'[DMCA_Discuss] Silent Theft: Commercial Exploitation of the Commons'

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List:       dmca-discuss
Subject:    [DMCA_Discuss] Silent Theft: Commercial Exploitation of the Commons
From:       Seth Johnson <seth.johnson () realmeasures ! dyndns ! org>
Date:       2002-04-29 18:38:51
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(Forwarded from Commercialism Alert list,
commercial-alert@lists.essential.org)

-------- Original Message --------
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 11:28:12 -0700
From: Gary Ruskin <gary@commercialalert.org>

Commercial Alert
April 29, 2002

David Bollier has just written an excellent book on the
enclosure and commercial exploitation of the commons, titled
Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of our Common Wealth
<http://www.silenttheft.com>.

The book describes the broad scope of the commons -- such as
the environment, natural resources, our culture, genetic
material, public spaces, government research -- and the
corporate looting of it.

"We are living in the midst of a massive business-led
enclosure movement that hides itself in plain sight,"
Bollier writes.  Silent Theft's great contribution is to
collect and distill material from dozens of fields of
inquiry to make this enclosure movement visible and easily
understood.

The book is especially strong on corporate plunder of
intellectual property, the Internet commons, and the
privatization of public knowledge and federal drug and
information resources.  But it also has useful chapters on
the commercialization of culture and public spaces
(including schools), and the academic commons, among many
other topics.

Silent Theft is important history.  It will help
environmental, anti-commercialism and consumer activists to
understand how their work fits into the broader pattern of
the assault on the commons. It is rich with analogies we can
use in efforts to protect different kinds of commons.

But Silent Theft is no mere anti-corporate rant.  It argues
persuasively how the shrinkage of the commons hurts
business, especially through the concentration of market
power and the stifling of innovation in computer software,
on the Internet, and in science, generally.

If we are to stop the commercialization of nearly
everything, we first need to know what the commons is, what
we have lost, and how we lost it.  Silent Theft is a great
place to start.

<---->

Following is an old English folk poem, circa 1764, reprinted
from Silent Theft:  

They hang the man and flog the woman
That steal the goose from off the common,
But let the greater villain loose
That steals the common from the goose.

The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine.

The poor and wretched don't escape
If they conspire the law to break;
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law.

The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common'
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back.

<----->

Commercial Alert's mission is to keep the commercial culture
within its proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting
children and subverting the higher values of family,
community, environmental integrity and democracy. 
Commercial Alert's website is at
<http://www.commercialalert.org>.

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This note is posted at:
<http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/commercial-alert/2002/000112.html>.

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PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY
-- 
Gary Ruskin | gary@commercialalert.org 
Commercial Alert | http://www.commercialalert.org/
Congressional Accountability Project |
http://www.congressproject.org/
phone: 503.235.8012 | fax: 503.235.5073

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