Intellectual property has become such a hot topic that it needs to be doused with some history. Strange as it may sound, this is an argument developed convincingly in Lewis Hyde’s “Common as Air,” an eloquent and erudite plea for protecting our cultural patrimony from appropriation by commercial interests.
The history that Hyde invokes goes back to the Middle Ages, when vil­lagers enjoyed collective rights to common lands, but for the most part it is situated in the era of the founding fathers. Hyde invokes the founders in order to warn us against a new enclosure movement, one that would fence off large sectors of the public domain — in science, the arts, literature, and the entire world of knowledge — in order to exploit monopolies.
He cites plenty of examples from Hollywood, the pharmaceutical industry, agribusiness, and the swarm of lobbyists who transform public knowledge into private preserves by manipulating laws for the protection of intellectual property. Then he draws on Franklin, Adams, Jefferson and Madison for arguments against such privatization.

Brand is a lagging indicator of a company’s culture.

Are there any law firms with a Zappos-like culture?

The pairs of images in this “Similarities” set are similar visually in one way or another. They are presented without judgement as to the motives of their creators. The viewers of the pieces can form their own opinion(s) about what they see.

Wednesday, July 14 “Crime Inc: Counterfeit Goods” premieres at 9p ET/PT on CNBC.
CNBC Originals goes inside the most profitable criminal enterprise in the world. An undeclared war is being waged in the United States and it’s robbing U.S. businesses, costing American jobs, and bankrolling terrorism. You’ll be shocked by what you see.