Owning Conversation takes aim at two questions: “Who owns conversation?” and “What does conversation own?” Using the concept of intellectual property as its cornerstone, this book draws from economics, political science, history, linguistics, artificial intelligence, and cognitive psychology to come to a wider perspective on how we know and value intangible relationships.
Language creates culture while culture creates language. In a democratic state, law should reflect the structure of culture before dictating it. In America, intellectual property law reflects only a small subset of the possessive forms in language. Likewise, this law is modeled after physical capital, which shares few commonalities with its social analog. Intellectual property in the digital millennium erodes a natural right of the human condition: conversation. In order for humanity to remain humane, property must retain propriety. This book analyzes the problems caused by the current structure of intellectual property in America, and outlines solutions through an interdisciplinary approach.
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