There can be no singular pathway for resistance—our praxis contains multitudes—backing alternatives is a question of interpreting multiple pathways to redefine what ownership means— only that can counter foundational logics behind colonialist IP regimes and the neoliberal economic model as a whole.

Seeking out alternatives is a crucial avenue of investigation at the current moment. I cannot help but think something has been lost when the world embraces the idea of private property as the dominant paradigm to control all aspects of our creative lives: when everything becomes a commodity and everyone becomes a consumer. But this commodification is not happening without resistance.10 The work of asserting alternatives to intellectual property is an interpretative battle. Intellectual property remains in the process of definition – there is a struggle to define the scope and meaning of the law, and it is this struggle that is the central focus of this book. Part of the interpretative battle for alternatives takes place within the framework of copyright and patent law. It is necessary to interpret the law in such a way that exchange of ideas remains central and possible. However, alternatives can (and should) be sought outside the law. These alternatives include: developing and protecting non-Western property systems; articulating rights that transcend property rights; perhaps even embracing the idea of no ownership at all.

Having taken the journey towards understanding intellectual property as a system, I still try to resist the over-expansion of intellectual property rights whenever possible. I try to keep my own sense of ownership over intellectual work to a minimum and focus on the intellectual rivers that make my own work possible. I am not alone in trying to resist the expansion of property rights. The chapters in this book document a growing level of resistance, both theoretical and practical, to the over-expansion of intellectual property rights. Small and large resistances to our current intellectual property path are emerging every day. Resistance ranges from academic scholars who advocate minor repairs to the copyright code to transnational activists engaged in a reconstructive narrative of human rights that could lead to paradigmatic shifts in the way we create and protect work. These alternatives, through their very existence, debunk the intellectual property ideology that so loudly asserts we need strong intellectual property laws to ensure people create. Many people create all sorts of things without understanding intellectual property law. What the language of intellectual property masks is the global political economy of highly concentrated copyright and patent ownership where corporations, not people, are the beneficiaries of the system. Slowly, resistance to the expanding idea of property is developing as people begin to reimagine cultural work outside the language of property and rights. This reimagining is crucial, I would argue, to the development of a human culture beyond corporate culture and to the protection of people who may not have access to the benefits of a neo-liberal economic model.

A speculative historian might look at the past and wonder what the world would look like if we had chosen a different path of development. Nothing is inevitable in the choices we make, though at times it seems as if there is only one possible path to choose. History shows that at any given point there were numerous possible paths of development, but the choice of a specific path closed off or restricted the alternatives. The ability to choose and close off alternative choices is a function of power. Those with the power to do so control the way in which choices are defined and offered. Defining future choices is in part a narrative process where the language of intellectual property is used to render possible alternatives as “idealistic,” unworkable, or impossible. By closing off alternative paths, even given the evidence that these paths are viable, the interests of those who have defined the discourse are served. However, it is important to assess who wins and who loses with every ideological system, as well as to objectively determine which systems are better than others.

Just as one can look to the past and suggest that a different decision could have changed the world, I think we must now look towards the future and understand the choices available to us as we enter the digital age. The power to define the ideological conditions under which we will enter this historical moment has been given (or taken) by the major corporate players. They have already decided the type of future property model that should be used. Corporate entities, with their monopolistic control over content and increasingly over the vehicles through which that content is provided, are the ones creating a vision of the future. In their world, all possible futures where sharing and exchange of information exists outside the framework of profit are “utopian.” However, and this is essential, there are people around the world who have developed their own ways of dealing with what we call intellectual property. These parallel systems, alternative paradigms, and small resistances prove that we do have a choice in how the future develops. We have a choice in what type of framework we want to establish for the next century and these choices are far more diverse than the corporate vision of the future would have us believe.

In order to understand that the future is not an inevitable path towards more centralized ownership of innovations and ideas, this book wishes to excavate the alternatives to intellectual property available to us. Central to defining the alternatives is to understand how individuals, groups, and communities develop a narrative of resistance to current intellectual property discourses. The narrative project before us will focus on reimagining the extent to which copyright and patent law will govern creative and innovative work and under what conditions copyright and patent laws ought to be utilized. It is very important to preserve alternatives to intellectual property that still might exist around the globe, and also to actively participate in envisioning new ways to think and act towards what we now call intellectual property. The language of property is a powerful one, especially when it is combined with the language of rights. However, it is necessary to step outside the boundaries of this language in order to assess the best possible future for the way we create and exchange knowledge. The following chapters analyze different ways in which people resist and envision alternatives to intellectual property.

Speaking of alternatives makes it easier to discuss the issues, but not all alternatives assume that copyright and patent law should cease to exist. The types of resistances range from theoretical to concrete; in some areas alternatives have been articulated, while in others they are still nascent. Often, the type of resistance that exists is merely a new and more complex rendering of the status quo. While it may be important to develop a way of thinking that bypasses the idea of property altogether (and some chapters will certainly take up this issue), simply pointing to the spaces within the already existing law where a balance can be struck can also be a radical step. 

By describing the types of systems that have already begun to develop and contrasting them to the current trajectory of copyright and patent law taken by the American Congress, the WTO, and the major corporate players in the world, we can begin to develop the possibilities of alternatives. Each chapter marks out the struggle between those forces seeking to increase intellectual property protection and those seeking to resist this expansion. My underlying argument is that this process is ultimately a narrative one where the struggle is to define meaning and control the discourse. Within this context, each chapter seeks to, at a minimum, clarify where the language of resistance is located and to (hopefully) better articulate the complexities of this language. Each chapter evaluates a different aspect of the resistance and illustrates that there are numerous choices from which the future can evolve.