The social critique of intellectual property

Abstract

In the context of the so-called new enclosures movement —the growing process of privatization of nature and culture, institutionalized under the new global intellectual property regime—, I propose two recent contributions on the issue —the debate between Richard Epstein and Adam Mossof, on one hand, and the defense arguments of Kenneth Himma and Adam Moore, on the other— as a starting point to counterpose a social critique of intellectual property. From here, I seek to deepen in conceptual’s foundations and implications of the social production, with the ultimate objective of distinguishing those elements that would allow to problematize the sense of ownership and open the possibility to new alternative forms of property.