ABSTRACT
Intellectual property is the most pervasive form of cultural policy. It affects almost every good, service, and product distributed globally, nationally, and locally. Many regimes of intellectual property rights are the result of colonial legacies. Others have been imposed or generated under the duress or influence of global trade negotiations. In the 19th century the United States was a pirate nation. American readers took advantage of the fact that the United States did not respect copyrights issued by other countries to purchase cheap versions of novels by Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens. Many of the legendary American publishing houses such as Harper Brothers and Henry Holt started as pirate firms. Copyright encourages the dissemination of creative and informative work. Patent law encourages invention by granting a temporary monopoly to an inventor of a tangible, useful, and "non-obvious" device or process.
