The last twenty five years have been charcterised by a continual expansion of the duration of copyright law, and the scope of intellectual property law in general. Broader economic trends in the same period underline that this is no simple matter of the tinkering with a regulatory system to exctract rent from a discrete aspect of production, but rather indicates the transformation of the mode of production as a whole, bringing some to propose that the intellectual property relation of this era is analogous to the wage labour relation that defined exploitation under industrial capitalism. The aim of these notes is more modest however, a mere outline of the changes that have occurred from a juridical perspective and an analysis of the political mechanisms by which this transformation was accomplished, and by whom.

Patent, copyright and trademark laws have historically been of national character, and their scope was a question of national sovereignty, hardly surprising given their centrality in education, industrial development and health. Countries fashioned their regimes to match their stage of development, the political priorities of their population etc.The attachment of the Trade related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights annex to the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs marked the definitive end of national control over IP rights. This agreement inaugurated an era where intellectual property rules were to be treated as simply another matter of trade. The bullying required to achieve this took place in the 1980s and was carried out principally by the United States Trade Representative at the behest of media conglomerates, pharmaceuticals and semi-conductor chip manufacturers.

The next level of Intellectual property expansionism was a fundamental reorientation of the law of copyright towards targetting end-users with criminal prosecution and stiff sanctions. Meanwhile, aspirant patent-holders drove the extension of patentable subject matter to include business methods and software.

Multilateral Treaties had been signed governing patents (Paris) and Copyright (Berne) but as is typical with international law there was no enforcement mechanism. In 1983, the United States hit upon a strategy that was to be pursued throughout the following decade: bilateral treaties would link trade and ‘respect’ for US intellectual property rights. The template for this was hammered out in the Carribean Basin Economic Recovery Act 1983.

Shift from crime to being defined as perpetrated against things rather than as a breach of the feudal order. W&H

“What was often at issue was not property, supported by law, against no property; it was alternative definitions of property rights.”

“The customs which are customs of the entire poor class are based with a sure instinct on the indeterminate aspect of property.” Marx, 1842 Debates on the law of the theft of wood.

The embodiment of knowledge in workers contradicts the standard theoretical meaning of a firm. In the neo-classical model, workers are not part of the firm. They are inputs purchased on the market, like raw materials or capital goods. Yet they carry the firm's information base, even though not permanently attached to the firm. Defining the firm as a locus of productive knowledge leads to a dilemma; what knowledge is particular to a firm. Arrow

The former communications minister, Ms de Valera, last year turned down a request from RTÉ for a fee increase of ?63 a year. She gave the go-ahead for a ?14.50 increase, which came into effect in September 2001. The income to RTÉ from licence fees this year is expected to be ?112 million. A fee increase of ?45 would yield an estimated extra ?51 million.