This book by Professor Peter Drahos and John Braithwaite of the Australian National University is a spin-off from their previous major academic work "Global Business Regulation" (722 pages) published by Cambridge University Press.

In "Information Feudalism" they focus on the role of patents, copyright and trademarks in creating cartels and monopolies throughout the 20th century in numerous areas of industry -- chemical, pharmaceutical, electronics, biotechnology, software and entertainment. The book draws on hundreds of interviews conducted with major players in business and government, both in industrialized and developing countries.

A large part of the book examines the TRIPS Agreement and explains how representatives from a small number of multinational corporations were able to force their agenda onto developing nations through political lobbying in Washington for trade sanctions against their opponents.

For those interested in free software the book also covers the process by which copyright was imposed on software by IBM and others during the 1980's (Chapter 11, Infogopolies). Although it is not widely remembered today, prior to this period all software was free software --- there was no copyright on software. This is a fairly short part of the book but contains the relevant details.

The final chapters on "Resisting the New Inequality" and "On the Importance of the Publicness of Knowledge" should be of interest to everyone who is concerned about the on-going attempts to appropriate public knowledge for monopolistic purposes.

In these chapters the authors set out their thesis that political power combined with the false idea of a "right" to ownership of knowledge as property, without regard to public welfare, leads to a form of feudalism in an information society.

Conclusion: Recommended

See also a review by Matthew Rimmer of the Faculty of Law, at the Australian National University.

This book was recommended to me by Ciaran O'Riordan via his webpage.