Expropriation by Law

Intellectual Property, Value and Labor

Christian Bessy, CNRS Director of Research, IDHES ENS Paris-Saclay, France

Placing himself at the crossroads of economics, law, and sociology, Christian Bessy investigates the contemporary transformation of intellectual property rights (IPR). He demonstrates how entities previously considered inappropriate have now become the object of property rights by means of a creeping legal codification and generate inequalities.

‘Christian Bessy has written a timely and highly original book on the evolution of intellectual property rights. Based on insights from economics, technology, and law and combining theory with empirical studies, he demonstrates that IPR-conventions that expropriate workers increasingly are shaped by new professions operating in the cross-field between law and finance.’
– Bengt-Åke Lundval, Aalborg University, Denmark