Who owns your genetic information? Might it be the doctors who, in the course of removing your spleen, decode a few cells and turn them into a patented product? In 1990 the Supreme Court of California said yes, marking another milestone on the information superhighway. This extraordinary case is one of the many that James Boyle takes up in Shamans, Software, and Spleens, a timely look at the infinitely tricky problems posed by the information society. Discussing topics ranging from blackmail and insider trading to artificial intelligence (with good-humored stops in microeconomics, intellectual property, and cultural studies along the way), Boyle has produced a work that can fairly be called the first social theory of the information age.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-259) and index.
Formatted Contents Note
Preface 1. The Information Society 2. Four Puzzles 3. The Public and Private Realms 4. Information Economics 5. Intellectual Property and the Liberal State 6. Copyright and the Invention of Authorship 7. Blackmail 8. Insider Trading and the Romantic Entrepreneur 9. Spleens 10. Stereotyping Information and Searching for an Author 11. The International Political Economy of Authorship 12. Private Censors, Transgenic Slavery, and Electronic Indenture 13. Proposals and Objections Conclusion Appendix A. An Afterword on Method Appendix B. The Bellagio Declaration Notes Acknowledgements Index