The Commodification of Information

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Information and the marketplace are uneasy bedfellows. The dissemination of information via media can have many different and overlapping purposes, including entertainment, art, ideology, and research. It is particularly among groups that need to share information - the academic and scientific communities, for example - that viewing it as something that can be bought and sold is intrusive and even damaging. There are many other reasons why the commodification of information, which continues to move from strength to strength with the expansion of international free trade, must be carefully scrutinized. To this end, a conference of specialists with expertise encompassing the area of law and practice where intellectual property, communications, privacy, free speech, collaborative research, and international trade all intersect met under the auspices of the University of Haifa Faculty of Law in May 1999. This book presents the analyses and recommendations that emerged from that conference. As one might expect, a broad spectrum of views is expressed, from commercialism as the liberator of free speech to commodification as de facto censorship.