Dis-owning knowledge: Anarchist intervention in intellectual property rights.

摘要

Several streams of contemporary activism oppose hegemonic concepts of privatized property and question ownership of intellectual production. In this paper I focus on anarchist contributions to this discussion. I examine an American anarchist perspective, as it is expressed in both the content and writing practices of a contemporary anarchist publication, the Crimethinc Ex-Workers Collective's Days of War, Nights of Love. Through analysis of the book, I infer anarchist engagement with knowledge as a commons, and trace the philosophy that anyone can produce art, writing, and other tasks often relegated to an expert. My questions are: What are contemporary anarchist conceptions of private property? How is the anarchist objection, or challenge, to private property articulated in the debate over intellectual property? How does Crimethinc understand Days of War, Nights of Love as a form of direct action?