Since the 1990s the patenting a n d commodification of biological resources and traditional knowledge has become a contested phenomenon. This practice comes in many guises: it can be conducted by universities working in collaboration with local communities, by small commercial research companies or by multinational pharmaceutical corporations. Some call it biopiracy while others prefer the term bioprospecting or biodiscovery. The choice of words is significant as it reflects not only different ways to conduct and distribute the revenues from patenting of biological resources, but also different ways to look at the legitimacy of biopatents as such. This chapter takes the Nagoya Protocol – a UN protocol aiming to prevent biopiracy – as an example to discuss how the negotiations over bio patents also reflect different approaches to commodification of nature and the limits of propertization.

This book takes the concept of piracy as a starting point to discuss the instabilityof property as a social construction and how this is spatially situated. Piracyis understood as acts and practices that emerge in zones where the constructionand definition of property is ambiguous. Media piracy is a frequently usedexample where file-sharersand copyright holders argue whether culture andinformation is a common resource to be freely shared or property to be protected.This book highlights that this is not a dilemma unique to immaterialresources: concepts such as property, ownership and the rights of use are just asdiffuse when it comes to spatial resources such as land, water, air or urban space.By structuring the book around this heterogeneous understanding of piracy asan analytical perspective, the editors and contributors advance a transdisciplinaryand multi-theoreticalapproach to place and property. In doing so, thebook moves from theoretical discussions on commons and property to empiricalcases concerning access to and appropriation of land, natural and culturalresources. The chapters cover areas such as maritime piracy, the philosophicaland legal foundations of property rights, mining and land rights, biopiracy andtraditional knowledge, indigenous rights, colonization of space, military expansionismand the enclosure of urban space.This book is essential reading for a variety of disciplines including indigenousstudies, cultural studies, geography, political economy, law, environmentalstudies and all readers concerned with piracy and the ambiguity of property.

This article takes the politicisation of copyright and file sharing as a starting point to discuss the concept of the commons and the construction of property. Empirically, the article draws on a series of interviews with Pirate Party members in Sweden, Australia, Germany, the UK and USA; placed in the theoretical framework of the commons. We argue that piracy, as an act and an ideology, interrogates common understandings of property as something self-evident, natural and uncontestable. Such constructions found liberal market ideology. The article has two broad aims: to outline the different phases of enclosure, from the physical commons, to the institutional and finally the cultural commons; and to discuss the way that piracy highlights the emergent crisis in private property rights, brought to the fore by the global financial crisis and ongoing privatization of public resources. We conclude by questioning what new modes of enclosure are emerging in a digital economy driven by excessive data mining and centralized streaming services.

Since the 1990s, the understanding of how and where politics are made has changed radically. Scholars such as Ulrich Beck and Maria Bakardjieva have discussed how political agency is enacted outside of conventional party organizations, and political struggles increasingly focus on single issues. Over the past two decades, this transformation of politics has become common knowledge, not only in academic research but also in the general political discourse. Recently, the proliferation of digital activism and the political use of social media are often understood to enforce these tendencies. This article analyzes the Pirate Party in relation to these theories, relying on almost 30 interviews with active Pirate Party members from different parts of the world. The Pirate Party was initially formed in 2006, focusing on copyright, piracy, and digital privacy. Over the years, it has developed into a more general democracy movement, with an interest in a wider range of issues. This article analyzes how the party’s initial focus on information politics and social media connects to a wider range of political issues and to other social movements, such as Arab Spring protests and Occupy Wall Street. Finally, it discusses how this challenges the understanding of information politics as a single issue agenda.

In the wake of the Arab Spring, Time Magazine named ‘The Protester’, 2011s Person of the Year. Revolts, social unrest and demands for systemic change continue to spread from the anti-austerity street marches in Europe and the progressive ‘No Borders’ global movement, to protests against neoconservative and xenophobic populist movements. Histories are currently being (re)written and he immanence and promise of large scale political revolutions is as present today as ever on our planet.

As the goals and aspirations of protesters across the world become more heterogeneous and less programmatic, it becomes increasingly hard to say what ‘the protester’ wants and where ‘the revolution’ will take us. This book embraces the ambiguity and heterogeneity of contemporary protest movements, pointing to how the potentials of revolutionary acts reside behind seemingly irrelevant, disorganized outbursts of apparently aimless acts. Giving meaning to the sign carried by a protester of the Occupy Wall Street demonstration: ‘We’re here; we’re unclear; get used to it’.

A political battle is being waged over the use and control of culture and information. While media companies and copyright organisations argue for stricter intellectual property laws, a growing body of citizens challenge the contemporary IP-regime. This has seen a political mobilisation of piracy. Pirate parties see themselves as a digital civil rights movement, defending the public domain and the citizen’s right to privacy against copyright expansionism and increased surveillance. Since the first pirate party was formed in Sweden in 2006, similar parties have emerged across the world. This article draws on a study of the culture and ideology of copyright resistance, through interviews with pirate party representatives in Europe and North America. It focuses on challenges to democracy, and the distinction between public and private property and spaces, in the wake of the war on terror and the global financial crisis.