access to knowledge

in the age of intellectual property

edited by
Gaëlle Krikorian and Amy Kapczynski

Z O N E B O O K S • N E W Y O R K

2010
The publisher wishes to acknowledge the generous support
of the Open Society Institute.

© 2010 Amy Kapczynski, Gaëlle Krikorian, and Zone Books

zone books
1226 Prospect Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11218

This work is published subject to a Creative Commons by-nc-nd

license, with the exception that the term “Adaptations” in
Paragraph 1(a) of such license shall be deemed not to include
translations from the English original into other languages.
Such translations may therefore be created and disseminated
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Copyright in each chapter of this book belongs to its respective

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Frontispiece: Graeme Arendse, Chimurenga Library

(photo Stacy Hardy).

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Access to knowledge in the age of intellectual property /

edited by Gaëlle Krikorian and Amy Kapczynski.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
isbn 978-1-890951-96-2
1. Intellectual property. I. Krikorian, Gaëlle, 1972–
II. Kapczynski, Amy.

k1401.a929 2010
346.04’8—dc22
2009054048
The Golden Touch and the Miracle of the Loaves

Roberto Verzola

Dionysus . . . decided to reward Midas for his hospitality and granted him one wish.
Midas wished that everything he touched be turned to gold. Dionysus warned him
about the dangers of such a wish, but Midas was too distracted with the prospect of
being surrounded by gold to listen. Dionysus gave him the gift. Initially, King Midas
was thrilled with his new gift and turned everything he could to gold, including his
beloved roses. His attitude changed, however, when he was unable to eat or drink
since his food and wine were also changed to unappetizing gold. He even acciden-
tally killed his daughter when he touched her, and this truly made him realize the
depth of his mistake.
—Anna Baldwin, s.v. “Midas,” Encyclopedia Mythica

The best and the worst scenarios of access to knowledge can be seen today in two
opposite trends. In the genetic field, islands of proprietary genetic material are
growing amid a sea of free and open-access biodiversity, while in the information
field, islands of free and open-access initiatives are growing amid a sea of propri-
etary resources.

the privatization of genes

In agriculture and genomics, a race to patent and thereby privately own genes contin-
ues unabated. According to a 2005 study, one-fifth of the human genome has already
been patented. Patents are exclusionary devices and are therefore a form of private
monopoly, in effect turning genes into private property. Genes are a natural monop-
oly. As Robert Cook-Deegan, the director of Duke University’s Center for Genome
Ethics, Law and Policy says, “You can find dozens of ways to heat a room besides the
Franklin stove, but there’s only one gene to make human growth hormone.”1

633
 The privatization of genes is, of course, a prelude to commodification. Com-
modified goods—or bads, for that matter, such as carbon credits representing a
right to pollute—then become subject to market mechanisms and forces. If there is
carbon trading, can DNA trading be far behind? If we can have commodity futures,
why can’t we have derivatives such as carbon futures or DNA futures?
Commodification is an all-consuming trend in economics. Commodifica-
tion respects none and targets all: land, culture, knowledge, information, human
beings, water, air, nature, life, genes, relationships—truly anything and every-
thing. Driven by corporate profit seeking and gain maximization, commodification
knows no end, no limits.
Like King Midas, today’s corporations and other gain maximizers turn every-
thing they touch into commodities and, subsequently, into money. Wherever they
look, whatever they look at, they see a dollar sign. If we followed their lead or
allowed them to continue, our entire world and everything in it as well as outside
it would sooner or later be for sale or for rent. Then we would end up like the cynic
who “knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

the free and open-source trend

There is, fortunately, an opposite trend. Ideas about information freedom and shar-
ing have percolated for some time. They are called by different names, represent-
ing subtle differences in attitudes, perspectives, and approaches toward access to
information and knowledge. The earliest were ideas about the public domain and
the commons. But as everything turned digital, accelerating the commodification of
information, these early ideas were apparently insufficiently developed to deal with
the rapidly changing nature of information. For instance, when software was simply
released to the public domain, commercial interests were better positioned to take
full advantage and incorporate it into their products. Also, object code (in contrast
to source code) in the public domain remained largely inaccessible for modification.
Thus, while many software utilities and simple programs were distributed as pub-
lic domain or “freeware,” no major software projects were. New approaches were
also tried that relied on a license based on existing intellectual property concepts.
These included the “shareware” license, the GNU Public License, the BSD License,
and their variations. Out of the latter two emerged truly huge software projects
such as the Linux kernel, the GNU systems-and-utilities package, the BSD operating
system, software application suites such as OpenOffice, and similar software.
The idea of free and open sharing caught on and extended to other fields.
The Creative Commons license extended this idea to other literary and artistic
works. The Wikipedia represented another huge effort to accumulate and share

634 verzola
human knowledge in a completely nonproprietary way.
This new social movement might be called the “free and open-source informa-
tion movement.” It is now being embraced in other fields and promises to become
the guiding principle for access to knowledge. In the academic community, free
and open on-line journals are now emerging in the spirit of this movement, chal-
lenging the entrenched publishers of printed academic journals.
In the future, this movement may merge with other “free” and “open” move-
ments. In the educational field, a “free” schools movement—“free as in freedom”—
has been simmering for some time, following the pioneering works of educators
Maria Montessori in Italy, A. S. Neill of Summerhill fame in England, and John Holt
in the United States. Among the ideas that contributed to the intellectual ferment
and the eventual peaceful uprising of the East Europeans was the “open” society
concept given impetus by George Soros. The free exchange and sharing of seeds is a
freedom that farmers will defend with their lives. If a convergence happens, a truly
historic shift in mindset can occur, promising a freer and more open world.
We have to divide bread to share it, but sharing knowledge multiplies it.
Because knowledge is literally food for the mind, the movement to ensure free and
open access to information and knowledge will turn into reality the parable in this
Biblical story:

In those days when there again was a great crowd without anything to eat, he sum-
moned the disciples and said, “My heart is moved with pity for the crowd, because
they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them
away hungry to their homes, they will collapse on the way, and some of them have
come a great distance.” His disciples answered him, “Where can anyone get enough
bread to satisfy them here in this deserted place?” Still he asked them, “How many
loaves do you have?” “Seven,” they replied. He ordered the crowd to sit down on
the ground. Then, taking the seven loaves he gave thanks, broke them, and gave
them to his disciples to distribute, and they distributed them to the crowd. They also
had a few fish. He said the blessing over them and ordered them distributed also.
They ate and were satisfied. They picked up the fragments left over—seven baskets.
There were about four thousand people.2

If we join the commodification race, we will all acquire the golden touch. If we
adopt the free and open sharing perspective, the knowledge of some can miracu-
lously feed all. The golden touch or the miracle of the loaves? Whichever road we
take will determine whether we will enter a neofeudal period ruled by information
and genetic rentiers as they increasingly privatize human knowledge and genetic
material or a new flowering of human culture, thanks to free exchange of ideas,
information, and knowledge.

the golden touch and the miracle of the loaves 635

 notes
1 Stefan Lovgren, “One-Fifth of Human Genes Have Been Patented,” National Geographic
News, October 13, 2005, available on-line at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/
pf/22064243.html (last accessed January 14, 2010).
2 Mark 8:1–9; see also 6:34–44.

636 verzola