Access to Knowledge in Africa: The role of copyright
Year: 2011
Type: article
Abstract: It has become a commonplace that we now live in a global information society, which more thoughtful analysis has suggested leads to a divide between the information haves and have-nots. One might identify two modes by which access to information is patterned: by the availability of technologies of distribution; and through the legal regimes that are intended to construct a scarcity of use to enable ‘owners’ to command a price for informational ‘goods’. Largely leaving aside the technological issue (which is not to say it is unimportant) the volume reviewed here explicitly focuses on the legal structures of the information age. Reflecting the work of the African Copyright and Access to Knowledge (ACA2K) Project, the book is intended not merely to report on the problem of access to knowledge in the eight chosen cases (Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa, and Uganda), but also to develop a method for thinking about the role of copyright (and intellectual property more generally) in everyday life in sub-Saharan Africa.
Source: African Affairs
DOI: 10.1093/afraf/adr055
Author: C. May
Institution: Lancaster University
Language: English
Topic: Intellectual Property Law
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2324457281