privacy, the destruction system of higher education, interference with scientific research, and a lopsided distribution of income.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #995637 in Books
  • Published on: 2004-12-03
  • Released on: 2004-11-25
  • Original language: English
  • Dimensions: .78 pounds
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 272 pages

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Perelman (economics, California State Univ.) presents the position that intellectual property rights private ownership of patents, trademarks, and copyrights inhibit scientific development, constrain creativity, foster litigation, waste resources, and unfairly distribute power and money. Perelman relates illustrative incidents from universities, drug companies, publishing houses, technology developers, government agencies, and the courts. The stories bolster his arguments and help to explain the complicated evolution of law and policy that, in his view, have created an overreaching system that strangles the economy, science, art, and democracy itself. As Perelman admits, this book lays out the problems and not the solutions, which he sees as requiring nothing short of a complete overhaul of the institutions that handle ideas and information. The book persuasively argues Perelman's point of view. Libraries that purchased Siva Vaidhyanathan's Copyrights and Copywrongs may want to add Perelman's book, as he does for patents what Vaidhyanathan did for copyright. This timely, thoughtful work is recommended for large public and academic libraries. Joan Pedzich, Harris Beach, LLP, Rochester, NY
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Steal This Idea deals with major issues surrounding IP in one neat and accessible work."--Virginia Brown Keyder, European Intellectual Property Review

"The book persuasively argues Perelman's point of viewbliog...this timely, thoughtful work is recommendedbliog..." -- Library Journal

"This useful and thought-provoking look at the economic effects of property rights in all their forms is recommendedbliog..."--Choice

About the Author

Michael Perelman is the author of Class Warfare in the Information Age and Transcending the Economy. He is Professor of Economics at California State University at Chico.