Governance Mechanisms for Intellectual Property and Privacy

Copyright and information privacy rights are both rights governing information. As such they have a lot in common - as has been noticed by the academic community. What is intriguing , however, is how the rights themselves have risen only relatively recently, as an alternative to prior modes of governance and control - and how they are under pressure to yet change again.

In this research we look at the limitations of rights as the current mode of governance - and examine whether this mode is being replaced by an alternative one, and what are the shape and qualities of this alternative.

This research is part of a project run by Andreas Busch at the University of Göttingen and Jeanette Hoffman at the London School of Economics, both formerly at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB).

A publication (in German) is envisaged for 2010, and we'll be making available a draft working paper here.