Sebastian Haunss, Conflicts in the Knowledge Society The Contentious Politics of Intellectual Property

• Author: Axel Metzger
• Pages: 152-153

2012

Book review

152

1

Sebastian Haunss, Conflicts in the

Knowledge Society The Contentious

Politics of Intellectual Property

Cambridge University Press 2013, ISBN 978-1-107-03642-0

by Axel Metzger, Dr. iur. (Munich and Paris), LL.M. (Harvard), Professor of Law at the Leibniz University of

Hannover, Institute for Legal Informatics, Germany.

© 2014 Axel Metzger

Everybody may disseminate this ar ticle by electroni c means and make it available for downlo ad under the terms and

conditions of the Digita l Peer Publishing Licence (DPPL). A copy of the license text may be obtaine d at http://nbn-resolving.

de/urn:nbn:de:0009-dppl-v3-en8 .

Recommended citation: A xel Metzger, Book Review: Sebastian Haunss, Conf licts in the Knowledge Society T he Contentious

Politics of Intellec tual Property, 5 (2014) JIPITEC 152, para1

Book Review

1

For a long time, intellectual property law could have

been characterized as a secret science practiced by

a handful of highly specialized lawyers. However,

those days of mostly undisturbed discussions within

the epistemic community, as social scientists would

call it today, are past, at least since the 1960s when

economists started to analyze the incentives and

social costs associated with intellectual property

rights. Their research results were neglected by

the (European) intellectual property research

mainstream for a long time, but in the last twenty

years they have been widely recognized and

discussed. Today intellectual property lawyers,

at least those active in academia, are trained

to understand and use arguments and models

developed by economists. But what is still missing

    

is a mindful reception of social science research

   

that is rooted in social science but still bite-sized for

legal scholars is Sebastian Haunss’ monograph on



2

Haunss starts from the basic assumption that IP

has become more political in the last decades. This

politicization is based on four broad processes: the

growing economic importance of knowledge-based

industries, the growing internationalization of IP

issues, the growing attention towards IP issues by

non-specialists and the trend towards personalize

IP. He sees this politicization of IP as part of a

more fundamental process of social change that

is associated with the knowledge society. The

ongoing change in the social structure of the former

industrial societies alters the overall structures of



meta issues: inclusion/exclusion and the mode of

production of knowledge. After this general part

(chapters 1-3, p. 1-93), which provides the reader

with a very valuable discussion of current theories

of the knowledge society, the author presents four

  

society, namely software patents in Europe (chapter

4), access to medicines (chapter 5), and two shorter

studies on pirate parties and creative commons

(chapter 6). These case studies are again of high

value – especially for readers from law departments.

Haunss’ reports are based on in-depth research on

the actors involved, the creation of their networks

and the frames shared by the actors. This analysis

not only helps the reader to better understand how

the initially dispersed actors have been successful

in aggregating new forms of collective actions. It is

also useful for legal scholars to get a glimpse into the

current methodology used by political scientists. Of

special interest are the illustrations of the different

networks of actors (e.g. on p. 124-126, 168, 172).