Bullies Reviewed

In Brand Name Bullies: The Quest to Own and Control Culture, David Bollier examines the effect of commercial copyright interests on culture.

J.D. Lasica reviews the book at DarkNet: ‘Brand Name Bullies’ review: "In Brand Name Bullies: The Quest to Own and Control Culture (Wiley & Sons), released this month, the author of Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth is back with a painfully comic look at how big corporations are bullying the little guy and locking down culture with the backing of one-sided copyright and trademark laws."

Amit Asaravala offers a more critical review in Wired News: Are Bullies After Our Culture?

As the title suggests, the book is an intense critique of the U.S. copyright and trademark system and the corporations that use it as a weapon against competitors and anyone else who might threaten them. Bollier argues that the court's willingness to let corporations get away with such bullying is increasingly eroding our "cultural commons" -- the collection of images, stories, sounds and other creative expressions that, due to their significance and prevalence, no longer belong to any single person or company...

At 253 pages -- not counting the 55 pages of additional notes and indexes in the back -- Bullies provides more than enough case studies like these to convince you that copyright and trademark laws don't always serve the public. However, the book has one big flaw: It doesn't quite manage to prove Bollier's assertion that these laws, or the abuse of them, are greatly threatening our culture.