I have not seen a better single article summarizing Copy Left and the Creative Commons, Lawrence Lessig and tribe, the deep doo-doo in which the whole concept of public domain finds itself today, Thomas Jefferson’s original thinking on copyright in the Constitution, contemporary “permission culture,” etc. than Robert S. Boynton’s The Tyranny of Copyright for the NY Times. Print it out. Pass it on.
Music: King Crimson :: Vrooom
Save a local copy now, before it goes behind their pay-wall.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/25/magazine/25COPYRIGHT.html?ex=1075611600&en=232b36f2e076ff7d&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE&pagewanted=print&position=
The concept of intellectual property has been extended into the domain of nature through claims of biotechnology.
Vandana Shiva is an Indian scientist and indigenous rights activist who tirelessly exposes the destructive ramifications of this policy.
Please read “The Enclosure of the Commons: Biodiversity, Indigenous Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights”
(and other eloquent defenses of nature and traditional culture) on her website:
http://www.vshiva.net/aticles/enclosure_commons.htm
Addendum: the following article, “Intellectual Property Rights”, is more in depth.
http://www.vshiva.net/archives/biopiracy/ipr.htm
Also if you search the archives, there are an abundance of articles which look at this problem from varying angles.
New link to the original article.