Databody economy and the surveillance state Databody economy Surveillance state Promise Reality Promise Reality universal prosperity universal commercialisation total security total control frictionless market pacified society political harmony death of democracy The glamour of the data body economy clouds economic practices which are much less than glamorous. Through the seizure of the data body, practices that in the real political arena were common in the feudal age and in the early industrial age are being reconstructed. The data body economy digitally reconstructs exploitative practices such as slavery and wage labour. However, culturally the data body is still a very new phenomenon: mostly, people think if it does not hurt, it cannot be my body. Exploitation of data bodies is painless and fast. Nevertheless, this can be expected to change once the awareness of the political nature of the data body becomes more widespread. As more and more people routinely move in digitised environments, it is to be expected that more critical questions will be asked and claims to autonomy, at present restricted to some artistic and civil society groups trying to get heard amidst the deafening noise of the commercial ICT propaganda, will be articulated on a more general level. The more problematic aspect of this development may be something else: the practices of the data body economy, themselves a reconstruction of old techniques of seizure, have begun to re-colonise real political space. Simon Davis, Director of the London-based privacy campaigners Privacy International, one of the foremost critics of modern-day technologies of surveillance and data capturing, has warned against the dangers of a loss of autonomy and undermining of civic rights that are being generated when workplaces are clogged with digital equipment allowing the constant monitoring and surveillance of workers. Unless current trends towards data capturing remain unchecked, the workplace of the future will have many features of the sinister Victorian workhouses that appear Charles Dickens novels, where any claims for autonomy were silenced with references to economic efficiency, and the required discipline imposed by a hierarchy of punishments. The constant adaptation process required from the modern individual has anonymised and structuralized punishment, which now appears in the guise of error messages and the privatisation of risk.

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History: European Tradition Only in Roman times the first rights referring to artistic works appeared. Regulations resembling a lasting exclusive right to copy did not occur until the 17th century. Before copyright was a private arrangement between guilds able to reproduce copies in commercial quantities. In France and Western European countries "droits d'auteur" or author's rights is the core of what in the Anglo-American tradition is called copyright. Such rights are rooted in the republican revolution of the late 18th century, and the Rights of Man movement. Today in the European system the creator is front and center; later exploiters are only secondary players. France During the 18th century France gradually lost the ability to restrict intellectual property. Before the Revolution, all books, printers and booksellers had to have a royal stamp of approval, called a "privilege". In return for their lucrative monopoly, the French guild of printers and booksellers helped the police to suppress anything that upset royal sensibilities or ran contrary to their interests. Still there were also a whole lot of underground printers who flooded the country with pirated, pornographic and seditious literature. And thousands of writers, most at the edge of starvation. In 1777 the King threatened the monopoly by reducing the duration of publisher's privileges to the lifetime of the authors. Accordingly a writer's work would go into the public domain after his death and could be printed by anyone. The booksellers fought back by argumenting that, no authority could take their property from them and give it to someone else. Seven months later, in August 1789, the revolutionary government ended the privilege system and from that time on anyone could print anything. Early in 1790 Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet proposed giving authors power over their own work lasting until ten years after their deaths. The proposal - the basis for France's first modern copyright law - passed in 1793.

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Think Tanks and Corporate Money Looking at the financial situation of think tanks, different funding patterns can be found. While financial contributions from foundations play an important role especially for conservative think tanks, also contributions from governments are made to certain institutions. Yet one of the most important funding sources are corporate donors and individual contributors. Although the extent to which - in most cases conservative - think tanks rely on corporate funding varies, from the US$ 158 million spent by the top 20 conservative think tanks, more than half of it was contributed by corporations or businessmen.

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Instinet Instinet, a wholly owned subsidiary of Reuters Group plc since 1987, is the world's largest agency brokerage firm and the industry brokerage leader in after hours trading. It trades in over 40 global markets daily and is a member of seventeen exchanges in North America, Europe, and Asia. Its institutional clients represent more than 90 percent of the institutional equity funds under management in the United States. Instinet accounts for about 20 percent of the NASDAQ daily trading volume and trades approximately 170 million shares of all U.S. equities daily.

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DMCA The DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) was signed into law by U.S. President Clinton in 1998 and implements the two 1996 WIPO treaties (WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty and WIPO Copyright Treaty). Besides other issues the DMCA addresses the influence of new technologies on traditional copyright. Of special interest in the context of the digitalization of intellectual property are the titles no. 2, which refers to the limitation on the liability of online service providers for copyright infringement (when certain conditions are met), no. 3, that creates an exemption for making a copy of a computer program in case of maintenance and repair, and no. 4 which is concerned with the status of libraries and webcasting. The DCMA has been widely criticized for giving copyright-holders even more power and damage the rights and freedom of consumers, technological innovation, and the free market for information.

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Industrial design Industrial design refers to the ornamental aspect of a useful article which may constitute of two or three-dimensional elements. To be qualified for intellectual property protection the design must be novel or original. Protection can be obtained through registration in a government office and usually is given for 10 to 15 years.

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