Protect or Plunder?
Understanding Intellectual Property Rights
Seiten
2001
Zed Books Ltd (Verlag)
978-1-84277-109-9 (ISBN)
Zed Books Ltd (Verlag)
978-1-84277-109-9 (ISBN)
Intellectual property rights, TRIPS, patents - all the ideas, technologies (including genes), and manipulation of life forms that are current can be owned and exploited for profit by giant corporations. This book explores and analyzes how intellectual copyright can be seen as corporate plunder.
Intellectual property rights, TRIPS, patents - they sound technical, even boring. Yet, as Vandana Shiva shows, what kinds of ideas, technologies, identification of genes, even manipulations of life forms can be owned and exploited for profit by giant corporations is a vital issue for our times.
In this readable and compelling introduction to an issue that lies at the heart of the so-called knowledge economy, Vandana Shiva makes clear how this Western-inspired and unprecedented widening of the concept does not in fact stimulate human creativity and the generation of knowledge. Instead, it is being exploited by transnational corporations in order to increase their profits at the expense of the health of ordinary people, and the poor in particular, and the age-old knowledge and independence of the world's farmers. Intellectual protection is being transformed into corporate plunder. Little wonder popular resistance around the world is rising to the WTO that polices this new intellectual world order, the pharmaceutical, biotech and other corporations which dominate it, and the new technologies they are foisting upon us.
Intellectual property rights, TRIPS, patents - they sound technical, even boring. Yet, as Vandana Shiva shows, what kinds of ideas, technologies, identification of genes, even manipulations of life forms can be owned and exploited for profit by giant corporations is a vital issue for our times.
In this readable and compelling introduction to an issue that lies at the heart of the so-called knowledge economy, Vandana Shiva makes clear how this Western-inspired and unprecedented widening of the concept does not in fact stimulate human creativity and the generation of knowledge. Instead, it is being exploited by transnational corporations in order to increase their profits at the expense of the health of ordinary people, and the poor in particular, and the age-old knowledge and independence of the world's farmers. Intellectual protection is being transformed into corporate plunder. Little wonder popular resistance around the world is rising to the WTO that polices this new intellectual world order, the pharmaceutical, biotech and other corporations which dominate it, and the new technologies they are foisting upon us.
Vandana Shiva is a world-renowned environmental thinker and campaigner. A former physicist, feminist and philosopher, she is prominent in citizens' actions against environmental destruction, and critical of the latest agricultural and genetic engineering technologies and the giant corporations which control them. A leader in the International Forum on Globalization along with Ralph Nader and Jeremy Rifkin, Vandana Shiva won the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize (the Right Livelihood Award) in 1993.
1. Introduction: Patents - An Ethical Crisis
2. The Role of Patents in History
3. The Myth of Patents
4. Threats to Biodiversity
5. Biopiracy
6. Can Seed Be Owned?
7. Profiteering from Disease
8. Democracy or Dictatorship?
9. The Way Forward
References
Index
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 30.11.2001 |
|---|---|
| Reihe/Serie | Global Issues |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Themenwelt | Naturwissenschaften |
| Recht / Steuern ► EU / Internationales Recht | |
| Recht / Steuern ► Wirtschaftsrecht ► Urheberrecht | |
| Sozialwissenschaften | |
| ISBN-10 | 1-84277-109-4 / 1842771094 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-84277-109-9 / 9781842771099 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
Mehr entdecken
aus dem Bereich
aus dem Bereich
