From the Bookshelves: Madhavi Sunder, From Goods to a Good Life: Intellectual Property and Gobal Justice

Madhavi Sunder, From Goods to a Good Life: Intellectual Property and Gobal Justice (Yale University Press 2012). 

ABSTRACT:Most scholarship on intellectual property considers this law from the standpoint of law and economics. Under this conventional wisdom, intellectual property is simply a tool for promoting innovative products, from iPods to R2D2. In this highly original book Madhavi Sunder calls for a richer understanding of intellectual property law’s effects on social and cultural life. Intellectual property does more than incentivize the production of more goods. This law fundamentally affects the ability of citizens to live a good life. Intellectual property law governs the abilities of human beings to make and share culture, and to profit from this enterprise in a global Knowledge economy. This book turns to social and cultural theory to more fully explore the deep connections between cultural production and human freedom. I have endorsements on the back of the book from luminaries such as Martha Nussbaum (University of Chicago Law), James Boyle (Duke Law), Jack Balkin (Yale Law) and Joseph Singer (Harvard Law).

KJ