Frontiers conquered

Today, 7 August, Knowledge Politics finished off in style our groundbeaking series of publications on the future of intellectual property rights in the digital age.

View the whole series here, or download the latest pamphlet here.

Vera Franz of the Open Society Institute, Dr Duncan Matthews of Queen Mary College and Tove Gerhardsen of Intellectual Property Watch were our contributors for this pamphlet, which is the culmination of many months' work. We argue for greater attention to be paid to how the developing world is affected by the global IP regime.

The debate goes to the very heart of theoretical concerns about what knowledge is and what rights it's creators have. Our Western assumptions simply may not apply elsewhere in the world. There's also a political argument - whatever the philosophical issues involved, the goal of any global policy regime should have as an end-goal the advancement of the interests of the world's poor and marginalised. IP is no different - in fact in an information society it will become all the more important.

We've come full circle, then, with these reports. We think recent months have seen the development of a stronger consensus about IP and development, with even the likes of the US acquiescing, albeit reluctantly. Progress on policy is always painfully slow, but there are reasons for optimism.

Thank you to all of our contributors in this series, and also to those who've helped put the publications together, including Laura Smith and Dave McLaughlin on this final instalment.

RB