Intellectual Property Rights and Communication

by John Collins

The problems inadvertently created by modern notions of musical copyright (i.e. based on the individual ownership of specific works) introduced to a developing nation via transnational organisations such as the multinational record companies and global copyright societies are discussed in the following article. It concentrates on what happened in Ghana when, due to the combined effects of recommendations by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and royalty payments to Ghana by the American musician Paul Simon, there was an attempt by some Ghanaian governmental organisations to apply a folkloric royalty-tax to Ghanaian nationals for the commercial use of their own indigenous folklore

Ronald V. Bettig

The political economy of communications approach to the study of intellectual property provides an ideal vehicle for deepening our understanding of how the logic of capital shapes the production, distribution and consumption of artistic and intellectual creativity. Under capitalism, intellectual property is an instrument of wealth primarily controlled by the capitalist class. Information and culture circulate within the economic system as commodities essentially produced for their exchange value. This commodity status is conferred by the state through patent, trademark, and copyright laws.